Beach landing Photo: Justine Curgenven

Apart from the 90 or so locks that we had to deal with, it was really interesting to follow the canals right through Britain. We reached 110 metres at our highest point and then we snaked along at that altitude for miles, cutting through fields and woods and even crossing roads. I'd hate to think what would happen if someone drilled a hole in that bridge! We travelled quicker than the narrow boats but managed to surf the wash on a few of them on our way past (much to their owners' distress).

In Wolverhampton, we dodged shopping trolleys, bought fish and chips and joined the 'Staffs and Worcester canal'. The local children tried to give us some stones as a memento. A day later we were so despairing of the locks that we tried to join the River Stour which was running parallel to us and flowing down to the sea! Why did we bother!? We battled our way down a steep overgrown bank only to be met by a net of branches across the river. After a bit of limbo dancing in our kayaks we enjoyed the pretty scenery and the moving water for a whole kilometre. Then the ominous roar of fast moving water reached our ears and we rounded a corner to a weir. There was no way over it or around it, so the boats had to go back up a 45 degree slope and we portaged them half a kilometre back to the Canal. We didn't even miss out any locks!

Finally on day 5 we reached Stourport in torrential rain and darkness. We collapsed in joy at the sight of the beautiful moving water of the River Severn and the wonderful thought that we didn't have any more locks to portage. Wrong again. 2 miles later we arrived at the first lock on the River Severn where we had to lift the kayaks up a huge set of steps 10 metres high. We couldn't make it another inch and camped in the rain at the lock.

On the Severn, things got better. We still had a headwind but the rain meant that we had lots of flow with us and we travelled almost 80 miles in 2 days. Thankfully we were allowed to go through the remainder of the huge locks in our kayaks, and one kind lock keeper even filled up our water bottles for us. Unfortunately, our bodies started to complain and my right shoulder began burning with every paddle stroke. We squeezed every last drop from our tubes of Ibuprofen gel and cursed our aching muscles. We'd been paddling hard for 8 days but much as I craved taking a day off, we didn't dare. With only 22 days to complete the 590 mile trip one bad weather spell on the sea could mean not getting around before we had to go back to work.

"A girl disappeared with our water bottle and reappeared with a bottle of chilled white wine!"

At Gloucester we reached the tidal section of the River Severn. Salt water once more splashed our faces and we made use of the Spring tides to suck us out to sea. We reached almost 10 knots at our fastest and even got to play in rapids when the Severn got really narrow. Unfortunately, in our eagerness to get every last drop out of the tide, it turned when we were in the middle of the flow and we had a mad ferry glide to reach a place on the bank where we could camp. I think we experienced a mini Severn Bore as a foot high wave appeared from nowhere, and minutes later we were losing ground.

We paddled about 40 miles a day along the South coast of Wales. The tidal stream atlases told us that we should have 5 hours of tide with us every day (on the ebb), but we discovered that as we travelled West, high tide got earlier so we actually only had about 4 hours of flow. It took us 2 days to work this out and we kept finding ourselves mid-crossing and battling against the tide for more hours than we paddled with it. But it did mean that we had a convenient start of 10am on the water every day. I'd like to say that we planned it that way!

To get lots of miles under our belts we had a couple of night paddles. We arrived at the Mumbles lighthouse at 11pm with beautiful green phosphorescence all around us. Then a day later we went through Ramsey Sound in near darkness, which sent my heart racing a bit. Our maximum speed was over 9 knots (on neap tides!), but it wasn't too bumpy.

People we met were really generous to us and at White Sands bay, Coxy let us sleep in the Surf Lifesaving Clubhouse. I think he smelt us coming as he immediately offered us our first shower. The next evening in Aberporth we met Jesus. A girl disappeared with our water bottle and reappeared with a bottle of chilled white wine! Now there is a result!