Urban Kayaking | Inflatable Kayaks & Packrafts

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Right now [April 2021] it’s a great time to kayak the Thames through London. It’s only April but due to you-know-what the Westminster tourist barge scene is dormant, making that brief but lively stage a bit less fretful. Down at water level we paddlers may be hyper vigilant, but can the bloke doing a U-turn in his heaving tourist catamaran while doing a commentary see us fending off the standing waves and refracted wakes?
As a barge-tourist in a Union Jack bowler hat asked me last time;
‘Is this allowed?
Yes it is chum, but a kayak on this part of the Thames is still an incongruous sight. The congestion and the standing waves pushed up by some bridges at certain times can feel a bit like skateboarding in a gale on Runway 3 at Heathrow.

Downloading the PLA’s mammoth 130-page Tideway Code is enough to put anyone off, but I do believe this edition (dated October 2020) is less anti IK than a previous version I read. At the time I recall seeking clarification from the PLA’s media person and got an arsey corporate riposte. Has the Lockdown IK consumer surge turned the tide on the PLA’s prejudice? It’s the old problem of misconflating a clueless beginner in £49.95 Aldi bin bag with an alert and well-equipped paddler in a decent high-pressure hybrid.
I say: pick your tide, keep right and be observant. For me the biggest peril was dodging the horizontal scythes of the Putney rowers who seem to go up and down across the whole width of the river as they please. They do need a lot of space.

**Mortlake to Mayflower (Rotherhithe**)
This 21-km (13-mile) stretch lined up well with 10-minute walks from stations at either end.
By Rotherhithe the excitement, such as it is, is over. And skipping the five miles from Richmond gives an easy **three hours on the river**; a nice early morning or afternoon paddle with good light for great photos or views of the Thames’ bankside icons.

It’s dawn and a Sunday, so it takes two buses and a train to get to Mortlake

Spacious put-in at Bulls Alley off Mortlake High Street, complete with benches

Genteel Georgian waterfront around Chiswick

Arseache! Hammersmith Bridge is Falling Down and closed to navigation.
Ie: you can’t paddle under it in case it collapses on your head.
But on the north bank there’s a handy jetty and this slipway (above) on the downriver side is a 5-minute carry

The Hammersmith’s brittle, ageing cast iron dates from 1887 and is suffering from micro-fractures.
All together now: “Build it up with iron bars, iron bars, iron bars.
Build it up with iron bars, my fair lady“