The rain has hit many parts of the UK and the rivers in some areas have been huge, just not anywhere near Unsponsored HQ. This reminded me of one of my last flood level trips early last year. On the 25th February 2017 Team Unsponsored ran the Mint in Cumbria (UK). The end of that week had seen storm Dorris hit the UK with high winds and significant amounts of rain for majority of the North. This resulted in high water levels for the few hours we were on the river.
Tag: England
Welcome to Movie Monday 18 December 2017 Unsponsored HQ. We love putting these things together each week. we took some time to look back over some of the first Movie Mondays from a few years ago and it’s great to see the number and quality of GoPro (and other camera) edits continue to grow. Long may it continue!
Enjoy!
More images taken from Rescue Rock on the North Tyne. Welcome to Tyne Tour 2017 – Part II.
Water was low but the stoke was high. Great action, warmish weather and great light have made for a great day photographing paddlers at the Tyne Tour 2017.
This is just a small selection of the 1000s that were taken today.
Team Unsponsored had a few hours at Low Force on the River Tees today. As ROHO were having a demo day there was a very good chance that there would be a good number of boaters.
I’ve been working on trying to take photos and not having to crop, or adjust the image in any kind of way. I’ve also been trying frame some of the shots in a slightly different way. I’m quite pleased with the way in which these have turned out.
Storm Desmond hit the UK hard last weekend with an unprecedented amount of rain falling in a very short time. Many rivers in the North were simply too high to paddle. However some of the smaller burns and creeks came into play pretty quickly. Martin Butler and crew were on Eggleston Burn last weekend making the most of the bad weather.
We have had some series rain over the last month here in the North East of England. The water table is topped up and it doesn’t take much to get the rivers flowing high.
The River Tees from High Force to Low Force isn’t that #sTEESy at high levels. Mathew Wilkinson takes a dip and swims with a little help to safety.
The Swale, for many the most enjoyable, hassle free section of Class 4 (occasionally 5) in the UK. It’s all down to preference of course, however, a little time invested in this true classic normally leaves paddlers with a beaming smile.

At its source, about 2 miles upstream of Keld, the Swale picks up pace and, set amongst some stunning scenery and isolated gorges, this river drops like a stone and often rises just as quickly: we recently witnessed the river rising 50cm within the hour it took us to complete the run. It rose a further 10cm in the time it took to get changed and do a shuttle; a factor that should be borne in mind when paddling this stretch after heavy rainfall. Potentially difficult to judge accurately, running this little gem has been made much more reliable since the introduction of the environment agency river levels gauge. This provides the source data for the invaluable Rainchasers site (http://rainchasers.com/river): an excellent information resource for which we are enormously grateful to Rob Tuley and crew supporting the site.
This year AS Watersports hosted the South West canoe show here in the UK. As well as all the new gear from UK and international equipment suppliers there was also the opportunity to try out gear on site.
The 2nd edition of the excellent English Whitewater guide book is now available.
Welcome to the second edition of English Whitewater. Having established itself as a key guide to the best of whitewater and park and playspots within England this second offering adds further to the myriad of challenging steep brooks, classic trips on classic rivers, and previously unfamiliar offerings that is paddling in England. Continue reading
I’ve been using Smiley nose plugs for longer than I care to remember and have never moved away from them. I am a firm believer in the use of nose plugs and each of my helmets has (had) a Smiley nose plug attached and they have served me well. However that may have just changed with the arrival of these new nose plugs from Three Waves.
A couple of weeks ago I was kindly sent a pair of ThreeWaves nose clips from Germany.
River Swale from Dave Wortley on Vimeo.
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