One more milestone ticked off, on the road to Canal du Midi!

Instead of celebrating the Winter Solstice by dancing naked around a pile of old stones, Wemmer Pan has long celebrated by doing the The Long Row on the Vaal.

This year was no exception, with Team Oarsome there in force. The men rowed in one quad and the ladies in another. With minimum temperatures predicted for -6, we were all well wrapped up for the occasion, but the weather turned out to be so spectacular that many of us were down to our T-shirts by the end of warm-up. Tim towed our boats down on his trailer which allowed for them to be half-rigged already. By the time we had finished ferrying our cars through to the finish, Wendy had them rigged and after a loo stop, it was straight onto the water carrying boats covered with a thin layer of ice. Brrr!

 

 The men pushed off quickly while we got settled onto seat pads, with music and snacks. Wendy gave us a brisk warm up and then we bent our backs to the task - a distance of 32kms from Emerald Casino past the Barrage to Lock Vaal resort. What a fantastic row we had too! Rowing with 3 equally experienced oarswomen is a real treat.

Several stops later, snacks & drinks downed and many school crews passed, we had a small debate as to where exactly the overgrown entrance to the lagoon at Loch Vaal might be.....and we were home! (Not before spending the last 1000m racing the crew of Rod & Shaun in their double though!)

Tim & Mark catching up on their carbs.

The men's quad - showing recent repairs by Tim. It's rumoured to be 5% faster now too!

The view of the finish at Loch Vaal.

LUNCH in the making!

By then it had turned out the be the most amazing warm day and we spent many hours lolling around in the sun eating sandwiches, hamburgers and drinks while awaiting the arrival of a Youlette full of novices. At the finish they professed to be in high spirits, but we secretly believe they stopped somewhere for an hour and were just ‘full of spirits’ instead!

Just 6 Weeks to go now...!