So onto day 3 and the glorious river Findhorn. After a very
long drive to get there, with much singing from myself, I think it was safe to
say that everyone was glad to be out of the minibus and get as far away from me
and my incessant karaoke, as possible. Be that with or without a kayak. I chose
the kayak-less option mid grade 4 rapid but we’ll get on to that bit…
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| Downstream of Dulsie bridge |
We got on at Dulsie bridge spending a short time finding
appropriate girl-friendly wee spots and scouting the rapid above. This was
quite a fast flowing grade 4 with a couple of drops, a large (and unfortunately
inviting) rock and a couple of curly waves with an annoying habit of pushing a
large proportion of the days swimmers in at the last minute.
I was clad in full kayaking attire along with a temporary
addition of a stylish Dick of the Day T shirt. I had earned this for the
offences of: trying to confuse Harry at the top of a rapid; nearly burning
Meg’s arm off with the bunk house’s hob (a terrifying mixture of
enthusiastically big flames, unpredictable knob-turning and rather small
matches); and leaving 2 kg of mince meant for that night’s chilli comfortably
chilling in our freezer in Liverpool.
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| The rapid at the get on |
Before getting on I watched Charles have a fight with an
extremely dodgy eddy line at the top of the rapid, helpfully showing us it was
swim friendly. This was shortly followed by a double roll from Josh who proved
that it was also runnable backwards. With some trepidation and a lot of resignation
to the fact that I would likely be sans boat at the end, we got on and with
Callum leading I made it down a good ¾ of the rapid before the inevitable
underwater adventure from myself. Not to worry, as I soon found that I had lots
of swimmy friends in the form of Sarah, Meg, Maeve and John. Gaby, who had
expertly predicted 6 swims to Jordan was especially smug watching this carnage
unfold from the bridge above.
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| Gaby and Hannah watching the carnage unfold... |
Once reunited with our boats we set off again,
Mog-a-training the first few bimbles before splitting off into groups.
Descending into Levens Gorge we got out and watched some of the more
experienced paddlers take on a tricky drop which contained (in Jack’s eloquent
description) “a disgusting slotty mess”. All who gave it a go expertly avoided
said slotty mess, although some were more inside of their boats than others at
the bottom. I gave exactly no help to one of the swimmers when I dyspraxically
half threw-half dropped my throwline in the close vicinity of no one. After
these valiant efforts to help out we all got back on and continued down.
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| Phil becoming extremely intimate with the rapid... |
The rest of the river was really fun. I performed what I
later explained was “a really cool whooshy move that felt awesome” as I caught
a tongue around a hole that would later do its best to get to know Sarah
better. After that it was pretty much plain sailing. Well, apart from a number
of rolls from Josh and an entertaining roll train from Fiona and myself on the
same eddy line. We got out for sandwiches and a catch up before skipping (it
was cold) joyfully back down to the river to do the last bimble to Logie bridge,
where Josh decidedit was time to show us once again just how good he is at
rolling. All in all a fun day and lots of wetness experienced by most. Hurrah!
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