Treweryn and Dee Whitewater Trip        1st-3rd April 2005

Day 1
After an early start and a long drive over to Wales, we arrived at Jimmy Jay’s on the River Dee at Mile end Mill for about 11 o’clock, despite a slight detour due to an out of date map. The river looked slightly daunting to me, but apparently it was a mere trickle compared to the 90 cumecs that thundered through the course earlier in the year. The features were running nicely though, so under the Ing’s wing and with the official Dennis Manley School of kayaking reference guide close at hand I braved the fast flowing, grade 2/3 ‘trickle.’ Some tail dunking and refreshing rolling practice soon gave me enough confidence on the water to run the course a few times and play on the bottom wave.

The Aran club beefs obviously need their beauty sleep and didn’t join us until after lunch. They had the sense to take things one step at a time, and gradually made their way down the course from the railway bridge, whilst I had a good trashing in the middle stopper. Everyone seemed keen to improve their white water skills, and ability to read the river, though Mike and Dave seemed more bothered about practicing their swimming skills. We spent the rest of the day testing our rolling skills and preparing our nerves for the Tryweryn.

Back at the bunkhouse a ready steady cook challenge soon kicked off, with the green peppers making chicken fajitas and the red tomatoes rustling up a curry. Dinner was followed by horror stories involving rafts and rocks.

Day 2
Saturday morning was not a pretty sight, Ross had been ill all night and Chris and Simon had been kept awake by Andy’s snoring. The bunkhouse, though very rustic and quaint also had very thin walls… so the girls were woken early by the lads downstairs. We mustered up some motivation though and got kitted up for a safety talk (Ross was still mustering up other things, so stayed in bed Saturday). At the Tryweryn we split into smaller paddling groups, with Chris, Dennis and Andy in charge. The Ing’s and I had a great morning free of disasters. I leant some essential raft-dodging and eddy-hopping skills. The Aran club were not so lucky, Jacko snapped his paddle within minutes, and there were countless numbers of swims and pins. Later Jacko managed to split his boat as well. We left the Tryweryn course in the afternoon and followed the river down towards Bala, finding a set of paddles on the way, which put the splits back into reserve for a while. It was a fairly relaxing paddle, with a few grade 3 sections until

Bala Mill falls. This grade 4 drop scared a few of the Aran-not-so-beefys into walking round, but the rest of us navigated it safely under the cover of three throw lines and instructors in top, middle and bottom eddies. Wayne’s alternative route left his paddles jammed between two rocks at the top of a side chute, but Dennis managed to knock them free.

Day 3
Aches pains and blisters were beginning to dominate conversation by Sunday, but everyone quit their winging and bandaging to sing happy birthday to me (much appreciated guys). Jacko decided he was either cursed or jinxed and opted to be photographer for the day. Another awesome morning was spent on the Tryweryn on a release of 9 cumecs. Sally’s paddles, which had been lost during a swim on Saturday, were found, and the paddles found downstream were returned. Unfortunately a set of paddles died on me too, leaving me to navigate Elbow wave and N.R.A wave backwards with Anthony in hot pursuit. A dramatic, but great paddle-swapping C1 style rescue followed. Everyone was exhausted by lunchtime, after a challenging but hugely rewarding weekend.

Katy Hogarth

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