On Friday 22 October, 6 intrepid UHCC paddlers (Lyn, Zak, James, Adrian, Geoff and Andy) headed to Llangollen, North Wales for some whitewater fun and games. Unfortunately, there had been a long period of dry weather nationally, and most Welsh rivers were sadly empty, but… whoop whoop!! the Tryweryn (dam release white water river) was running on Saturday, so we all booked a place at the last minute.
Folk who have paddled the Upper Tryweryn in the past will know that the structure known as the ‘chipper’ was removed recently. For those who don’t know, the chipper was a mesh grid that stretched across the river above the usual launch point, blocking the whole river and supposed to protect fish. Apparently it was ineffective. Further modifications to the upper stretch of river took place in the last month. The easy, ‘warm up’ stretch of river now includes some new features as illustrated by Geoff and me in the pictures above.
My thanks to Geoff and Adrian who encouraged me to run the ‘Graveyard’ section, and guided me and the other paddlers down to the raft get out below the cafe. Fab day for me, and the other intrepid paddlers went up to do it again!
Sunday on the Dee, we trekked from the Dee across the railway line to launch on the Llangollen canal and paddle up to Horseshoe Falls.
The poor, thirsty river Dee was at a low level, which suited me fine for running the famous ‘Serpent’s Tail’. Here you can see Adrian joining the queue to leave the eddy and run the feature.
And here is James on the ‘bottom wave’ at Mile End Mill at the end of the run.
Zak and I had not had enough at this point so we went off to explore the magnificent Pontscsyllte aqueduct. The view was stunning!
