River Arun (Sussex) touring trip, 1-2 August 2009

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On Saturday Sarah, Dan, Jon E and Luke paddled the upper section of The River Arun in open boats from Pulborough to Pallingham Quay Farm, just above the tidal limit, and back. This is a beautiful and tranquil section of the river with several narrow weedy sections which slowed our progress somewhat.

It rained almost non-stop from just before we got on until just after we got off so we did get rather damp and cold but warmed ourselves up with a stop at The White Hart at Stopham on the way back.

Total distance was a little over 10km and it took us nearly five hours (including the pub stop). We put the slow pace down to paddling solo and having to hack our way through jungle sections.

Sunday was a bright sunny day and we were joined by Luke's family. We planned to take advantage of the flooding tide to carry us from The Black Rabbit at Offham to Greatham Bridge. Unfortunately, we were a bit late setting off and by the time we got on the river it was nearly slack water. By the time we reached Houghton Bridge the tide had turned and was ebbing strongly against us so we changed plans and simply returned the way we had come.

The outbound leg, mostly on slack water, took us about two hours, fifteen minutes and the return with the tide was about an hour and fifteen. Total round trip distance was circa 10km.

For reference, this custom Google Map shows the river and the put-ins/locations mentioned.

Dan's photos: [1]

Jon's photos: [2]