North Wales 21 / 22 May 2005 (Swimmer(s?))
The weekend started with a few drinks in the guild to help Emma celebrate the end of her finals. During the evening we all consumed ‘sensible’ amounts of alcohol, and then took it upon ourselves to persuade the freshers that they all wanted to come along on Sunday’s trip to the Dee, regardless of what exams they might have remaining. This was followed by a trip to Manzils, where both Edsco and I promptly fell asleep on the table (or naan in Edsco’s case). We ate, and somehow made it back to Emma’s flat, where we were staying.
Saturday started nice and early, with Edsco’s alarm waking all but Edsco at 7am! No one really seemed to move then until about 10am, when we decided we should head off towards the Tryweryn. After stopping off for some ‘graduate’ style food, we made it to Nomad Paddleworks in Bala, where Martyn was hoping to demo a boat. After a bit of searching, the staff realised that the reason they could not find the boat to lend to Martyn, was because someone else had already taken it out, so we headed off. (Little did I know that I would be back within the hour!) Upon arrival at the Tryweryn, much mincing ensued before deciding that we really ought to get on the water, no matter how hung-over we all were. As we were getting changed, I delved into my bag to pick out my buoyancy aid, then realised that I had left it in London. I really should not go packing for things whilst drunk!! So, off to the rafting centre I headed hoping that they would be nice enough to loan me a BA for the day, but no. The cited something about them being responsible if the BA failed and something happened to me. So, does this mean that they are happy to lend these BA’s to rafters with a chance they might fail? Anyway, back off to Paddleworks in Bala, to purchase me a cheapo BA.
Finally, we got on the water, and had a go at eddy hopping, and generally messing about. The first run down was pretty much without incident, apart from Martyn getting another boater stuck in the ski jump (Martyn was surfing it, and the other guy came down, tried to avoid Martyn and got stuck). We all had a go at surfing most of the waves on the course, before heading back off to the top again. Between starting to get out of his boat, and making it to the top of the bank, Martyn somehow managed to wash all the paddling kit he was wearing, but denies he swam. I will leave it to him to provide his excuses.
For the second run, Edsco decided he was too old to fit back into his boat, and sat this run out. The remainder (Chris, Martyn and myself all attempted 360 flat sip seal launches down the raft launch ramp, but decided it was impossible to manage a complete 360, as no matter how hard we tried, we could only manage 270’s. Chris then demonstrated a new splat move, which we called the splat into broach pin move, much to the amusement of everyone on the bank. After un-pinning himself, we continued down, uneventfully, until the wave at an angle under the bridge. Martyn went first, making it into an eddy successfully on river right just after the wave. He was followed by Chris, who for some reason thought that it was to easy to stay up right, so went for a roll practice part way through the wave, only for him to not manage to roll back up. Next we saw his head bob up next to his up turned boat. Chris was swimming! Martyn took charge of getting Chris to the side, and I took care of his boat. Chris gave some excuse about not having paddled in a while, and thought that he needed to practise his self-rescue technique! We all hopped back in and we all paddled off to the centre wave, where we decided that we had had enough, and finished for the day. We headed of to Bala to find our luxurious accommodation at Bala Backpackers, before heading of to find food / beer.
Sunday we rose, breakfasted, and headed off to Eddy Lines to waste some time before meeting up with a group joining us for the day from uni. They arrived, and we headed up to the get in for the Dee. The level was low, but runnable, so we decided to get on at Horse-shoe weir, as none of us could see sense in paddling miles of flat water above. We paddled up the canal from chain bridge hotel to the weir, before paddling back down past the hotel on the river. Serpent’s tail quickly arrived upon us, but we not worth worrying about as the water level was so low. While getting out of his boat at the bottom in order to run it again, Martyn managed to wash all his kit again. Any excuses Martyn? The next point of interest was Mile End Mill, which we made use of for stopper surfing practice (on the second wave) and some attempts at playboating on the bottom wave. Just as we were preparing to head down to Llangollen, a couple of the other boaters in the eddy mentioned to us that we weren’t allowed to paddle down to the town, as this was not a designated ‘open’ weekend, and by paddling down we would be ruining everything for all the other boaters. To this we said ‘Ok’, before breaking in, and paddling downstream!
Next up was town falls, which we all inspected, um-ed and ah-ed about which line would be best to take, before all but the freshers ran it. This ended a good weekends paddling, which was topped off with the traditional visit to Llangollen Kebab House.
Unfortunately, the only swim of the trip was had be Mr Chriskew, plus a couple of technicals from Martyn.
Pictures will be posted soon.
Saturday started nice and early, with Edsco’s alarm waking all but Edsco at 7am! No one really seemed to move then until about 10am, when we decided we should head off towards the Tryweryn. After stopping off for some ‘graduate’ style food, we made it to Nomad Paddleworks in Bala, where Martyn was hoping to demo a boat. After a bit of searching, the staff realised that the reason they could not find the boat to lend to Martyn, was because someone else had already taken it out, so we headed off. (Little did I know that I would be back within the hour!) Upon arrival at the Tryweryn, much mincing ensued before deciding that we really ought to get on the water, no matter how hung-over we all were. As we were getting changed, I delved into my bag to pick out my buoyancy aid, then realised that I had left it in London. I really should not go packing for things whilst drunk!! So, off to the rafting centre I headed hoping that they would be nice enough to loan me a BA for the day, but no. The cited something about them being responsible if the BA failed and something happened to me. So, does this mean that they are happy to lend these BA’s to rafters with a chance they might fail? Anyway, back off to Paddleworks in Bala, to purchase me a cheapo BA.
Finally, we got on the water, and had a go at eddy hopping, and generally messing about. The first run down was pretty much without incident, apart from Martyn getting another boater stuck in the ski jump (Martyn was surfing it, and the other guy came down, tried to avoid Martyn and got stuck). We all had a go at surfing most of the waves on the course, before heading back off to the top again. Between starting to get out of his boat, and making it to the top of the bank, Martyn somehow managed to wash all the paddling kit he was wearing, but denies he swam. I will leave it to him to provide his excuses.
For the second run, Edsco decided he was too old to fit back into his boat, and sat this run out. The remainder (Chris, Martyn and myself all attempted 360 flat sip seal launches down the raft launch ramp, but decided it was impossible to manage a complete 360, as no matter how hard we tried, we could only manage 270’s. Chris then demonstrated a new splat move, which we called the splat into broach pin move, much to the amusement of everyone on the bank. After un-pinning himself, we continued down, uneventfully, until the wave at an angle under the bridge. Martyn went first, making it into an eddy successfully on river right just after the wave. He was followed by Chris, who for some reason thought that it was to easy to stay up right, so went for a roll practice part way through the wave, only for him to not manage to roll back up. Next we saw his head bob up next to his up turned boat. Chris was swimming! Martyn took charge of getting Chris to the side, and I took care of his boat. Chris gave some excuse about not having paddled in a while, and thought that he needed to practise his self-rescue technique! We all hopped back in and we all paddled off to the centre wave, where we decided that we had had enough, and finished for the day. We headed of to Bala to find our luxurious accommodation at Bala Backpackers, before heading of to find food / beer.
Sunday we rose, breakfasted, and headed off to Eddy Lines to waste some time before meeting up with a group joining us for the day from uni. They arrived, and we headed up to the get in for the Dee. The level was low, but runnable, so we decided to get on at Horse-shoe weir, as none of us could see sense in paddling miles of flat water above. We paddled up the canal from chain bridge hotel to the weir, before paddling back down past the hotel on the river. Serpent’s tail quickly arrived upon us, but we not worth worrying about as the water level was so low. While getting out of his boat at the bottom in order to run it again, Martyn managed to wash all his kit again. Any excuses Martyn? The next point of interest was Mile End Mill, which we made use of for stopper surfing practice (on the second wave) and some attempts at playboating on the bottom wave. Just as we were preparing to head down to Llangollen, a couple of the other boaters in the eddy mentioned to us that we weren’t allowed to paddle down to the town, as this was not a designated ‘open’ weekend, and by paddling down we would be ruining everything for all the other boaters. To this we said ‘Ok’, before breaking in, and paddling downstream!
Next up was town falls, which we all inspected, um-ed and ah-ed about which line would be best to take, before all but the freshers ran it. This ended a good weekends paddling, which was topped off with the traditional visit to Llangollen Kebab House.
Unfortunately, the only swim of the trip was had be Mr Chriskew, plus a couple of technicals from Martyn.
Pictures will be posted soon.
posted by Ex Aston Canoe Collective at
2:06 PM
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