Team Splashy

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White Nile, Uganda

Having regained my ability to walk unaided, I decided to spend 2.5 weeks out on the Nile.

Unlike any other paddling trip I have done I would describe paddling the Nile as fairly relaxed. Living on the Hairy Lemon island life is pretty easy with all catering done for you and being 5 minutes paddle away from the waves, meaning you can go out for sessions as opposed to bombing from one river to the next and then having to find somewhere to camp.

In terms of river running, the river is mostly grade 3 with a lot of flat. There a few harder rapids on the main section, Itanda, Kalagala and Hypoxia (too low to run I was told). Itanda and Kalagala are both fairly straight forward, one is fairly long but with lowish consequences and the other has a pretty straight forward line that you wouldn't want to screw up. But beware, there is a lot of flat.... (However, it is very pretty)

The main highlight are the waves, whilst they take some getting used to (bit different from Hurley) with the tow in rope and chaotic eddy, within a week it's pretty straight forward to get it dialed. Unfortunately, during my stay it was pretty busy with long queues with many people training for the world's, however, I am told it is not always like this...

In regards to African life, outside of the island everything is pretty chaotic but good fun. Certainly the highlight of the trip are the shuttles on the boda bodas (mopeds) and Jinja, the nearby town is certainly worth a visit too. There is also a lot of cool wildlife from snakes and monitor lizards to fish eagles and cormorants.

One of the nicest things about the trip though is the people you meet. There is definitely a multi-national vibe in the eddy, with groups from Austria, the US, Canada, South Africa, Germany, Russia, France and many more, however, everyone is very friendly and having fun.

Definitely worth a trip out before it gets dammed, no matter what your level of paddling (Nile is pretty beater friendly...)!

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A few photos from the other weekend in North Wales. Paddled the Mawddach twice, three laps on the Glen and a trip down the Wnion and Lledr.

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Bit of a Different Winter

So post Norway, with the end of University we have all gone in different directions:

- George has successfully transitioned to adulthood and got a proper job software engineering, still kayaking when he can.

- With flights booked and all plans in motion to spend the winter in Nepal and Laos paddling the Humla, Thule Beri and Upper Arun, I ended up tearing through my Achilles' tendon pretty seriously in a bicycle accident and consequently getting septic. This resulted in September being spent in the hospital and some rather interesting plastic surgery that has rendered my ankle forever weaker and my yearly plan somewhat upside down. I am on the mend and can get in a boat again now but am still on crutches and unable to climb. Bad times...

- In a much better state of affairs, Sam has become a big deal.

Still being at university, Sam applied for the British Universities Kayak Expedition (a bi-annual event where students organise an expedition to explore new rivers and hopefully publicise a new paddling destination) and got it. Whilst his suggestion of Greenland as a destination wasn't successful, they are instead heading to Madagascar, a somewhat warmer clime.

To get selected you have to attend a selection event in North Wales, there is a good write up about it here: 

http://www.teampyranha.com/?p=17172

(Sam says that there is a slight discrepancy in what people seem to think levels were like...).

You can follow the expedition's progress on Facebook here: 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/British-Universities-Kayaking-Expedition-2015-Madagascar/728714840541799?pnref=story

and on the web here: http://www.kayakmadagascar.co.uk/

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Norway Part 4 - Veko Week

Getting into Voss late on Sunday night, we had a relaxed start to the day and after checking gauges and looking for other boaters cars (to no avail) we decided to go have a look at the Nosebreaker waterfall high up on the Raundalselvi. Nosebreaker is a high volume 10m fall with a lead in where you have to ride up onto a diagonal pillow and then either go deep or boof. We all aimed to plug it and go deep. However, when it came to Sam's go, he didn't ride up onto the curler and so panicked and charged so hard at it that he accidentally did a huge boof landing over flat, but it looked really cool so a win for him!

After meeting some Aussies at the car park we joined up with them and went to look at the Tunnel Drop on the Rjuande tributary of the Raundal, an 80m long slide through a giant tunnel ending in a big pool, fairly straight forward if you don't flip. Only one of them was keen, so the four of us cracked on and bashed down it. It was a fun rapid with a lot speed and brief white out in the middle due to spray before getting shot across the pool. With Nat and Sam now tired, I joined the Australians for a trip down the Upper Raundal or Mjofell section, in the late afternoon. This section is 11km long with mostly grade 2-3 interspersed with 6-7 big grade 4-5 rapids including a really clean 4m boof ledge and ending at Nosebreaker. The section was alright but not something I would rush back to do again. We ended the day chilling in the Veko tent for film night.

The next morning Sam and I linked up with Lee, Rory and Beth Hume and headed in to the Marinejuvet or Marine Canyon section of the Raundalselvi which got it's name when a platoon of marines died trying to raft it. This section is amazing with a clean 6-7m fall kicking it off and then continuous class 4-4+ rapids in a beautiful gorge. Unfortunately a rather nasty walled in hole caught Beth and sent her back looping which resulted in a swim, but all kit was got and she was flushed swiftly. This section is probably my favorite of all the runs we did in Norway and seems to get little publicity, definitely a must do!

The next day we decided to head over to the Myrkdal valley, on the way we stopped off at the infamous Money Drop on the Stranda. This drop looks pretty manky on first glances, being walled in on both sides, however we had been assured that it was really easy and so all got on with it and can verify that as far as drops go it is definitely super easy. As long as you line up right at the top (to avoid two rocks) you just curl up and plug or attempt to boof, then roll up at the bottom. We then got to the get-in to the Lower Myrkdal and after much persuasion I got Sam to join me (on the basis that we would 'go really slow and inspect everything', Sam's motto for paddling) as it happens we also found a keen German called Phillipe who was happy to show us the lines. The Lower Myrkdal is probably one of the hardest runs we did in Norway with lots of big slides, a couple of portages and a lot of big towbacks. I got a bit of a working on this river when I decided to run the Karma Cow slide combo (it was on the higher side of runnable) and after clipping a rock on the top of the third slide ended up running it backwards and trying to back boof the large hole at the bottom. Funnily enough, this didn't work and I ended up sideways in the hole. Luckily a quick line from Sam, who was on safety, got me out. I was pretty grateful for this as we thought it could probably hold a swimmer. More carnage occurred later on too, as on the rapid called Dirtbag Diver, Sam flipped on the entry slide and ended up getting caught in a walled in hole, I then boofed on him. After taking a considerable beating, Sam swam but we got his kit and him back to the side swiftly. Despite this, I would love to run this river again as we didn't manage to get another chance and it  was pretty amazing, with a lot of good rapids. That night, after getting kicked out of the festival tent, we moved camp to the more communal kayaker camp on the other side of the lake at the back of a farmers field, here we linked up with the North Wales Mega Train.

The next morning, Sam and I joined the nine strong Mega Train and cracked on down a rather high level Trainstation section of the Raundalselvi, a quite tricky section with some must-run rapids and a couple of huge holes and portages. Despite such a large group, there was little beatering with only one swim. We then carried on through the Rafting section, running Timber Hole, which was great fun at the lower levels and getting out after the Parmafossen fall. In the afternoon, we joined Nat again and we ran Money Drop into the Lower Stranda which was very cruisy at the lower levels! Unfortunately, our escapades on Money Drop seemed to have inspired many others who had been watching to have a go and after running the shuttle, the ensuing carnage provided some good viewing.

For our final day, I rejoined the Mega Train for a trip down a high water Marine Canyon (Locals had said not to paddle it as it was too high, but Jamie seemed to think otherwise), as it turned out higher water provided an amazing water level with little change to the overall run (just a slightly stickier walled in hole) and no carnage. In the afternoon, I joined up with Sam and Nat who had been enjoying morning cafe time for a quick blast down the Upper Myrkdal, this was a lot cruisier than before, but unfortunately Nat flipped above the big slide and ran most of it on her head, injuring her thumb, but still managed to carry on to the takeout. A good end to a low level week in Voss.

Beginning the long journey home, we broke down the day by stopping at Dagali for a quick blast down the Zambezi section of the Numedalslagen, a big volume, 10km long section similar in nature to the Otra river that I worked on last year. It turned out to be fairly straight forward but good fun. We ended the day camping in a patch of grass in the ferry port car park in Larvik with the continued fear of getting told off.

After a further day of travelling it was all over and we were back in the UK, ending an amazing four weeks of boating. A big thanks to all those we paddled with, in particularly Jamie, Dan, Sam and the rest of the Mega Train for letting us join you on the river as well as Sam and Nat for coming with me and putting up with getting dragged on rivers when scared. This will probably be the last post for a while, due to the unfortunate nature of working in the UK for summer, but I aiming to head to Nepal for a couple of months over winter, so more updates then!

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Norway Part 3 - Road Trip

Having left Voss after paddling the Raundal in the morning we decided to head north allowing levels to drop for Veko and our return. Our first stop was Sogndal, a fairly large (for Norway) town next to the largest fjord in Norway, to get there we had to drive for about 2 hours with a fairly efficient ferry in between. Our plan was to paddle the Upper Sogndal, which we knew would be on the higher side but had checked the gauges yesterday and it wasn't stupidly high. Sam and I got on and quickly found out it was higher than expected, which resulted in quite a few beatdowns for Sam and some scarily large river wide holes... But no one swam and we made it to the bottom with a lot of scouting and a sense of happy to be alive. We later found out it was on 22 cumecs which is above the warning level in the guidebook... nonetheless it all went. Hence we didn't check the Lower section and drove up to the Horndola valley a further 3 hours away and camped there.

After a somewhat cold night and Nat getting attacked by cows, we concluded that the Horndola sounded a bit rubbish and with psyche running low, had a quick scout of the Langdalselva which also looked too low. We drove to the Bygdelva Race course section which looked to be at a good level but no one was really that fussed about getting on as it didn't look that great really so instead we go the ferry to Valldal and went and paddled the Myklebustra or Mickey Mouse Section. This is a short, low volume run characterised by long slides, with a particular standout which we sent Nat down blind. It then started raining and we decided to round the day off by paddling the Middle Valldola, an easier section which was on the lower side of things. Sam was particularly keen on paddling this river as he had been searching for some grade 3/4 after his scary experiences the day before. Now it was all going very smooth with Sam proclaiming it as 'his favorite river in Norway' until about 500m from the end there was a harder rapid the guidebook had described. It was a fairy large walled in ledge drop, I ran it blind and gave a signal to the others to boof it, however, Sam was in play mode and tried to rock slide above it and landed in the hole and was quickly followed by Nat. What followed was some creekboat freestyle and after a fairly lengthy beatdown Sam got out (Nat got released fairly quickly). With it now raining in full swing, we camped in a fairly dubious place near the take out for the Upper Valldola.

The morning was very cold, which made getting on the river fairly hard work, however, Sam and I cracked on and blasted down the Upper Valldola, which is the most defined pool-drop river that I have come across with all the rapids around grade 4 but a few portages too. We then headed up the Troll Pass and took standard tourist photos at the head of the valley. We then cracked on towards the Rauma, only slowed by the never ending number of German death box motor homes. Thinking that the Rauma was fairly high, we didn't even look at the Lower section and went straight up and paddled the Upper section (turns out it was at a high but runnable level). Persuading Sam and Nat that the river was fine 'because Deb Pinniger takes children down it, so it must be good to go' we bashed down it. The section is, again, pool drop in nature with a few really clean boof ledges such as Mini Huka Falls. At the take out, some friendly Americans gave us some Anti-Gyro powder so we disinfected our boats and cracked on to Sjoa.

Having assured the others that the kayak camp was a thing of luxury, it didn't disappoint with an indoor area and wi-fi. We spent the next day cruising on the Sjoa from Asengjuvet through the playrun down through Amot in the evening. Having reunited with Kristoff the German, he swam on the last rapid. Enjoying the slightly more relaxing atmosphere in Sjoa, we headed up to the Ulla the next day with high expectations with all the hype around it. Unfortunately it didn't live up to the hype, with the slides and falls being super easy point and shoot rapids and the bits inbetween being so scrapy that I was worried for my boat. In the afternoon, we did more laps on Amot, with Kristoff swimming under the undercut and taking a nasty beating in some boils, but we rescued him and his boat, but his paddles were long gone (probably for the best...). For our final day in the Sjoa area we headed over to do the Finna gorge, a long section of continuous grade 4 through a pretty gorge, unfortunately, it also has one of the worst shuttles ever for biking at about 9km long and mostly up hill, not fun! In the evening, we went for an Amot lap and Simon of Gene17 fame joined us but boofed in my face (painful!).

Setting off the next morning (after fixing a flat tyre), we headed over to Lom and Sam and I paddled the Skjoli which was on the low side but a lot of fun. It is somewhat like the Gyr, if the Gyr was steeper, longer and harder. A bit like kayak pinball, hence it only took 40 mins to run... We then headed back to Sogndal, which was now a lot lower, and paddled the waterfalls on the Lower section. Nat learnt on the second waterfall that wearing a factory second helmet was probably not the best idea, after it got ripped off when going deep, luckily we managed to recover it and get it back on her before the third. I boofed the third a bit too hard and head butted my paddles, leaving me with a large lump in the middle of my head. It should also be noted that you should not park and huck the waterfalls by themselves as there is noway out after the third unless you like climbing slippery rocks, up to your eyes in stinging nettles with snakes lurking around and considerable rock fallage. At around 11pm we made it back to Voss, excited for Veko the next day!

A good, varied week in the more Northern parts of Norway!

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Norway Part 2 - High Water Voss

Now with Nat in tow and having spent the night camped next to the lake just outside Voss in the truckers stop, we cracked on with boating. We headed straight to the Brandset, a river we had heard goes when everything else was high. We were relieved to find locals on the run whom verified that it was a good level. We blasted down the run fairly quickly with minimal rapids being run upside down (a couple for Nat at the end, mainly due to a bad description by me...). This river is the definitive slide river, from the start it crashes downhill and rarely stops to the end, all with beautiful turquoise water. Just don't run it on your head! We tried to get to the Jordal in the afternoon, but in a scary scenario my car failed to get up the hill and ground into the floor, so we had to turn around.

The next day we headed West to the Eksingdal Valley, here we paddled the Lake to Lake slides and had our first bit of carnage. The slides consist of a first, fairly bumpy slide into a pool, followed by a second higher volume curler into slide into 5m drop into Lake. Nat and I ran the first drop and then Sam and Nat ran the second, happily landing in the Lake. When it was my turn to go, I punched the curler a bit hard and pitoned a rock under the surface causing my boat to crumple and a last minute hand roll on the lip of the fall, before landing on my face in the Lake and then thinking I had imploded, panicking and swimming in the flat water... We then had lunch and preceded with a lengthy boat fixing session in the sun. We also inspected the 25m fall downstream but weren't sure of the water level, so ran away scared and looked at Double Drop, which was on the lower side.

We awoke the next day to rain and storms and went to Statoil to meet Frenchman Antoine who we had met the day before. He showed us a river called the Tverrelvi or Steinelvi, a lesser known creek run near the Teigdal that needs a lot of water. Despite a nasty road and lots of gates, the run was fun, with some cool rapids and a fair amount of water. In the afternoon we went back up to the Teigdal to look at Double Drop which was now in and after some lengthy inspection with Antoine (who had broken his ribs and arm on it the year before) I decided to give it a go. Thankfully my line was okay and I only got minor whiplash due to 45ing the second drop... But was somewhat relieved to be alive.

With even more rain overnight and the lake level rising to nearly flooding our tents, we had a bit of a relaxed cafe morning and then went and paddled the Upper Stranda (we later realised we got on the wrong bit), which was really cruisy, high volume with lots of waves. It was cold though so we decided not to boat anymore and went back to the Cafe.

The next day we joined ex-Dartmoor, turned local paddler Nick whom showed us around several runs in the area, with a couple of morning runs of the Hommedal in the sunshine, a little, low volume creek with a cool gorge reminiscent of Wales; and an afternoon blast down the Lower Stranda (the right bit) and a high water Raundal Playrun (it was around 130 cumecs, so not really a playrun). Definitely don't want to miss the portages! He topped off the day by letting us use his shower and cooking us dinner, we were very thankful and really enjoyed the day!

With everything dropping fairly quickly now the rain had stopped, we headed back to the Brandset for a last run before it dropped off completely. It was a fair amount lower than last time but still an alright level, I wasn't really feeling the river this day for unknown reasons but the others enjoyed it (Nat inspected things this time...). In the afternoon we acquired a 19 year old German called Kristoff who had come out to Norway with his Dad and his kayak with the aim of paddling rivers but had not done a great deal of paddling before. Sam and I took him down the Upper Myrkdal which was fairly high and he scared the crap out of us by eddying out in strange places. Nonetheless no-one got hurt and it was a cool river. The next day we did similar and paddled the Lower Stranda at a slightly lower level than before and then another run on the Upper Myrk.

For our last day we joined up with the English Megatrain, Nick, Lee, Rory, Tom and ourselves and headed down a high Raundal Rafting Section. On the first rapid Nat got caught by a violent eddy and couldn't get out, so ended up swimming, but luckily Tom and his big guns were there to escort her to the side while Sam and I rescued her boat. We then preceded quickly down to Timber Hole which looked manky so we portaged and then carnage struck again with Lee taking a beating and swimming in the bottom of Church Drop. Nonetheless the run was blasted out fairly quickly and in the afternoon we made our way to Sogndal.

A massive thanks to Nick for showing us the runs, the dinner and the shower!

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Norway Part 1 - Telemark

With University finished for the year (or forever), Sam, Nat and I decided to head to Norway for 4 weeks to scare ourselves ahead of having to work for the rest of summer.

To get to Norway we went with the option of getting the Harwich to Esbjerg overnight ferry (or 5* ferry as it was later dubbed), this is a slightly more expensive option but cuts the driving time down considerably (better for already strained, overloaded Skodas...). We then proceeded to make good use of the showers and wifi in preparation for a long time camping...

The next day was quite a long one, having to drive across Denmark (soo flat!) with a brief stop in Aalborg for pasta in an abandoned carpark (but we did manage to connect to Eduroam) and then a late night ferry from Hirtshals to Larvik and quite possibly the worst camping spot ever in a layby on the 40 outside of Larvik...

Getting awoken by the scary shaking of the tent as large lorries went passed the outside and the never ending daylight, we cracked on with paddling, aiming to get warmed up. We went and paddled a section of the Numedalslagen the guidebook calls the 'Laks Run', a big volume section of river with the occasional straight forward 3+/4- rapid and large sections of flat, probably not worth the shuttle, but nonetheless getting us in the swing of boating. We then drove for a few hours north to the Telemark area near Lake Tinnsjo and quickly realised most of the rivers were pretty high. However we were relieved to find another set of British paddlers, Lee and Rory, at the Homerun section of the Mar river. With everyone deeming it too high, we headed down and got on the easier Lower section of the river, a nice 3+/4 Alpine style river. We then camped in a beautiful spot next to the Homerun waterfalls.

The next morning the levels dropped slightly, so we all manned up and paddled the Homerun, an amazing set of 6 waterfalls between 3-8m with little time to think or recover between each. We all did one full run each, with Rory and I running the last two twice and then got lunch. We then bombed it over to the Goyst which had dropped since yesterday putting it at a nice low/medium level. In all the excitement I manage to loose my phone. The Goyst is a long river at around 8-10km and is fairly steep with some large bedrock slides and a few falls of around 3-5m, it also has a hard get-in (we had to lower in our boats) but ends in the Lake. All in all, a great day!

The next morning we put on the Upper Austbygdi, the largest of the rivers flowing into the lake. This river has two sections, the lower which was too high and the Upper which was about 8km long and fairly pool drop in character with a couple of portages and a massive slide and big 8/9m fall, the Spanemfossen, at the take out. With beautiful sunshine and fairly high water, this river was up there as one of my favorites in Norway. Unfortunately, upon finishing this river we had to leave Telemark, but were excited to head to Voss to pick Nat up, whom had been paddling in Italy. This involved a 3.5 hour drive with standard Norwegian scenery (lots of mountains, some snow, lots of wooden buildings, lot of lakes, lots of long tunnels etc.), but we made it safely and camped next to the Lake in our soon to be favorite spot, Kvale.

Although we weren't in Telemark for long, I would strongly recommend it as a less known, early season alternative to Voss or Sjoa, as everything is very close together and the rivers all seem very varied and have great features, out of all the areas we went it is definitely the one I want to return to most to paddle more in!

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Final Week of University

After 3 years at Bath I have finally finished my last teaching week of University and it turned out to be a pretty good week!

Saturday: Competing at Stone CC slalom competition (we have been training with Seren Dwr slalom club every Tuesday at CIWW for the last 6 months and they wanted us to compete)

Sunday: Sam and George went back to Stone and I took a lot of chances and drove to Dartmoor by myself with the hope of impending rain. It didn't disappoint and I met up locals Sam and Rowan and lapped the Upper all day from slab covered to first step.

Monday: With a large amount of rain overnight and all the gauges looking big in the morning, Sam and I went back to Dartmoor and met up with Rowan again, this time with other paddlers, Jamie and Nick in tow. We went and got on the East Okement which has a good slide section we did a few laps on, before deciding that no one could be bothered to walk up again and instead we would paddle the chossy section below, which turned out to be... chossy. We then, headed straight over to the Upper and bombed down it at around first step, a good end to the day.

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday: Lots of work and a climbing wall session and providing some freestyle coaching in the pool.

Friday: Sam, Nat and I headed to Hurley for an evening 3 gates blast out, it was quite a shallow wave though.

Saturday/Sunday: Currently in the process of trying to finish off any classic climbs in the local area that I have yet to do in addition to revision...

Next stop Norway!

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More Hurley...

Photos by Natty Cordon.

Nat has her own kayaking blog: www.nattycordonkayaking.com

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The Drought...

Last few weeks have been pretty dry and generally sunny meaning no rivers. However, it has meant the Thames has dropped off, giving us a few good sessions at Marsh and Hurley as well as good weather for climbing, locally at Avon and Cheddar gorges. We have been counting this as 'gorge escape training' for when it rains again. Hoping that this will be soon...

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More Lyn and Hoaroak...

Photos by Colin Smith

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A Photo Summary of Last Season's Paddling...

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Not The Weekend We Were Expecting...

With the weekend upon us, after some last minute planning, Sam and I headed for North Wales with the Metoffice reporting loads of rain on Sunday and some on Saturday. After nearly verging off to Yorkshire, we arrived at the put-in for the Glen and got straight on. It was pretty low and we decided not to go for a second lap. At the get out, we met Pete from the Brenin who told us about the Ben Marr talk happening that night, so we decided we head there in the evening. We rounded out the day with a few laps of Pont Cyffyng and a trip to look at Llanberis Falls. The talks ended up being very good and the crowd rather full of well known kayakers... The next morning the heavy rain never quite manifested but the Glen rose to a low level and consequently every paddler that had been in the room the night before was there including Ben Marr himself. We ended up doing 4 laps, with the circulation of groups meaning you only to wait a maximum of 10 mins for a hitch to the top. Not the weekend we intended but still very fun!

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More East Lyn. We're practically local this season...

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More North Wales

With Sam and I left, we woke up early Monday morning to find Fairy Glen was at a good level. Having tried to paddle this last year but finding it massive, we had unfinished business. When getting changed in the lay by we met up with the local Glen Dawny crew who let us come paddle with them (saving us from bike shuttling) and showed us the lines (big thanks to Jamie). Having done two quick fire laps, we decided to call it a day and went climbing for the afternoon.

The next morning, with intentions of running the Glen again, we woke up to find levels were huge. So we headed over and did a quick blast down the Ogwen. This was quite a good river but we were left slightly unimpressed after yesterdays excitement. We then headed down to Coed Y Brenin Forest and after getting lost, decided to put-on to the Upper Mawddach, which was running at about 1.2m on the gauge. This river we can't recommend enough. It is non-stop grade 4 with constantly interesting lines and some bigger hits thrown in for good measure. Luckily we had met up with some locals from Bala so I didn't have to do the 10km+ bike shuttle in the dark!

With the rain settling down, we decided that Wednesday would be our last day, so we bashed down to Dolgellau to have a go at the Wnion which was high on the gauge. This river was fairly straight forward with little hassle and a nice, quick gorge, somewhat similar to the Erme in Dartmoor. We then headed back to Betws to have a final go at the Glen. With levels slightly higher than before we took it a little slower. All was going smoothly until Speeder biker where Sam took a swim (a rare occurrence). What followed was a somewhat interesting rescue, where I had to solo out of the gorge and climb down to try and drop him a line and then lead climb back out on a throw line. All was well though and we had Sam and all his kit out of the gorge in under an hour!

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North Wales Weekend

Having just finished exams, we blasted off to Snowdonia for a while. Getting there we found fairly low levels so we decided to go for the ever reliable Llugwy combo of Pont Cyffyng and Swallow Falls. Here we met up with some of the Leeds Uni Alumni who I had paddled with in Norway and began shooting down the river. It was a pretty placid day with no real issues. By the end we were all shattered and spent the night in Bethesda.

We woke up to find that it had been raining all night but nothing was rising! We spent an hour or so at the Brenin bar before levels sky rocketed. We headed to the Aberglaslyn Gorge and got on at around 1.3m on the gauge (I think this is fairly high...). All was well until Rupert got caught in the recirculating eddy on Breaker and swam (an unfortunate curse of anyone from Glasgow Uni who seems to paddle with us...). The rest of us finished the run off. This is a nice section of quick continuous water.

With George and Rupert finished for the day, they ran a shuttle for Sam and I on the Colwyn and after a brief run-in with a local landowner we were off! We took the Colwyn nice and slowly as it was now sunny and we had plenty of time. Upon meeting the confluence with the Glaslyn we decided that we would finish the day with another blast down the gorge, it was now at a slightly lower level but still a good medium, providing a nice flash run to end the day!

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Perthshire & Beyond

After a few days in Fort William, we headed round to Dunkeld, staying at Jessie Mac's Hostel (definitely recommendable!). We ran a high Tilt on the first day, made ever the more interesting by the boat with holes / removable seat situation. It was also freezing and snowy... Next day, we ran the Braan Gorge and then the Blackwater. George concluded that he doesn't like gorges. The Blackwater was on the lower side though and a bit rubbish. On the final day in Scotland we headed back to Crianlarich to paddle with the Glaswegians, but they dropped out and so we paddled the Falls of Falloch again before heading home with some sketchy driving situations. A very good wet week!