Hydrospeeding at Lee Valley White Water Centre – Hertfordshire UK
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Just across the Essex border in Hertfordshire is the Lee Valley White Water Centre. This venue was purpose built for the London 2021 Olympics, as the site for the canoe slalom events. As well as still being used as a training ground for the British team, they offer a range of activities for the general public to enjoy! These include: white water rafting, kayaking, stand-up paddle boarding, an inflatable obstacle course and hydrospeeding!
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Hydrospeeding Lee Valley
🗺Station Rd, Waltham Cross EN9 1AB
🕚Hydrospeeding Duration: 90 minutes (120 minutes total)
What is Hydrospeeding?
The easiest way to describe hydrospeeding, it’s like white water rafting but without the raft. Essentially you swim the rapids head first with a float, that’s a bit like a body board with handles. It’s fun but it is exhausting! The activity takes place on the intermediate course, the smaller of Lee Valley’s 2 white water courses. The 160m long intermediate course drops 1.6m, compared to the competition course which is double the length with a 5.5m drop.
Lee Valley White Water Centre
The centre is located just off the M25 and is super simple to reach. There’s a large parking area around the perimeter of the course. The closest car park to the reception area is the ‘purple zone’. All participants of pre-booked activities are able to park for free for up to 4 hours. There are tablets in the reception to register the vehicle’s number plate. Other visitors can qualify for free parking with a minimum spend in the cafe. Alternatively it is pay and display via an app or a cash ticket machine (£2 up to 4 hours, £5 up to 8 hours).
Hydrospeeding Experience
What To Bring
Swim wear & towel. (I took and wore a rash vest under the wetsuit too)
My activity time was 2.30pm. I checked in at 2.20pm, thinking it was a 2.30pm start time but it didn’t actually start until gone 3pm. I was given a full length wetsuit and boots and then directed to the changing rooms. There are a couple of different changing rooms with showers, but for the most part they are communal (men and women separate).
Free lockers are available, they are quite big and work with a 4 digit combination code of your choosing. They are a bit tricky to figure out and took me several attempts but I got there in the end! They do suggest that people share a locker if visiting as a family or a group.
Getting Kitted Out
Once dressed, everyone is given a helmet, a life jacket and my nemesis…the flippers (more on those later). The equipment is checked by the guides to ensure things fit properly. However, my helmet, along with another guy’s didn’t stay tight at the back. The chin strap obviously kept the helmet on our heads, but I found that mine kept sliding over my eyes. If it doesn’t stay tight during the fitting, GET IT CHANGED before you go into the water.
The flippers. Not going to lie, I hated them. I’ve used flippers before when on snorkelling trips, so I know how to swim and walk with them but these were just a pain. I’m a UK size 6 shoe and needed the XL size to get over the boots without being painfully tight.
My only complaint was that the conveyor belt to get back to the top of the course was switched off. We had to keep swimming against the current and climbing up the stairs with the flippers on. They were angled strangely so made swimming tricky and trying to go up and down slippery steps in them were a nightmare. The flippers may have helped to cross the current at the end but other than that, I think they just complicated things. I have swum rapids before on white water rafting trips in Australia and Slovenia WITHOUT flippers and it was fine. I found that the flippers were like annoying rudders that just kept pushing me in the wrong direction.
Assessment Swim
Before being let loose on the course, you have to complete an assessment swim. The first is with the float, you have to roll onto your back (it does push you underwater) and then flip yourself back over onto your front. Again, this is kind of tricky to do with flippers on.
Next you have to swim across the warm-up lake to the course. Here, you jump into the rapids without the float and have to show that you can go down the rapids in the ’emergency position’ before swimming to the edge across the current and climbing out.
Hydrospeed
You get around an hour on the actual course which is more than enough time. There are 2 main guides that keep an eye on everyone and then a handful of other life guard type people to assist with exiting the course. It’s quite relaxed in the sense that you are free to just go around as many times as you want. Getting in and out is the hardest part when the conveyor belt isn’t on. You do have to leap off the wall holding your float and there’s not really a graceful way of doing it.
The actual swimming the rapids is completely fine. You don’t really get splashed in the face and I only went underwater once. Make sure to try and keep your knees up/legs straight because it’s actually a lot shallower than what I was expecting it to be. I did ‘bottom out’ at one point! I enjoyed the drops and the water speed was a nice rate.
‘Surfing’
We were also taught how to ‘surf’ the rapids which was fun. There’s a way to use the current to swim into one of the ‘drops’. Once caught in the flow you don’t even have to kick, the water just holds you in place, similar to how ‘FlowRider’ surf simulators work! You face back UP the course, rather than down in the direction of the water. It’s harder than it looks, so don’t worry about getting ‘stuck’, it soon releases you and you can just continue around the course. If you don’t want to try it, it’s completely optional!
End of the Session
For those that want to join in, the last run in a race to see who gets down the course first. I was exhausted so just went round normally once more! Rather than exiting via the steps, everyone then swims back across the warm up lake and gets out via the dock.
Flippers, life jackets and helmets are taken off and rinsed in hot water. You then get the choice of taking off the wetsuit outside or when back inside the changing rooms (they are easier to take off in a shower).
Final Words
We are so lucky to have a facility like this right on the Essex door step! There are walking routes all around the park and beyond. Spectators can see all points of both courses and there are even viewpoint bridges that cross over the competition course. Even though I’ve been white water rafting before a couple of times, I think the Lee Valley course looks like it would be fun to do! Especially if you have never rafted before. The Terrace Bar & Cafe has both indoor and outside seating and public toilets.
Lee Valley White Water Centre (including The Terrace Bar & Cafe) is closed Monday and Tuesday. Hydrospeeding mainly only runs at 2.30pm on a Saturday and is suitable for people over 12yrs. White water rafting has more availability, including weekday slots as well. Rafting Unleashed is for 12 years and over, but Family Rafting can be reserved with children over 8yrs old. Activities are bookable until the end of October.
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