How are we doing it?
Starting on 11 September 2010, we are paddling from Hope Hospital (Manchester) to St. Mark’s Hospital (London). These are England’s two specialist intestinal failure units.
Justin and Skibum will be paddling the whole route. Other guest paddlers are making appearances along the way. We’re hoping there will be four of us on the water every day. We have two sets of kayaking gear so are looking for sponsors to help us out with another two sets – STOP PRESS: many thanks to Whitewater the Canoe Centre, Shepperton, for giving us the use of two sets of gear for the trip.
We anticipate this trip taking 20 days, so we will be finishing on Friday 1st October. Accommodation still needs to be arranged. However, we are hoping to find a friendly sponsor who can give us the use of either a narrow boat, an RV, a couple of camper vans or a caravan. If by some quirk these are not forthcoming then we’ll look for pubs and b&bs as we go. Justin will be carrying his tent and camping gear in case no better offers materialise.
The whole trip is about 238 miles. There are 166 locks and 6 tunnels to be negotiated. So, we’ll be getting in and out a lot, which means there will probably be quite a bit of unintended swimming. Since Justin will be feeding whilst paddling and perhaps capsizing, CME-McKinley (medical pump manufacturers) and Guy Portelli have been working on a waterproof case for Justin’s electrical pump. To help with on land manoeuvres of the kayaks, HandiWorld have provided us with kayak trolleys (HandiKart) as well as HandiRacks to transport the kayaks.
Justin has to carry out an aseptic procedure to connect and disconnect his feed. He will do this a few times every day. There’s a mountain of equipment needed to accomplish this so we will be carrying a lot of spares. However, because we don’t want to lug around three weeks worth of medical gear, Bupa Home Healthcare will be delivering weekly supplies of medical equipment to Justin en route.
All financial donations go directly to St. Mark’s Foundation.
We are funding this trip ourselves, although some equipment has been provided by supporters.
