Welsh Adventures And ALMOST The Right River


(It's not concise, but I think today warrants a full write up!)


Ogwen


The day had finally come. The heavens had opened and the Lordy Lordy up above opened his flies and took a big piss on the lands below. All was looking good for the weekend, though levels didn't rise quite as much as expected. Come early Sunday morning, rainchasers was littered with far too many red and orange dots for our liking (apart from Scotland which had a flood warning on the BBC website). Still, the plans were in place and BBC promised some heavy scattered showers in North Wales so we weren't willing to turn back. 


Heading onto Rainbow Road. Mario Kart wooo!!!

An alcohol-scented Ben Thwaites arrived at sheds, with three hours sleep notched on his bedpost, whereas we're still waiting to find out the location of Rhys. Is he alive? Anyone? Meh... We racked up the boats anyway and set off to Asda on the Wirral for breakfast, which a) is at Ellesmere Port, not Queensferry, b) the replacement Asda we located is in a labyrinth of roundabouts and one way roads, and c) funnily enough isn't open at 8:40am on a Sunday.


Crossing into Wales with clear skies wasn't promising, but the further around the A55 we went, the grimmer and greyer it got...WOO! The rain fell, and heavy.

The heavens opened as we got closer.

Greg bossing the first rapid.

Pretty fun rapids from the start.

Arriving at the Ogwen get on, feelings were back to being excited. We mucked around at Ogwen Bank falls, and Greg, then Lloyd, then me ran it. Greg had a splendid line down it. I missed Lloyd's Allstar whiz by, and due to me focusing purely on the first section of the rapid, took the slide at the bottom very much sideways. But, I was very happy nevertheless.


The Ogwen below was straight into being challenging which a few people had wobbles and high braces on, but no trouble. The river bimbled down with some interest and we were caught up by a hungover (still drunk) Liam, Stu and Bumler. A technical and fun rapid marked the last point for anyone to decide to get off, then we continued downstream in pairs. Oh, wow, the Ogwen is good fun. Apparently better in higher levels but I was on cloud 9 with my first run of it.


Ruth popping out of her boat as though it was lined with butter.

Roughly half way down, Ruth somehow knocked the eject button on her boat and took a surprise swim but was able to hop out pretty quickly whilst me and Graham rescued her boat down the crux section of the river (note to self, run that section properly next time, it looked good!). We carried on, cluster-fudging most of the river in an unbroken chain of boats! 


The river was superb fun. I was loving life, as I'm sure a few others were; maybe not Liam who was having a rolly off day in his hungover state. Not much in the way of carnage.


At the end we got out, considered stringing one of the drivers boats from the bypass and then decided to take shelter from the pouring rain. Most people had decided to call that a day, but I know I wasn't ready to go home yet. Stamina, ey ladies  *vom*


One last drop before the get-out.

The Aberglaslyn (or maybe not after all!)


With much deliberation, me Grog and Graham set off in search of the Aberglaslyn Gorge much to my excitement of checking off two new rivers in a day. Problem was, without a map, satnav, smartphone signal, or a river guide, we were going off Stu's directions, which kind of ceased at 'a T junction' we would eventually get to. We stopped to ask for directions, from a couple, who turned out to be from Holland, but were able to confirm we were headed in the right direction. When we got to the village of Beddgellert, there was something reminiscent of a T-junction, and we turned up the road towards Caernarfon which sounded familiar from somewhere on UK Rivers Guidebook, and was upstream from the river flowing through the village. 


We could see the river looking pretty awesome from the road, but the drive seemed surprisingly far for a river you can apparently shoot quickly and walk back up. We found a side road and a man in his garden pointed us up to 'the get on' car park, which would turn out to be incorrect (he seemed suspiciously nice to us as kayakers....must've all been part of his elaborate plan!).

Much walking about, and a phonecall to the others (who were at the pub) suggested we were looking for a layby for the get on, but we hadn't spotted any on the drive up. We found another route which seemed about right, had a layby by a bridge and a clearing reminiscent of a get on. So we got on...

Just after getting on, moments before playing in a tree.


It couldn't have been 50m before a quick eddy out was necessary, on a river with low eddy offerings. Graham fell out of the back of his eddy, being flipped by a rock while Greg tried to hold on to him, and disappeared out of my view. The reason Greg had eddied out became clear that the river round the sharp bend was actually more of a narrow sieve through a tree, which Graham had disappeared through. I ploughed into the eddy they had been and sprung out of my boat whilst Greg had to grab another before hopping out. We ran downstream looking everywhere for Graham who wasn't in sight, and eventually found his boat pinned against a rock in the middle of the fast flowing river, with the bottom side facing us. It looked like something protruding from the cockpit was propping it up from underwater, which to our horror was potentially Graham. 


"I'm gone, Greg!"

Rolling up inside a tree...

Rolling up into a barbed wire fence...

Pushing himself UNDER said barbed wire fence...

Freeing the boat from its second pin location.

Greg clipped his line onto me and within seconds I was flipping Graham's boat to find it was empty, as it freed itself and started pulling me downstream full of water. Greg shouted to let it go and pulled me back in, and we continued to bomb down the banks through barbed wire, bogs, over walls and through thick bracken. Graham was just stumbling out of the water and we made sure he was okay before chasing his boat, which had become heavily pinned not too far further, down stream. It took a lot of effort to release it, lining it in to the side. 


Turns out Graham had gone through the trees upside down, rolled up, straight into a chest height barbed wire fence, which flipped him again and he lost his paddles and took the swim. No harm done though. Just a bump on the knee and a small cut to a finger.


We agreed to continue, and got back on. Not too far along, round another tight bend, a horizon line appeared, but with very few eddies to catch, we were near to the lip, apart from Graham who was at the back and found a nice eddy behind a rock. I eddied in as quick as I could, with Greg closer still. I was clambering out just as I turned round to see Greg with a look of "oh shit" plastered on his face, as his boat floated off down the rapid...he chose to rescue his paddles as the flow had claimed him, but his boat hadn't been so lucky. 


Greg in the distance watching his boat take on the first rapid.

Greg was in hot pursuit, whilst I checked Graham was okay to stay put, and clambered out and grabbed my line (which I had forgot to do on the Graham incident, take note. Don't forget to take your lines with you in emergencies like this!!). At this point, I received a hand full of brambles to stop myself falling in. Poor me...maybe not the worst off out of the three of us, but it did bloody hurt. I sprinted down looking for Greg, following footsteps through the undergrowth and checking the river. I'd ran a good distance when I spotted Grog still running at the opposite end of a field and bombed it across, struggling for breath. I caught up, with no sight of his boat yet, and Greg continued on downstream whilst I went back up to check the rapids in detail and to help Graham out safely. 


Me and Graham walked down the river and met Greg back at the point I'd originally caught up to him before. He'd been right the way down the river, reported that it looked amazing further down, and then as he walked up the road, spotted a flash of yellow from behind a great big rock which had obstructed our view previously. We live baited and got his boat back; only missing a couple of foam shims, and celebrated a successful rescue. By this time it was too late to risk any more epics, so unfortunately decided to get off.

Greg hopping over to grab his boat, NINJA STYLE!

High-Fives after a successful rescue!


Turned out, right where Greg's boat was pinned was actually the REAL get on for the Glaslyn. Oh, and while we're at it, on the drive back we explained where we'd gone to Stu, who went away and looked up that we'd actually been on the Afon Colwyn - a grade 4/5 river according to the web! That WASN’T the get on for the Glaslyn; we’d not actually been on the Glaslyn at all!! We were supposed to cross the bridge at Bedgellert and take the South fork of the river, which we hadn't realised existed!!! 


Well, all in all, a fantastic day, with a few lessons learned. No one was injured and all kit remains (although Graham's boat needs a very slight nose job), but next time I think to DEFINITELY take a map and/or a guide with us!!


On a second note, the river we did find ourselves on should be a great run to return to next time, just getting on slightly lower; and maybe, just maybe, we'll actually go to the Glaslyn next time too!!