The Tree Infested Gwyrfai

A Day on the Gwyrfai from Chris Kayley on Vimeo.

Well the day started off promising, with an early wakeup call and a good chance of rain.  Thankfully no-one was late and we packed up relatively quickly.  As it was the only space left I had to ride in Dom’s car, which some of us would soon later regret.  We set off at top speed, at first falling behind due to hitting every red light out of Liverpool.  But as soon as Dom saw that variable speed limit his foot hit the floor tearing down the motorway to catch up with Liam and Stu.  After catching them up and falling into the convoy Dom decided to lead the pack for a few minutes by racing past an enthusiastic Stu and a very worried Liam.

Anyway, a couple of hours down the line we decide to take a stop to check river levels and choose the river we wanted to run.  Unfortunately the forecast by this point had changed from lots of rain in Wales to practically none; I mean come on this is Wales!  After much debate of which would be best either going back up to the Dee (which Tolly did not like all!) or go the Gwyrfai, there was also talk of possibly going on a model steam train which Greg got really excited about.

After much debate we decided to go the Gwyrfai, and about 40 mins we arrived at the get on which consisted pretty much of a bog on one side and woodland on the other.  So we decided on jumping over the wall right next to the river (we were told to be inconspicuous about it but tbh 12 people with multi-colored kayaks on the side of a busy road, could you be anymore but).  So after waiting for Stu and Dom to get back from dropping off the cars and Liam and Tolly making their way round the bridge’s stanchion, split into two groups, we were off.

Now at first it was quite a nice river, a little low, but still nice.  Until we hit our first tree (this was the first of many!).  Instead of portaging we tried to see if we could fit under and we did, so one by one we leant back and pushed ourselves through. Straight after was a rapid not a big one mind, but i thought it would be a good time to test out my brand new dry suit, and found out that it probably wasn’t the best idea as it was very shallow!

After we made our way through these obstacles we were over taken by the other group which we then didn’t see until they were climbing out of their boats for the first portage.  Along the way we encountered alot of very stubborn rocks poking out of the water and a few trees here and there but none we had to go under.  The first portage that we encountered left Tolly’s feet quite cold as rather than everyone getting out of their boats he was a top lad and dragged everyone over (not exactly far to go just  a meter).  So cheer himself up he started singing and then didn’t stop for the rest of the river. 



Dom styling the wier

Many more rocky encounters later we came to the second tree across the river but this one however was not passable, so go out of our boats and walked around and most of us got back on without any trouble, I say most of us as Fiona slid in and hit the bottom of the river with one end still on the bank.  It took a few attempts but she was finally free and we set off once more not realising at this point there were many more rocks and trees to face.  Unfortunately I can’t recall in which order things happened as there was defined sections, so I’ll give a small summary to finish of the river. 

There was one more tree that at first we thought we had to go around but Liam decided to brave it and squeezed through so we all followed suit.  However, there was one person that got stuck twice getting back into their boat and took about 10 mins before he emerged under the tree, I will not mention any names (Graham).  There was a couple of more portages that required de-treeing, luckily Stu and Liam had brought their saws and made short work of mother nature.  Many more rocks and low lying trees brought us to the big drop of the day, which was quite traumatic for some, Fiona, as she got stuck feet first in a hole with her back end high out of the water (I did not witness this unfortunately, but according to others Liam was torn between putting down his GoPro and helping Fiona).  

After the drop we all made safely to the get off and tried to get changed inconspicuously in the local supermarket car park.

We decided to go to the nearest seaside town, Caernarfon, and get some chips.  This however was not so simple as we lost Stu and Liam and drove past them but one the bridge above them.  So we turned around and drove all around the town and underneath to find them eventually we gave up and parked in the nearest car park and met up with them at the chippy, to be greeted by the local Welshman saying he got banned from going on the river we had just been on.

After we had filled our bellies with fish, chips and sausages we headed back to Liverpool for hot showers and warm beds.

Gareth