Upper Taff and Senni/Usk, Saturday 13 November

Two trips today, or three if you count the fact that two groups did the same trip on the Usk with different start times and met up:
1. Taff
"Excellent small club trip on the upper Taff this morning.
Attendees;
Phil
Nick
Lewis
Ben and
Alex B

This was Alex's first trip on the Upper Taff and it was a perfect level. All features in play and some quite a challange.
I was very impressed with Alex pulling off 3 rolls "in anger". Both Alex and Lewis looked like they had been paddling this type of grade for years when they were navigating the graveyard.

No swimmers.

Well done one and all it was a very pleasant trip.

Phil"

2. Senni/Usk
Group 1, met 09.00: Matt, John O', Chris and David W.
Group 2, met 09.45: Hywel, John C., Rob and Gareth

A nice day though the water was pretty low, even though above mean winter level. Two swims, one by Rob (though he says it doesn't count) when he got swept under the overhanging tree after playing on a wave) and one by David. A more interesting feature was John O's sustained half-capsize - he wasn't going to come out! - before Matt eventually took a pity and gave him an Eskimo rescue. When shuttling we realised Wales were 7-3 against South Africa so we all rushed to Tai'r Bull hoping to see the rest of the game. It was shut. All cars progressed though the last two not knowing where the first three had gone, eventually settled for a pint without a screen at the Nant Ddu lodge. Hywel, John C, Rob and Gareth made it to the Drovers Arms, Cefn Coed-y-Cymer, with the usual effect: Wales lost. Nice pub though, with entertainment from a local fishmen who said he's shoot boilers at kayakers. (Translated I think he meant ball bearings). We parted in good spirits, me saying we'd see him on the river.

Afan, Sunday 7 November

Run by Hywel, Emlyn, John C. and Gareth.

Rhondda, Saturday 6 November

Matt, Phil, Nick and Anthony ran the Rhondda Fawr.

Teifi tour, Saturday 30 October 2010

As the 2010 winter season starts, it's high time for me to blog a trip again. I met with Matt, Aled, Bryn, Iwan, Chris W and David at Llandysul at 9.30. When we were ready to go about an hour later we were approached by two paddlers (James and Becs) who work at Call of the Wild, Neath, looking for company as it was their first trip on the Teifi. The river was at a good level, as can be seen from the gauge record. What this meant was that the weir at Pentre Cwrt was still runnable, just, and Henllan was as much of a rapid as a fall.

Anyway, a good time was had by all I think. The first near incident was when Matt got caught just below the weir and managed to roll on about his third attempt. Just as I was warning another paddler in the eddy where I was waiting downstream that one of his group looked as if he was about to swim I realised it was Matt!

Chris wanted to get in position to take some photos of the group coming down so I led off with Chris following. A few seconds later and I was boat chasing. Not many photos there then.

Henllan was the main excitement as usual. Matt went first, followed by David (who had put in some good paddling in the grade 3 stretch below Pentre Cwrt weir), me, Aled, Bryn, Iwan, Becs and James (I'm not 100% sure of the order of those behind me). As I got down the falls there was a boat and paddle in front of me. The safety guys got the boat and I got the paddle and I continued down to where Matt was rushing away to make sure David was OK. A minute or two later I paddled back out to recover a dry bag (Iwan's I found out later) and a few minutes later rescued a swimmer with a throw of my throw bag. I threw straight! (All that practice a couple of weeks ago when we had a white water safety and rescue refresher at Brecon paid off!). So we scored swims by David, Aled, Bryn, Iwan and Becs (after 3 rolls trying to avoid Aled's boat). Chris didn't paddle it but tried to get a photographic record. Actually, it wasn't the fall itself which caused the carnage but the rapids above.

Having shuttled back to Llandysul, Matt, James and I then had a warm-down paddle on the river by the centre.

Thanks to all involved. I enjoyed it and I think everyone else did too.

Hywel

Afon Tawe, Saturday 3 April 2010

Amazingly it had rained during the week after a long dry spell, so Matt, Paul and Ben, Nick and I (Hywel) went looking for water. Matt fancied the Llia so off we went. (A couple of photos of us standing an hour later alongside the Llia which was just too low to run are on the club's Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=4992292&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=61639007515&aid=-1&id=531814458&fbid=405512619458). Half an hour or so later again and we were at Craig-y-nos. The gauge just by there (on the mill feed?) read 4 and some 50m lower down another was at 7 on the lower part of the gauge. This is how the water level was at 17.00 and later:


I reckon this is pretty low for the Tawe but even so there was hardly any scraping and it was a good level for what for all of us apart from Matt was a first run on the river. For comparison, here's a similar image of the level on the Usk (at Brecon) which I ran the following day. This was pretty high for the Usk - just goes to show how different the water catchments can be.

Anyway back to the Tawe. It's a pretty continuous section, though not particularly technical even at the low level we had. There were two memorable features. The first involved a slide over a horizon line down into a frothing pool leading straight into a narrow (2 boat width?) short gully, the left hand side of which was clearly undercut. The second was a fall (8ft?). Matt ran first going straight down the obvious slot into the foaming water. Ben, in his play boat, took the same line but with a short boat got somewhat munched. Luckily, Nick rescued one of Ben's boots on its way down river. Ben stayed by his boat held by the water, admiring the view for a bit, before managing to swim away. My run involved me flaring off the left side of the slot. Nick took a similar approach but got turned so he faced the fall when at the bottom but back paddled successfully while Paul ran it impressively dynamically, landing almost too horizontally for his back. This is a great river. We must make it a regular trip, bearing in mind that it's not suitable for beginners and that the water level is critical. It goes up to Grade 5 by all accounts in big water! We finished off with the traditional pint to do our bit to support the local economy.

3 trip weekend 23-24 January 2010

This was an active weekend for the club with members making 3 different trips.

The first trip was on Saturday with Matt leading a trip on the Tarell with Andy P and Jordan, Paul and Ben, Chris, Emlyn, Kirsty and someone else who I forgotten. Emlyn reported that there were about 4 trees blocking the rive at various points and as it was low water there was plenty of broaching and scraping, making for a tiring trip.

The second trip was by the sea kayakers with Hywel leading Rob and Emlyn - out for his second trip of the weekend - from Swanbridge to Flat Holm. I'd said I wanted to practice rescues and Emlyn obliged by capsizing as soon as we went through the cleft by the jetty leaving Flat Holm. Both legs of the journey provided some testing times with a Force 3 NW wind and some rough water. 2 hours 45 minutes of paddling, a distance of 7.6 nautical miles.


The 3rd trip was led by Andy. They were meant to have been going to Symonds Yat but ended up once again on the lower Taff. Andy reported: "John Taylor run the weir on the lower Taff a little bit to far right in to the recirculating water, went over, fought to get back up, but eventually won through and rolled up!

Morale of the story is, follow the line John! But well done."