Midweek fun on the Dee

Tim showing everyone how it's done

After a very last minute decision, 5 intrepid adventurers decided to bumble off to the Dee for the day. We decided to paddle up the canal from Llangollen, realising half way up that we had probably put on too much kit, but deciding that the only chance we had of cooling down, binning ourselves in the canal, wasn’t the best idea.

We got on the river set off, first up was serpents. Ben and Ben paddled it first, Ben Waller staying in the middle of the two drops (are they classified as drops?) to fish anyone (me) out if (when) they fell in. I then went down, and swam after the first drop, inevitably. Tim followed me and managed to stay dry, as did Rob, both of them taking a decent line, with Rob almost getting swallowed by the hole at the bottom. I then went back for round two and with the help of Ben Mason, managed to stay the right way up. We also met up with Liam and Fred who had decided to leave their paddles at home and go down the river in home-made hand paddles.  We continued to paddle downstream, stopping at the bottom of some rapids to play and practise surfing, Tim managing to do a 180 before being pushed out of the wave. I fell in, again.

Happy paddlers

After considerably more time paddling, we came up to Tower Falls. We all agreed to try it, with Ben and Ben going down first. Unknown to us, after they had gone down the weir at the top, they decided it was maybe not such a good idea for me to paddle it due to the low water level, but blissfully ignorant, the three of us set off. Tim went first, and managed to complete the falls without getting a binned for the second time, meaning he had avoided being on the wrong side of the water for the entire day. I went second, narrowly survived the weir and then swam after the first drop. Rob also managed to stay dry.

All in all it was a very successful day, with Ben Waller managing to get in quite lot of coaching practise and Ben Mason declaring that ‘the Dee was actually worth paddling for a change’. We finished the day off nicely with a trip to the pub.

In case you were wondering what the inside of Liam's mouth looks like

When Liverpool took the GRRR to BUCS Polo

GRRR

In a show of remarkable anti-faff, the minibus set off to find our budding refs in what must be record time (thanks to Adi for his help with vehicle re-arranging).  Unfortunately for all concerned, this was apparently too long for Mike’s bladder…

Saturday started far too early with a mass boat-fixing session at 6.30am, 5 rolls of gaffa tape later (most of) our boats snuck their way through the scrutinizers.  The boys started as they meant to continue with a 6-0 whitewash of Aston.  The girls held off ULU ladies for the first half, but some crack shots meant an unfortunate loss.  The boys then had a brilliant 2-1 win over Loughborough; this game was the birthplace of some signature moves – the Alan Barry header and the Graham self-bin (we’ll ignore the binning yourself on the ropes from a certain secretary who’ll remain nameless…).

Next up saw the ladies taking on Lancaster, despite a great effort and some good shots at goal, unfortunately the scoreline (yet again) didn’t reflect the play.  There was time for a lot of sun-bathing and heckling at other matches / supporting a very day-glo Ant, before the boys had their toughest match yet…Sheffield Hallam.  Despite some fantastic play, and being one of the first teams to actually score against them, the eventual champions pushed us out of the top 12. 

Now onto something Liverpool are unbeatable at – partying (and tying Tolly to trees).  With some great fancy dress efforts from the boys (if only there was photographic evidence of Gareth), and a very co-ordinated water-pistol toting team of cat women, there isn’t a lot else that can be said.

For the girls, Sunday morning came round very quickly (6.30 am sort of quickly), but we had a grudge match to play.  Still wearing bright red lipstick, our unusual warm-up came into its own, and despite (or more likely because of) York trying their best to have us forfeit a game due to a clerical cock-up, we took a 1-0 (should have been 2-0 but we’re not very good at hearing whistles!) victory, witnessed by only a select few who could be bothered to make it out of bed.  We had found our inner grrrr!  With barely time for a quick leg-stretch, and still before most of the boys had stumbled out of bed we were back on the pitch against Sheffield Hallam.  It was a valiant effort from all, and we certainly gave them a real fight, but despite another great goal from Ailsa, we couldn’t hold out against the machine that is Lou’s shooting arm, and meant that the girls finished a very respectable 14^th of twenty-something teams.

The boys were back and Loughborough were still smarting from their defeat yesterday, it was close but they had a score to settle and took the win. (Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to drag Tolly from his bed the night that Ben had to leave us??).  They then went on to play both Southampton and Cambridge, which both culminated in a nail-biting golden goal.  Despite shots at goal going left, right and (unfortunately not) centre the boys had to settle for 12^th position.

A brilliant and wonderfully sunny weekend was had by all, with a big thanks to Ant (who was robbed of a bronze medal in the Old Gits league) and Ailsa for organising and being generally fab this year.  A massive well-done to Gareth, Ellie and Schneids for qualifying as refs.  I don’t think the score really reflect quite how well everyone played, and improved over the weekend – a massive congratulations to all those who played their first ever polo matches this weekend.

Finally I think we have all learned some important life lessons:  pee before you get on the minibus (or bring an appropriate receptacle), duo polo is the future, roaring is bad for your voice but great for your playing, and don’t ever forget to bring the GRRRR!

Advanced WW Skills on the Tees

Wednesday marked our final day of Advanced WW Skills coaching with Paul Bull. An early start saw Dom, Schneids and myself off to the Tees with an epic 3 hour journey with plenty of rain- enough that the Tees would rise a good inch during the time we were on the water.

The morning session took place on a small double-drop rapid beneath low force. With good levels the three of us, and Derek who joined us, practiced old skills and stokes from previous sessions, showing how beginning a rapid with a good line generally meant a good line out of it. Having been avoiding the correct line due to thinking I actually was several feet to the right of myself I proved this well, taking a roll and the advice to “Stop paddling like a canoe-er!” on board. By the end of the session my line was almost matching Dom’s, who had since moved on to the auto-boof on the other side. On our final run, I planned to show Paul how far I had come under his careful guidance. Unfortunately the mention of lunch and the crowd of cheering school children put me off, and I took the glory of the worst line of the lot. With the thought of what was to come after lunch, Schneids and I practiced our rolls, and we got off.

Schneids' first run of the day

Dom takes the auto-boof

The Spud line- a common sight that day

After lunch we took a run up to Dog Leg, a grade 4 rapid that thankfully looks worse than it is! Derek and Paul set up safety on the bank. This turned out to be the wrong bank when Schneid’s boat spent time making love to eddy on the far side, (Unfortunately didn’t see what happened to Schneids but she definitely didn’t swim! ;) ) leaving it up to me to rescue it. Me, who is well known for rescuing kit... This rescue was on the same level of tact as the Vice-Captaincy speech, but eventually it was done after several previous attempts of trying to snag it with a sling and carabiner, pushing it out of an eddy with a paddle, shouting at it profusely… Schneid’s second attempt of training her wild Burn was more successful despite taking the dry line over the rocks. Not as a portage- she was still in her boat at the time!

The equivalent of asking a child to do brain surgery

Dom rocked up, all smugly modest and styled it first run, and proved that running the Dog-Leg itself actually seemed to make the line easier when he barely managed to get a paddle stroke between drops due to his speed, yet still made the corner effortlessly. After my first attempt concluded in another roll, my second was slightly more successful after sticking right and having time to contemplate my fear whilst amongst the boils.

Dog-leg

With time running out, the three of us carried on down to meet Paul and Derek at Low Force, pausing at a Grade 3 rapid that’s really difficult to scout from your boat but didn’t need scouted anyway! A lesson was learnt to slow down, and don’t get stuck downstream of a rapid when the entry to the easier drop was on the other side of the river, too far upstream to be made. Dom and I ran the slotty side, Schneid’s was wise enough to hold back and got a good line on the drop on the river right.

At Low Force, Paul ran us through the basics of boofing again. Easy! Gnar was hucked, tits were browned.

Dom on Low Force

Fortunately placed drop

Before

After

Needless to say that despite Paul’s amazing efforts at coaching us lot, boofing is still out of grasp currently!

We quickly ran the far left chute, Dom hammered it, and Schneids managed to actually run it upstream, wow! (Lol) Having not actually ran that beasty drop, we continued on down to the initial rapid, which had beefed up considerably thanks to the morning’s rainfall. Not having thought much of it, Dom,   Schneids and I blinded on down it. Only when in the middle of the drop did we realise that the line had since changed from right to left. Needless to say, I didn’t get either line and ran it straight center into the hole, and then spent some time upside down, using my paddles to push myself away from the rocks in the eddy I had made. Dom and Schneids followed looking as surprised as I did, but we all got off, laughing.

Looking a tad higher than this morning

Again, a massive thanks to Paul for his efforts to make us good boaters in three days! Let yourself rest easy knowing that because of your work with us, the freshers of LUCC next year are a lot safer now that we actually have some clue how to do this kayaking thing!

Sometimes it rains in wales

Water

After much faff regarding the arrangements of the trip, five excited kayakers arrived at sheds. As we ventured into wales we noticed that there seemed to be a fair bit of water about. Myself, Liam and Tolly arrived at Betws-y-Coed first and stood around comparing lines over chip shop falls, soon after Hannah and Stu Haywood turned up followed closely by Gareth and Dom.

After a bit of decision making we headed off to paddle the Conwy. As we began to change in the rain Gareth soon realised he was missing a deck, so he kindly agreed to be shuttle bitch for the day. With the Conwy on high we zoomed down the upper section in no time without any hiccups. At this point Dom and Hannah jumped off.

It's a portage... (the first grade 5)

Continuing at a good pace we headed on into the middle Conwy. We bumbled down the river until we got to the first grade five. After a short inspection we all agreed there was some possibility of a safe line however we all also agreed that none of us was going to make it and would instead get destroyed in the huge, undercut, boiling hole at the bottom. The portage which Liam and Tolly didn’t enjoy was quick and whilst getting on and attempting to drop into Liam’s eddy I managed to get washed down stream, to which Liam decided it was best just to find me later. When we were all back on the water we headed towards the second grade 5 at which point Tolly decided to jump off. After running the lead in rapid we hopped out for an inspection. Stu decided he wished to run the drop so I headed down to be a safety boat. After getting on I attempted to set up in an ideal safety position however ended up flushed down the next few rapids with the words “there’s a deadly falls soon” on loop in my head. Liam watching this then noticed Stu had already broken out and was heading for the drop. With only an unpacked throw bag and stuck in a spectator position he watched as Stu was back looped several times and finally flushed from the drop. After some confused signalling between me and Liam everyone eventually with a lot of faffing got off the river and made it to the car park.

Nantygwryd - no fields in sight

We then after checking options headed off to the Afon Nantygwryd a small spate river that more or less runs down what must normally be a stream in a farmer’s field. After getting kitted up myself, Liam and Stu headed to the put in deciding to miss the rock slides at the top. Liam getting on spent

All the best rivers have wires across them

some time deciding whether Dom driving his car or the spate river which we were about to run worried him more. As soon as we left the put in (the least sunk section of a field) the narrow river quickly got steeper. After dodging under a wire we soon became to close and started playing bumper boats down the rapids which resulted in a roll for Liam. Getting off just in time we inspected another grade 5 which looked painful and portaged. The river then began to level off and we found that we were putting more effort into paddling against the wind than the rapids. We finally reached the last rapid where a small fan group of ours had assembled. Stu and Liam ran the drop getting good lines. I then jumped on and managed to get it a fairly wrong. My nose hit a huge rock stopping me, I then fell sideways into a hole and got briefly acquainted with the river bed.

Greg Styling the last drop

After jumping off we headed for a well-earned pint and meal in Betws-y-Coed.

Scotland Trip 2013 According to Schneids (and Ben) - Part 2

Also starring – Hannah Draper, Stu Haywood, Squirrel, Penny, and other miscellaneous ‘Olds’

Dick of the Day:

·         Thursday – Liam – for apparently saying he would run safety for Kim’s group on one of the rapids on the Garry and then paddling off.

·         Friday – Chris – for not swimming on the Garry when Jack Ward spread the rumour that he had after seeing his boat on the bank. Everyone except me was disappointed as it was my kit he was rescuing when the accusation was made.

·         Saturday – Dom - for ruining Loser is a Cat by throwing the pen into someone’s garden.

Boater X!!!

FRIDAY - Upper Garry

Friday began with hungover paddlers wandering out of their rooms at various times. Stu was the most drunk and correspondingly the last to appear. We mooched over to the Garry again, where there were even more kayakers than yesterday due it being a Bank Holiday. Several people get loser points for not paddling although to be fair Gabby was in A&E having a broken toe diagnosed (or not as the Scots are stingy with their X-ray machines). Chris’s Dream Team ran the upper section once as a big group with zero points except Jack’s roll, well done to Tim for zero swims on rapids OR eddy lines, then me Chris and Jack hiked up again for another run. At the get in we found ourselves sharing an eddy with a Squirrel! Hannah joined us in a red rocker – didn’t recognize her without the signature pink WRSI. Haywood followed shortly after, his new yellow Shiva being met with several comments along the lines of “have you got it pinned yet?”. Our second run was more eventful – the epic ferry glide across the full width of the river was not achieved by Jack , who then rolled in the same hole as before. I had a small mishap concerning the biggest hole on the river and my boat did the next rapid unpiloted before Chris rescued it without swimming himself – my hero of the day, everyone else’s dick of the day…

Picnic lunch was followed by BoaterX! Order of finishing, all quite close: Liam, Greg, Chris, Ben, Adi, Dom (who rolled at the finish) and Spud.

No Olds were harmed in the making of this photo

Friday was BIG PARTY NIGHT in Roy Bridge Hotel bar with all the olds and the two men with their accordion and guitar, otherwise known as Off The Rails! Lots of alcohol was consumed. The Greenwoods started off the mad drunk dancing, rapidly joined by Penny, Will Potts, me, Hannah and Stu, then most other people. Dan (bullshitter) started a new tradition – kissing the boar’s head on the wall. One by one he lifted us up on his shoulders to kiss the boar, I’m not sure it was anyone’s most pleasant experience of the week unless they were really desperate! Dan and Adi had an epic game of Loser is a Cat outside, which ended catastrophically when Dom dashed out of the pub and got involved, stealing the pen and throwing it over a garden wall. He disappeared ninja-like as speedily as he had arrived. When asked to explain his actions the next day, he said: “Everyone was outside so the best way to get them back inside was to get rid of the pen.”. Despondent at the untimely demise of Loser of a Cat, we trudged [staggered] back inside for a second rendition of The Roybridge Song! It was enthusiastic, it was loud, it was Scottish, tune didn’t feature largely… it’s hard to describe, you kind of had to be there…

Custard is good!!!

Back in the bunkhouse, custard (but not the lumps because Ade ate them selectively) got everywhere including all over Dan, JJ and Kim (thankfully not the toaster this time like the jelly). I tried to go to bed but was interrupted by Dan bursting in insisting he wanted to spoon with Chris - little spoon, if anyone was wondering.

Our Trip Sec Stuart Earnshaw slept through the whole thing. He must have overdone it the night before, bless. You snooze you lose….

SATURDAY – Etive and Allt a’ Chaorainn (sort of)

"Paddling"

Kaptain Kim learnt to levitate

Dom set off on a long winter walk, the rest of us headed to the Etive, doubtfully noting all the ice on the lead in and tributaries as we drove up the glen… We found the Etive to be on superscrape level so walked up a tributary, the Allt a’ Chaorainn, and threw rocks at all the floating ice. Adi slid down a bit in his drysuit, Liam whipped off his fluffy duck onesie and slid down stark bollock naked (and no I am not writing this on 1^st April – it was immortalized on GoPro, like most of our Scotland trip). It was lovely and sunny so we decided to have a picnic lunch, get into our kit and mess around on the Allt a’ Chaorainn and see if the level rose during the afternoon with snowmelt. Liam was the only one who carried his boat up to run Chasm and Ecstasy minus the lead-ins, and Speed which sounded a lot like scrapebangscrapebumpslpash. Stu and Adi also ran Speed, without a deck or paddles! He gave Pinball a miss as there was really no water and Adi, Fiona and Spud ground to a halt trying to swim down it. We all jumped off into one of the pools. We also jumped off the bridge at the bottom, and several spots off the cliffs around Chasm. Style points for Adi for a back somersault off the bridge. However we avoided the very bottom pool as Gareth got a bit too friendly with a dead deer which crept up on him from behind – girly shriek recorded on GoPro for ever more!

Liverpool University Gorge Walking Club

Look behind you!!

Spud, Kim and Fiona gorgewalked up most of the river, with a pause on Ecstasy to try the slide into teacup eddy, best enjoyed on your elbow pads and toe tips. Fiona however made holes the willy-zip-flap of her drysuit and wandered around shouting “I made a boo-boo!” pointing at her crotch. Spud managed to stand on her bumzip as she got up, undoing it, and getting her whole right leg wet. It was fun but very chilly, and only Chris, Stu, Gareth, Jack, Tim, Adi and me stayed in kit for nipping up to session Triple Step, the first set of drops on the Etive which had risen by mid afternoon. I ran it a few times – Triple 3 is still my favourite drop! Tim took a sneaky swim and Jack nearly joined him by getting pinned at 90 degres with no paddles and having to implore Greg for a T-rescue. I got off to take photos of Stu, Adi, Gareth and Chris doing BoaterX down Triple Step: not sure who won out of Stu and Adi, and Chris and Gareth battled it out on Triple 2 with Chris landing on top of Gareth and binning [the term binning is harsh here, Chris just landed on Gareth’s stern] him with a fierce grimace, then laughed as Gareth failed to roll up against the wall. The photos tell the story… BoaterX = no rules!

 

What everyone else missed out on

 

Last night and one hour of sleep lost… Greg was voted (unanimously?) Wanker of the Week.

SUNDAY – Upper Tummel

A big cooked breakfast, some cleaning and we left Grey Corrie Lodge behind for another year. Half the people got on to paddle the Tummel, looking very similar to when we declared it too bony a week ago. It was described to me as a few fun ledges and one 4+ but otherwise scrapy rocks causing much pinning and technicals! We watched them paddle the 4+ - it was fine if you were upright but not somewhere you wanted to be upside down and there was a chance of landing on a rock. No one messed it up too much, some portaged, and they continued downriver. We drove down to choose a get-off for them. We were tempted to make them (especially Stu and Liam ) paddle the 2km of flat following the interesting section but the driver wasn’t that mean and wanted to get home! We stopped by a chute-y double drop with a big curler/cushion wave on the last bit. Everyone ran this fine and braced off the curler except Tim who tried to James-Tomkin style it.

We racked up and headed off into the lovely sunset.

We finished our Scotland trip with two A&E trips, well over 100gig of footage from 6 GoPros, and thousands of photos which you can peruse at your leisure on Facebook. The Swim Chart should be available to see – Spud, Iain and Gabby and Tim were all vying for who could get the most points. [who won?]. Sadly, the swim chart didn’t total enough for either of the hero[moron]-boaters to go skinny dipping in a river of everyone else’s choice.

A huge thank you to everyone who came, drove, organised, lead, seconded, rescued, cooked, cleaned, washed up, navigated, DJed, filmed, photographed and ultimately PADDLED.

Schneids (and Ben)