On the first weekend of term we had two consecutive beginners' trips. In a break with tradition both days were nice and sunny and we didn't give anyone hypothermia. We are very pleased with our neew recruits so far, they seem to have a high standerd of chat and everyone seemed dead keen out on the river.
Saturday: Lower orchy and Awe
Two river days on freshers' trips are practically unheard of, but this was one. We began with the lower orchy which gave us plenty of opportunity to go through breaking in and out, ferry gliding and facial injury (amber's nose got a bit friendly with a sharp rock). After this we headed off and had a quick (interupted by many swims and Chris going hypo) blast down the awe. Swim total: 16
Sunday: Teith
The Teith is shit
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Dragon Weekend
As part of a long held annual Gucc tradition (started last year), we had a nice little trip to Wales for a paddle at the National white water centre, Canolfan Tryweryn. Unfortunately it would seem that the environment agency think that stopping people’s houses getting flooded and making sure they have water to drink is more important than kayaking so there was no dam release on the Tryweryn on Sunday and we had to paddle the Dee.
Anyway the minibus left Glasgow on Friday at some point and began the very long drive south, I was not on it as I was already in Wales, which was good as six hour bus trips are shit. The bus arrived at a campsite which had already told us we weren’t welcome but then let us in anyway because they were nice, not like the bastards at Ty’n Cornel campsite last year. On Saturday morning we arrived at Canolfan Tryweryn to find they have introduced parking charges, an outrage. A few of us, along with some pikey from Bath uni, had a quick blast down the top section before meeting up with everyone else to paddle the section from the centre down to Bala. This is a very nice little jaunt mainly grade two with the odd grade three most of the way down. We only had one swim, which is so unusual on club trips as to be almost spooky. At the end of this section is Bala Mill falls, a nice (only just) grade four. Only Louise was man enough to paddle the leet at this point with everyone else taking the easy option of running the falls. Louise did well making up for her swim at this point last year and everyone survived despite Fraser almost running it upside down.
In the afternoon everyone got on and ran the international section, a fun and short 3+/4-. No swims occurred and all was well, we even survived the rafts. After a walk back up to run it again we headed back to the campsite and then out to sample the nightlife of Bala. The night life of Bala was so good that we were back at the campsite by 10p.m.
On Sunday we drove over to Llangollen to paddle the Dee. They charge you to paddle the Dee, which is a joke and makes me ashamed to be Welsh. We got on above Serpent’s Tail where we had the odd swimmer but nothing major before heading on down to have a play at the slalom site by the old mill. The river didn’t really have all that much water in it but it was fun enough. After this everyone else had a really long drive home, I didn’t.
As part of a long held annual Gucc tradition (started last year), we had a nice little trip to Wales for a paddle at the National white water centre, Canolfan Tryweryn. Unfortunately it would seem that the environment agency think that stopping people’s houses getting flooded and making sure they have water to drink is more important than kayaking so there was no dam release on the Tryweryn on Sunday and we had to paddle the Dee.
Anyway the minibus left Glasgow on Friday at some point and began the very long drive south, I was not on it as I was already in Wales, which was good as six hour bus trips are shit. The bus arrived at a campsite which had already told us we weren’t welcome but then let us in anyway because they were nice, not like the bastards at Ty’n Cornel campsite last year. On Saturday morning we arrived at Canolfan Tryweryn to find they have introduced parking charges, an outrage. A few of us, along with some pikey from Bath uni, had a quick blast down the top section before meeting up with everyone else to paddle the section from the centre down to Bala. This is a very nice little jaunt mainly grade two with the odd grade three most of the way down. We only had one swim, which is so unusual on club trips as to be almost spooky. At the end of this section is Bala Mill falls, a nice (only just) grade four. Only Louise was man enough to paddle the leet at this point with everyone else taking the easy option of running the falls. Louise did well making up for her swim at this point last year and everyone survived despite Fraser almost running it upside down.
In the afternoon everyone got on and ran the international section, a fun and short 3+/4-. No swims occurred and all was well, we even survived the rafts. After a walk back up to run it again we headed back to the campsite and then out to sample the nightlife of Bala. The night life of Bala was so good that we were back at the campsite by 10p.m.
On Sunday we drove over to Llangollen to paddle the Dee. They charge you to paddle the Dee, which is a joke and makes me ashamed to be Welsh. We got on above Serpent’s Tail where we had the odd swimmer but nothing major before heading on down to have a play at the slalom site by the old mill. The river didn’t really have all that much water in it but it was fun enough. After this everyone else had a really long drive home, I didn’t.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
An Alpine Adventure: 2010
An 11am meeting at the main shed saw Glasgow University Canoe Club set out for our annual trip to the French Alps ahead of time. A horribly long drive, with as few rest breaks as possible, saw us arrive in l’Argentier la Bessée late in the evening. Quickly pitching our tents, we headed for our reward: our first proper meal in France.
In the morning, we faffed around a bit, moving tents and generally recovering from the journey down, before heading to the Lower Durance and paddling the Sunshine Run as our first river. As ever, the first run of the holidays claimed a paddler: Emma. After some lunch we returned to the campsite, and a few brave souls descended on the slalom course…soon to be chasing Fraser’s vacant kayak down it. Just as we were having dinner, the lucky sods that’d gotten to fly across arrived.
Day two saw us return to the Sunshine run, this time it was Michael who ended up swimming, as he and TomTom collided while surfing. This one was unpleasant as he ended up having to jump back in the river to reach where his boat had drifted to. The Upper Guisane was next on our hit-list of rivers, and it proved great fun! Running significantly higher than normal, it presented a manageable challenge for the Alpine virgins in the group. Arriving at S-bends (the one named rapid on the river), there was an increased sense of trepidation than normal, and our group (Alpha Squad) had bank support set up as a precaution. Seeing the steps being taken, Emma opted for the better part of valour, and walked round the rapid. Everyone in Alpha Squad got down successfully, with Bravo Squad close on our tail. They all got down the rapid alright, but some instructional confusion caused Harry to capsize and swim, while Sean’s over-zealousness to rescue him saw him drift into a tree, jam his paddles in said tree, capsize and swim clear, followed by some of his outfitting. Seeing the carnage unfolding here, TomTom and Mike stayed behind to assist in the clean-up. Everything was tidied up in short order, and we continued down the river, arriving rather abruptly at the weir, which sucked Emma back in and capsized her…only for her to manage her first ever river roll! Tom’s cheering, along with Emma’s beaming smile at this turn of events, lasted the remaining stretch of river.
Following the success of the previous day, Ben decided that we should try and get three rivers done in one day. To this end, we headed to the Gyronde (in the hopes of paddling the Gyr and the Onde afterwards). This did not happen. Within a few hundred metres of the get-on Amy capsized and swam. While attempting to get across to the eddy I had slid into, Emma capsized, and despite another successful roll, she capsized again and swam. Just after being sent up to get the bus keys and stop the other group from getting on the river, I saw something else bobbing past: Fraser’s airbag…closely followed by Gregor’s kayak. Eventually everyone was located and collected, and most of the kayaks pinned in places where they could be retrieved on a second run of the river – but Amy’s kayak had drifted past me half-an-hour earlier. Upon returning to the camp-site, and confirming Edinburgh Uni had seen it go past, Mike, Harry and I jumped in the minibus to retrieve it before it went into the lake at the bottom of the valley. Mike’s freakishly good eyesight spotted it pinned on some rocks only a few kilometres below the slalom course, and after some near-off-road driving and some ninja-rope tricks, we were driving back, victorious, with Amy’s kayak. A major welding session took place that evening, with Fraser and Amy both repairing their kayaks, and Gregor popping a dent out of the nose of his. In fact, despite the sheer level of carnage, the only casualty was Fraser’s airbag and left shoe!
After this day of carnage, another three-river day was planned: this time the Middle Clarée, Lower Clarée and the Onde. This was scuppered pretty quickly, as the Middle Clarée put off all but two of those allowed to get on. The Lower Clarée proved to be a nice warm-up river for Cat who had arrived the previous evening. Cat and I had been on this river once before, and remembered it being a twelve kilometre long drift, and though this time it was easy, it wasn’t quite that easy. At the end, discussions were had about where to go, and it was decided to return to the slalom course and do training. When we arrived, it started to rain, so rather than getting on the river, we decided to play volleyball. This was great fun, until a block by Sean caused Fraser to fall hard, leading to a hospital trip and some bad news: he’d broken his foot.
With the water levels dropping slightly, we realised that the Brianҫon Gorge. Arriving there, and seeing the cacophony of water ploughing through the barrage, only a few brave souls decided to take on the challenge. A successful, no-swim run, and we decided to head back to the Upper Guisane, where Emma’s weir stuck again; this time causing her to swim. Still having time left for a short river, the convoy made its way to the Onde, onto which only seven of the group got on, two rolls and a swim halfway down encouraged two of them to get off. This tightly packed day left everyone shattered, so we had our meal out. We went to Guillestre, to a small restaurant called Chez Antoine, and the meal was amazing!
The following day was our rest day, which normally means only one thing: go karting! Unfortunately, as this was not a weekend, this was not an option. In the morning, Tom Jenkins decided that he didn’t want a rest day, he wanted more kayaking, so set off with Leeds to do the Lower Clarée and the Gyronde. In exchange, we got Mike, who had battered his head on some inconspicuous section of the Upper Guisane the previous day. Since go-karting proved to be an impossibility, we headed to Brianҫon to explore the castle…though this proved to be on too much of an incline to be practical for Fraser. Ben and Sean organised a barbeque for the evening, with one part of it being used more as projectiles and stink bombs than as food. Anthony arrived late at night, completing the group.
For our seventh day, and as a post-night-out paddle, we headed on what could only be classed as a mini expedition, paddling the Lower Guil and Lower Durance (23 kilometres worth of river) in one go. We headed back to the camp-site to watch the slope jam, only to discover that it had been postponed due to high water. Instead we played Leeds University at volleyball, and despite our previous efforts in hospitalising our good players, schooled them.
No two days of kayaking can be productive, so we spent forever messing about the next morning, before finally making our way to the Upper Guisane. Only the section to S-bends was paddled before Anthony swum, going down most of the daunting rapid out with the protective cocoon of his kayak, catching the whole thing on head-cam. So that was hospital trip #2 – though at least it only led to some pain killers. This was also the evening of the Boat-o-cross, for which we had three entries: TomTom and Mike in the Intermediate Mens, and Amy in the Intermediate Womens. TomTom could have won his race, if not for an unfortunate eddy-line capsize, followed by an even more unfortunate encounter with a rock (which led to hospital trip #3 and another set of crutches!), while Mike and Amy each finished about half-way up the field. Undeterred, Mike then went on to win the Inflate-o-cross, celebrating by revealing nearly all in a mankini. A poorly thought out party spoiled the atmosphere generated by the event, but pizza from the usual hut made up for it.
The following morning, a number of people were suffering from hangovers, but we managed to set off at a reasonable time for the Guil. The ‘Cripple Car’ went to hospital for TomTom, while the other car and minibus went to run some rivers new to (nearly) everyone present. This proved to be an absolutely excellent day, as the first river (Upper Upper Guil) was a pleasant bimble, while the Upper Guil contained a somewhat more manly gorge. After the kayaking, we headed back to watch the Slope-Jam on the Fournel, but arrived just after it finished due to lack of confidence driving along a seemingly endless road up a mountains face!
Our final day of boating was definitely the grand finale that the group had longed: starting with a successful return to the Gyronde, and concluding with a hardcore run of an impressively high Gyr (with a fourth ‘red herring’ hospital trip thrown in for good measure).
Number of rivers paddled: 18
Number of swims: 14
Miles travelled: 3096
In the morning, we faffed around a bit, moving tents and generally recovering from the journey down, before heading to the Lower Durance and paddling the Sunshine Run as our first river. As ever, the first run of the holidays claimed a paddler: Emma. After some lunch we returned to the campsite, and a few brave souls descended on the slalom course…soon to be chasing Fraser’s vacant kayak down it. Just as we were having dinner, the lucky sods that’d gotten to fly across arrived.
Day two saw us return to the Sunshine run, this time it was Michael who ended up swimming, as he and TomTom collided while surfing. This one was unpleasant as he ended up having to jump back in the river to reach where his boat had drifted to. The Upper Guisane was next on our hit-list of rivers, and it proved great fun! Running significantly higher than normal, it presented a manageable challenge for the Alpine virgins in the group. Arriving at S-bends (the one named rapid on the river), there was an increased sense of trepidation than normal, and our group (Alpha Squad) had bank support set up as a precaution. Seeing the steps being taken, Emma opted for the better part of valour, and walked round the rapid. Everyone in Alpha Squad got down successfully, with Bravo Squad close on our tail. They all got down the rapid alright, but some instructional confusion caused Harry to capsize and swim, while Sean’s over-zealousness to rescue him saw him drift into a tree, jam his paddles in said tree, capsize and swim clear, followed by some of his outfitting. Seeing the carnage unfolding here, TomTom and Mike stayed behind to assist in the clean-up. Everything was tidied up in short order, and we continued down the river, arriving rather abruptly at the weir, which sucked Emma back in and capsized her…only for her to manage her first ever river roll! Tom’s cheering, along with Emma’s beaming smile at this turn of events, lasted the remaining stretch of river.
Following the success of the previous day, Ben decided that we should try and get three rivers done in one day. To this end, we headed to the Gyronde (in the hopes of paddling the Gyr and the Onde afterwards). This did not happen. Within a few hundred metres of the get-on Amy capsized and swam. While attempting to get across to the eddy I had slid into, Emma capsized, and despite another successful roll, she capsized again and swam. Just after being sent up to get the bus keys and stop the other group from getting on the river, I saw something else bobbing past: Fraser’s airbag…closely followed by Gregor’s kayak. Eventually everyone was located and collected, and most of the kayaks pinned in places where they could be retrieved on a second run of the river – but Amy’s kayak had drifted past me half-an-hour earlier. Upon returning to the camp-site, and confirming Edinburgh Uni had seen it go past, Mike, Harry and I jumped in the minibus to retrieve it before it went into the lake at the bottom of the valley. Mike’s freakishly good eyesight spotted it pinned on some rocks only a few kilometres below the slalom course, and after some near-off-road driving and some ninja-rope tricks, we were driving back, victorious, with Amy’s kayak. A major welding session took place that evening, with Fraser and Amy both repairing their kayaks, and Gregor popping a dent out of the nose of his. In fact, despite the sheer level of carnage, the only casualty was Fraser’s airbag and left shoe!
After this day of carnage, another three-river day was planned: this time the Middle Clarée, Lower Clarée and the Onde. This was scuppered pretty quickly, as the Middle Clarée put off all but two of those allowed to get on. The Lower Clarée proved to be a nice warm-up river for Cat who had arrived the previous evening. Cat and I had been on this river once before, and remembered it being a twelve kilometre long drift, and though this time it was easy, it wasn’t quite that easy. At the end, discussions were had about where to go, and it was decided to return to the slalom course and do training. When we arrived, it started to rain, so rather than getting on the river, we decided to play volleyball. This was great fun, until a block by Sean caused Fraser to fall hard, leading to a hospital trip and some bad news: he’d broken his foot.
With the water levels dropping slightly, we realised that the Brianҫon Gorge. Arriving there, and seeing the cacophony of water ploughing through the barrage, only a few brave souls decided to take on the challenge. A successful, no-swim run, and we decided to head back to the Upper Guisane, where Emma’s weir stuck again; this time causing her to swim. Still having time left for a short river, the convoy made its way to the Onde, onto which only seven of the group got on, two rolls and a swim halfway down encouraged two of them to get off. This tightly packed day left everyone shattered, so we had our meal out. We went to Guillestre, to a small restaurant called Chez Antoine, and the meal was amazing!
The following day was our rest day, which normally means only one thing: go karting! Unfortunately, as this was not a weekend, this was not an option. In the morning, Tom Jenkins decided that he didn’t want a rest day, he wanted more kayaking, so set off with Leeds to do the Lower Clarée and the Gyronde. In exchange, we got Mike, who had battered his head on some inconspicuous section of the Upper Guisane the previous day. Since go-karting proved to be an impossibility, we headed to Brianҫon to explore the castle…though this proved to be on too much of an incline to be practical for Fraser. Ben and Sean organised a barbeque for the evening, with one part of it being used more as projectiles and stink bombs than as food. Anthony arrived late at night, completing the group.
For our seventh day, and as a post-night-out paddle, we headed on what could only be classed as a mini expedition, paddling the Lower Guil and Lower Durance (23 kilometres worth of river) in one go. We headed back to the camp-site to watch the slope jam, only to discover that it had been postponed due to high water. Instead we played Leeds University at volleyball, and despite our previous efforts in hospitalising our good players, schooled them.
No two days of kayaking can be productive, so we spent forever messing about the next morning, before finally making our way to the Upper Guisane. Only the section to S-bends was paddled before Anthony swum, going down most of the daunting rapid out with the protective cocoon of his kayak, catching the whole thing on head-cam. So that was hospital trip #2 – though at least it only led to some pain killers. This was also the evening of the Boat-o-cross, for which we had three entries: TomTom and Mike in the Intermediate Mens, and Amy in the Intermediate Womens. TomTom could have won his race, if not for an unfortunate eddy-line capsize, followed by an even more unfortunate encounter with a rock (which led to hospital trip #3 and another set of crutches!), while Mike and Amy each finished about half-way up the field. Undeterred, Mike then went on to win the Inflate-o-cross, celebrating by revealing nearly all in a mankini. A poorly thought out party spoiled the atmosphere generated by the event, but pizza from the usual hut made up for it.
The following morning, a number of people were suffering from hangovers, but we managed to set off at a reasonable time for the Guil. The ‘Cripple Car’ went to hospital for TomTom, while the other car and minibus went to run some rivers new to (nearly) everyone present. This proved to be an absolutely excellent day, as the first river (Upper Upper Guil) was a pleasant bimble, while the Upper Guil contained a somewhat more manly gorge. After the kayaking, we headed back to watch the Slope-Jam on the Fournel, but arrived just after it finished due to lack of confidence driving along a seemingly endless road up a mountains face!
Our final day of boating was definitely the grand finale that the group had longed: starting with a successful return to the Gyronde, and concluding with a hardcore run of an impressively high Gyr (with a fourth ‘red herring’ hospital trip thrown in for good measure).
Number of rivers paddled: 18
Number of swims: 14
Miles travelled: 3096
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Paddling with the Dark Side
This was mainly a Strathclyde Uni trip but Paul Walker and I were allowed to tag along for a paddle and Louise and Alison were recruited as wielders of photographic equiptment. We set off for the Moriston in the Walker mobile and the drive was long, fortunately I discovered The Pigeon Detectives on Louise’s ipod and it turns out that they are awesome. Our car arrived about half an hour before everyone else due to our superior ffaff busting abilities which gave us a chance to check out the river and for me to become progressively more terrified. By the time we finally got on the river I was whimpering like a little girl and had lost pretty much all man points.
The top drop is usually pretty eventful and so it proved for us. I had a roll at the bottom after a fairly unimpressive line, Gordon remodeled the nose of his burn, Chris had a swim for which I think he could fairly claim a deck pop as a contributing factor if he wanted and I think someone else had a swim? Paul Walker however took arguably the line of the day, grinding perfectly down the left hand slab. The near beating he had at the bottom detracted somewhat but all in all a top notch piece of paddling.
After this there are a few rapidy things before the next main drop. As long as you get some sort of boof off this drop you’re fine, apparently if you do not you spend quite a long time in the bottom of it. Everyone was fine on it, maybe a roll or two but nothing major. Form here the next rapid has two options, go left of go right. Some went left, others went right, all were fine. The river then flows through a narrow bouncy channel and it is here that Gordon swam again and broke his very shiny, very expensive helmet. The top section ends with a pretty big ramp down into a wave/hole and out into flat water, it was good.
Paul decided he’d had enough at this point but the rest of us walked back up for another run. I can’t really be arsed to write out the whole run again, but by far the most noteworthy event came on the second drop. Steve decided to drop off it doing a Demshitz style bear claw with his hand. This caused him to capsize and swim and his boat to get very pinned on a rock. We sent Steve out to get a line on his boat, which looked painful but then again it was his fault. After a bit of a play around with prusik loops and a Z pulley we got the boat free. This was all captured on film, which I imagine would be quite embarrassing.
After finishing the run we drove down to run the lower section of the river. I was not going to get on until Dave Martin told me to man up, which I’m very glad he did. The top drop has a very manly left hand line or alternatively an easier set of little drops down the right. Most of the group took the right, I chickened out and got on below (I’m really not sure why because it really isn’t a very difficult run but there we are). After this is a rapid called the gutter which is quite frankly brilliant, it’s a really long steep rock slide with a hole half way down which flushes through nicely. I ran the second half of it backwards and Haydn had a bit of a gimpy swim at the bottom but otherwise all was well. The last two rapids are a bit more continuous than the others on the river but pretty straight forward as long as you have enough speed hitting the holes which are at the bottom of both.
After walking back up to the cars and loading boats we got The Pigeon Detectives back on the iPod and headed for Glasgow. We arrived back at about one o clock in the morning feeling absolutely buggered.
Photos and possible video to follow.
This was mainly a Strathclyde Uni trip but Paul Walker and I were allowed to tag along for a paddle and Louise and Alison were recruited as wielders of photographic equiptment. We set off for the Moriston in the Walker mobile and the drive was long, fortunately I discovered The Pigeon Detectives on Louise’s ipod and it turns out that they are awesome. Our car arrived about half an hour before everyone else due to our superior ffaff busting abilities which gave us a chance to check out the river and for me to become progressively more terrified. By the time we finally got on the river I was whimpering like a little girl and had lost pretty much all man points.
The top drop is usually pretty eventful and so it proved for us. I had a roll at the bottom after a fairly unimpressive line, Gordon remodeled the nose of his burn, Chris had a swim for which I think he could fairly claim a deck pop as a contributing factor if he wanted and I think someone else had a swim? Paul Walker however took arguably the line of the day, grinding perfectly down the left hand slab. The near beating he had at the bottom detracted somewhat but all in all a top notch piece of paddling.
After this there are a few rapidy things before the next main drop. As long as you get some sort of boof off this drop you’re fine, apparently if you do not you spend quite a long time in the bottom of it. Everyone was fine on it, maybe a roll or two but nothing major. Form here the next rapid has two options, go left of go right. Some went left, others went right, all were fine. The river then flows through a narrow bouncy channel and it is here that Gordon swam again and broke his very shiny, very expensive helmet. The top section ends with a pretty big ramp down into a wave/hole and out into flat water, it was good.
Paul decided he’d had enough at this point but the rest of us walked back up for another run. I can’t really be arsed to write out the whole run again, but by far the most noteworthy event came on the second drop. Steve decided to drop off it doing a Demshitz style bear claw with his hand. This caused him to capsize and swim and his boat to get very pinned on a rock. We sent Steve out to get a line on his boat, which looked painful but then again it was his fault. After a bit of a play around with prusik loops and a Z pulley we got the boat free. This was all captured on film, which I imagine would be quite embarrassing.
After finishing the run we drove down to run the lower section of the river. I was not going to get on until Dave Martin told me to man up, which I’m very glad he did. The top drop has a very manly left hand line or alternatively an easier set of little drops down the right. Most of the group took the right, I chickened out and got on below (I’m really not sure why because it really isn’t a very difficult run but there we are). After this is a rapid called the gutter which is quite frankly brilliant, it’s a really long steep rock slide with a hole half way down which flushes through nicely. I ran the second half of it backwards and Haydn had a bit of a gimpy swim at the bottom but otherwise all was well. The last two rapids are a bit more continuous than the others on the river but pretty straight forward as long as you have enough speed hitting the holes which are at the bottom of both.
After walking back up to the cars and loading boats we got The Pigeon Detectives back on the iPod and headed for Glasgow. We arrived back at about one o clock in the morning feeling absolutely buggered.
Photos and possible video to follow.
Friday, 30 April 2010
BUCS Canoe Polo
Gin, cider, sunshine, polo balls and cowboys and indians.....
We left Glasgow on firday night in a classic GUCC rush with just Cat and myself trying to pack everything onto the newly renovated mini bus roof rack.
After picking up cath and booze then Ali, Ali and Brian in Lockerbie we were off.
5 hours after leaving the shed we arrived in darkest doncaster pumping the tunes on the ipod and were greeted by Robbie from Scumdee who had saved us some camping space, which was good as it was past midnight by the time we and rachel arrived and we got tents up and cracked open our first cans of cider.
We made it a sensible night and went to 'tent' before 1am 'super excited' for our first game at 7.20 am. (Which is just one reason why Sus is far better than bucs!)
Getting up in the morning was not good. Who ever suggested playing polo at stupid oclock in the morning outside in the freezing cold was a moron.
However finaly all the team of fab GUCC Ladies were on the water having our first rather sleepy pep talk from Brian who had come along as our Ref/coach/pink panther.
First game was against st andrews so in true Sus style we spanked them 6-0
Bacon rolls were our well deserved prize and we were back on the water again as the sun came out mid morning to play Cardiff. Another stunning game and we beat them 3-0.
We might have gotten a we bit cocky after that as we decided that a lunch time booze run and a quick pre match G&T was a good idea, which may have aided us in us loosing our next 2 matches to Birmingham 1-2 and then lancaster 2-3.
On a possitive note, we played pretty well and all enjoyed having a diffiult match for once.
Thinking we were done for the night we started planning showers and drinking when brian told us we had another sodding match at 7.pm. 12 hours of polo is really pushing it but we manned up and beat manchester 3-0. We were far too nice to them and didn't push them in cos none of them could even T-rescue properly. Shame really :P
Fiiiinnnaly we lined up for our free dinner. This was a big mistake. Total crap, not worth even writting about, but we got takeaway pizza with Dundee which fixed all grumpy hungry people :)
To celebrate the beautiful sunny day and our 3 wins we got dressed up and headed out to the amazing tent of Dj "One more Tune". Despite the crap music, crap D.j and hilarious dancing we had an awesome night. Some brilliant moves were busted, a lot of gin was drunk and our GUCC pants got a well earned outing :)
On sunday we were treated to a lie in and had our first match at 11 when the rain had just stopped and the sun come out to cheer us on. We were playing Bristol to decide 7th and 8th place and after a bit of an "I'm about to vomit in the lake" warm up we played them and beat them 2-1 in one of our best played matches of the tournement. The horrific hangovers obviously didn't damage our performace, confirming my age old theory that if your not playing polo drunk or hungover then you are doing something badly wrong!
We hung about after our match and supported dundee who had been our adopted boys for the weekend and ex member Charlies team from London who ended up wining the b team competition.
After a final Girly portirait we got on the bus for the long drive home. The rain kindly washed all the sand off the polo boats for us as we drove up north and gave us one less job to do back at the shed. We stopped for a gourmet MacDonalds in Penrith just to add to the healthyness of the entire weekend. We crossed the border with Caledonia pumping out the speakers and Brian looking happier than he had all weekend to be back in the promised lands.
After dumping all the kit in the shed and hanging it all up neatly where it belongs. (as everyone should do :P) we headed home. Waking up with a very husky voice on monday i don't think i was the only one having trouble getting out of bed for uni.
Frigging awesome weekend tho!
Thanks to Ali Dicker for coming along and joining the team, and Brian for being our Ref and to the one and only bus driver Miss Catriona Dykes for her heroic effort to get us home before midnight. :)
As many folk as possible should come along next year. Wil be banter :)
Amy
xxx
We left Glasgow on firday night in a classic GUCC rush with just Cat and myself trying to pack everything onto the newly renovated mini bus roof rack.
After picking up cath and booze then Ali, Ali and Brian in Lockerbie we were off.5 hours after leaving the shed we arrived in darkest doncaster pumping the tunes on the ipod and were greeted by Robbie from Scumdee who had saved us some camping space, which was good as it was past midnight by the time we and rachel arrived and we got tents up and cracked open our first cans of cider.
We made it a sensible night and went to 'tent' before 1am 'super excited' for our first game at 7.20 am. (Which is just one reason why Sus is far better than bucs!)
Getting up in the morning was not good. Who ever suggested playing polo at stupid oclock in the morning outside in the freezing cold was a moron.
However finaly all the team of fab GUCC Ladies were on the water having our first rather sleepy pep talk from Brian who had come along as our Ref/coach/pink panther.
First game was against st andrews so in true Sus style we spanked them 6-0
Bacon rolls were our well deserved prize and we were back on the water again as the sun came out mid morning to play Cardiff. Another stunning game and we beat them 3-0.We might have gotten a we bit cocky after that as we decided that a lunch time booze run and a quick pre match G&T was a good idea, which may have aided us in us loosing our next 2 matches to Birmingham 1-2 and then lancaster 2-3.
On a possitive note, we played pretty well and all enjoyed having a diffiult match for once.
Thinking we were done for the night we started planning showers and drinking when brian told us we had another sodding match at 7.pm. 12 hours of polo is really pushing it but we manned up and beat manchester 3-0. We were far too nice to them and didn't push them in cos none of them could even T-rescue properly. Shame really :P
Fiiiinnnaly we lined up for our free dinner. This was a big mistake. Total crap, not worth even writting about, but we got takeaway pizza with Dundee which fixed all grumpy hungry people :)
To celebrate the beautiful sunny day and our 3 wins we got dressed up and headed out to the amazing tent of Dj "One more Tune". Despite the crap music, crap D.j and hilarious dancing we had an awesome night. Some brilliant moves were busted, a lot of gin was drunk and our GUCC pants got a well earned outing :)On sunday we were treated to a lie in and had our first match at 11 when the rain had just stopped and the sun come out to cheer us on. We were playing Bristol to decide 7th and 8th place and after a bit of an "I'm about to vomit in the lake" warm up we played them and beat them 2-1 in one of our best played matches of the tournement. The horrific hangovers obviously didn't damage our performace, confirming my age old theory that if your not playing polo drunk or hungover then you are doing something badly wrong!
We hung about after our match and supported dundee who had been our adopted boys for the weekend and ex member Charlies team from London who ended up wining the b team competition.
After a final Girly portirait we got on the bus for the long drive home. The rain kindly washed all the sand off the polo boats for us as we drove up north and gave us one less job to do back at the shed. We stopped for a gourmet MacDonalds in Penrith just to add to the healthyness of the entire weekend. We crossed the border with Caledonia pumping out the speakers and Brian looking happier than he had all weekend to be back in the promised lands.After dumping all the kit in the shed and hanging it all up neatly where it belongs. (as everyone should do :P) we headed home. Waking up with a very husky voice on monday i don't think i was the only one having trouble getting out of bed for uni.
Frigging awesome weekend tho!
Thanks to Ali Dicker for coming along and joining the team, and Brian for being our Ref and to the one and only bus driver Miss Catriona Dykes for her heroic effort to get us home before midnight. :)
As many folk as possible should come along next year. Wil be banter :)
Amy
xxx
Sunday, 14 March 2010
A Tale of Two Halves
Canoe Club trips are (almost by definition) going to have delays. These are accepted by all organisers as an inevitable event – but this trip is going to put all others to shame with the insane vastness of hold-ups caused!
8:30am, nothing but a concept to many, and I (Paul) was still waiting outside Euan R’s flat while he searched for a phantom karabiner, when who should text but the fourth person in our party: Mark Mulrain could no longer come. When Euan finally arrived, having given up his search, we discussed this ‘man-down’ problem, and I suggested we invite Ben. Always up for kayaking, even given only moments notice, Ben agreed. This was going to work out after-all, but Euan then remembered his keys were still in the Stevie…so we went there, only to discover it was locked until 10:00am. This was getting us no-where, so we stopped off at Ben’s flat, collected his keys, then finally collected Fraser (who ironically had actually arrived on time), and headed to the shed to pack. This was done at break-neck pace, Ben was collected, a food stop was had, and we were still out of Glasgow before 10am…good job!!
A long banterous journey, with Ben doing everything he could do to ruin the music stored on Frasers iPod, and Euan trying his hardest to gross the car out, saw us arrive at the get on for the North Esk.
And it was here, at the get-on, where the first beating of the trip happened: when it was discovered that Mr Richardson hadn’t packed spraydecks for him or Ben.
It was eventually, after a long arduous debate that would put even Tolkein to shame, decided that Euan and I would run the river first, with Ben and Fraser running down the bank, and then we would swap over, and they’d get on the river at whatever point dwindling daylight would allow.
Thus began our tale of two halves.
Euan and I had a rather uneventful trip down to Rocks of Solitude, where Euan decided that Gregor’s “Hero line” from previous weeks was the way to do it…unfortunately no beating followed this mess-up. My (somewhat less planned) line worked surprisingly well, and we continued our fun, yet simple paddle down to the get-out at the Fish Ladder.
The second half of the tale consisted of me (Fraser - note the change in author) and Ben’s fantastic descent of the river. Nothing of any note occurred until we reached Rocks of Solitude, bar the fact that Paul Walker’s deck is tighter than Scrooge and needs the super human powers of at least 2 people to fit on which materially contributed to our impressive amounts of faff.
First real rapid up and our Steve Fisher style “fully trained safety crew” were in position for a heavily anticipated swim from Ben. Alas it did not occur and therefore it was my turn to navigate this grade 6++ rapid. After fitting the deck that must have been designed to fit round a yoghurt tub, not the cockpit of an H3 (or the Mamba for which it was bought), I embarked on this terrifying run. With huge amounts of style and grace/luck and clumsiness I survived all the drops until being cruelly sucked back in by the bottom hole after a short battle/teasing from the river. Unfortunately for Mr Jenkins I must inform him I did not receive a beating, no matter how much it may have been deserved. After being flushed, a spectacular roll attempt/“quack” and a hero dive from Euan I once again decided to bail, gimpy I know. The worst part of this swim meant having to stretch what was basically a swimming cap over the cockpit of my boat, again.
After experiencing the freezing cold water you would think I would be less likely to want to return to it, yet after watching Ben run the infamous President’s corner I decided to come out the eddy and fall over. That was it, no brace, no reason to fall over. (If you are intrigued to find out more about this ridiculous capsize, Mr Walker has attached below the video he took from his newly acquired iPhone – I can think of better ways to spend the money....) Running this rapid on my head resulted in not much really, apart from a knock on the head...my own stupid fault really.
Finally what could be regarded as the most spectacular event of the trip occurred and caused my final swim, although I shall regard as a “technical”. There has been much speculation as to what occurred here but for once and for all I shall lay the matter to rest. Paddling along I heard the cry of baby, looking up I saw it tumbling through the sky. Doing what any self respecting boater would do I reached out and grabbed the baby, moments before a certain death. In doing so I slightly unbalanced myself and due to other imbalances (such as my helmet being squint etc.) I was unable to overcome this and I fell under once again. I held the baby above the surface of the perishingly cold water and then pulled my deck so I could reunite baby with the adoring mother on the riverbank. This all occurred before Ben turned around to see me swimmingly along, this is the truth. Paul’s reaction to this amazingly heroic story was “What was the baby called?”....pillock. We then floated down to the get out at Fish-ladder falls.
Euan descending the final rapid
Our tale of two halves complete, we decided to reward ourselves for our kayaking efforts by heading to McDonalds on the route home…meaning Fraser (yep, it's Paul writing again) and Ben had been there twice in two days, the fat b****rds.
All-in-all, an excellent day and an excellent river, but next time we should probably take the spraydecks.
8:30am, nothing but a concept to many, and I (Paul) was still waiting outside Euan R’s flat while he searched for a phantom karabiner, when who should text but the fourth person in our party: Mark Mulrain could no longer come. When Euan finally arrived, having given up his search, we discussed this ‘man-down’ problem, and I suggested we invite Ben. Always up for kayaking, even given only moments notice, Ben agreed. This was going to work out after-all, but Euan then remembered his keys were still in the Stevie…so we went there, only to discover it was locked until 10:00am. This was getting us no-where, so we stopped off at Ben’s flat, collected his keys, then finally collected Fraser (who ironically had actually arrived on time), and headed to the shed to pack. This was done at break-neck pace, Ben was collected, a food stop was had, and we were still out of Glasgow before 10am…good job!!
A long banterous journey, with Ben doing everything he could do to ruin the music stored on Frasers iPod, and Euan trying his hardest to gross the car out, saw us arrive at the get on for the North Esk.
And it was here, at the get-on, where the first beating of the trip happened: when it was discovered that Mr Richardson hadn’t packed spraydecks for him or Ben.
It was eventually, after a long arduous debate that would put even Tolkein to shame, decided that Euan and I would run the river first, with Ben and Fraser running down the bank, and then we would swap over, and they’d get on the river at whatever point dwindling daylight would allow.
Thus began our tale of two halves.
Euan and I had a rather uneventful trip down to Rocks of Solitude, where Euan decided that Gregor’s “Hero line” from previous weeks was the way to do it…unfortunately no beating followed this mess-up. My (somewhat less planned) line worked surprisingly well, and we continued our fun, yet simple paddle down to the get-out at the Fish Ladder.
The second half of the tale consisted of me (Fraser - note the change in author) and Ben’s fantastic descent of the river. Nothing of any note occurred until we reached Rocks of Solitude, bar the fact that Paul Walker’s deck is tighter than Scrooge and needs the super human powers of at least 2 people to fit on which materially contributed to our impressive amounts of faff.
First real rapid up and our Steve Fisher style “fully trained safety crew” were in position for a heavily anticipated swim from Ben. Alas it did not occur and therefore it was my turn to navigate this grade 6++ rapid. After fitting the deck that must have been designed to fit round a yoghurt tub, not the cockpit of an H3 (or the Mamba for which it was bought), I embarked on this terrifying run. With huge amounts of style and grace/luck and clumsiness I survived all the drops until being cruelly sucked back in by the bottom hole after a short battle/teasing from the river. Unfortunately for Mr Jenkins I must inform him I did not receive a beating, no matter how much it may have been deserved. After being flushed, a spectacular roll attempt/“quack” and a hero dive from Euan I once again decided to bail, gimpy I know. The worst part of this swim meant having to stretch what was basically a swimming cap over the cockpit of my boat, again.
Fraser on Rocks of Solitude
After experiencing the freezing cold water you would think I would be less likely to want to return to it, yet after watching Ben run the infamous President’s corner I decided to come out the eddy and fall over. That was it, no brace, no reason to fall over. (If you are intrigued to find out more about this ridiculous capsize, Mr Walker has attached below the video he took from his newly acquired iPhone – I can think of better ways to spend the money....) Running this rapid on my head resulted in not much really, apart from a knock on the head...my own stupid fault really.
The Infamous Stupidity....
Finally what could be regarded as the most spectacular event of the trip occurred and caused my final swim, although I shall regard as a “technical”. There has been much speculation as to what occurred here but for once and for all I shall lay the matter to rest. Paddling along I heard the cry of baby, looking up I saw it tumbling through the sky. Doing what any self respecting boater would do I reached out and grabbed the baby, moments before a certain death. In doing so I slightly unbalanced myself and due to other imbalances (such as my helmet being squint etc.) I was unable to overcome this and I fell under once again. I held the baby above the surface of the perishingly cold water and then pulled my deck so I could reunite baby with the adoring mother on the riverbank. This all occurred before Ben turned around to see me swimmingly along, this is the truth. Paul’s reaction to this amazingly heroic story was “What was the baby called?”....pillock. We then floated down to the get out at Fish-ladder falls.
Euan descending the final rapid
Our tale of two halves complete, we decided to reward ourselves for our kayaking efforts by heading to McDonalds on the route home…meaning Fraser (yep, it's Paul writing again) and Ben had been there twice in two days, the fat b****rds.
All-in-all, an excellent day and an excellent river, but next time we should probably take the spraydecks.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Tip Top Tummel
The Tummel is one of our clubs most paddled rivers, so I was enthused when I heard that instead of heading to the normal section (the Lower Tummel), we were headed to the Upper Tummel, a section which neither myself, nor most of those on the trip, had ever done.
A surprisingly quick boat loading session (where Ben decided he was leading the river in a play-boat), a slightly mutinous food and music stop, and a pause for a cry of utter dismay when we saw that Loch Tummel was frozen over were our only delays before arriving at a PWL Upper Tummel.
Here we had a first, as Marissa managed to successfully swim before the start of the trip...ominous, considering the recent spate of high carnage trips.
Yet things held together well, with many little drops and chutes leading us down towards one of two notable rapids on the river: Z-bends. This nasty rapid seemed to be in a good mood however, with only two swims, both noteworthy. Anthony’s for his refusal to be beaten by it, returning to style the rapid, and Fraser for the unfortunate way in which he was caught out: despite landing upright, he failed to paddle away quickly enough from the hole at the bottom and was summarily capsized.
This lovely, scenic and bitterly cold river carried on with its shallow rapids for some time before we saw the horizon line to flat water marking the end of our trip.
The last rapids were...interesting. The gradient increased greatly, causing difficulty for Bex, Marissa and Dan as this was either their first river trip, or their first in many years. Bex unfortunately caught a rock, capsizing and hitting her head (though avoiding a swim). As those who had already run the rapid checked to make sure she was OK, Fraser paddled down...and also capsized, though his led to a swim. Now it was my turn to jump on the ‘safety’ bandwagon as I went and rescued Fraser, boat and paddles before they all ran the last (and best and biggest) chute on the river.
Finally, order was restored, and it was time to tackle the final rapid. This is possibly the most fun water slide I have done in a long time!! Unfortunately, here, after all the rapids had been paddled, and the trip was pretty much over, Marissa decided to round off her day as it had begun: with a swim. Bex and Dan joined her as they successfully ran and in succession swam at the chute, joining the ranks of the days swimmers after all the rapids had ended.
A short climb revealed the minibus, and a headcount proved we hadn’t lost anyone. Only eight swims, and we were off the river before five!!!
Whoever said PWL rivers are a bad thing?
Paul
A surprisingly quick boat loading session (where Ben decided he was leading the river in a play-boat), a slightly mutinous food and music stop, and a pause for a cry of utter dismay when we saw that Loch Tummel was frozen over were our only delays before arriving at a PWL Upper Tummel.
Here we had a first, as Marissa managed to successfully swim before the start of the trip...ominous, considering the recent spate of high carnage trips.
Yet things held together well, with many little drops and chutes leading us down towards one of two notable rapids on the river: Z-bends. This nasty rapid seemed to be in a good mood however, with only two swims, both noteworthy. Anthony’s for his refusal to be beaten by it, returning to style the rapid, and Fraser for the unfortunate way in which he was caught out: despite landing upright, he failed to paddle away quickly enough from the hole at the bottom and was summarily capsized.
This lovely, scenic and bitterly cold river carried on with its shallow rapids for some time before we saw the horizon line to flat water marking the end of our trip.
The last rapids were...interesting. The gradient increased greatly, causing difficulty for Bex, Marissa and Dan as this was either their first river trip, or their first in many years. Bex unfortunately caught a rock, capsizing and hitting her head (though avoiding a swim). As those who had already run the rapid checked to make sure she was OK, Fraser paddled down...and also capsized, though his led to a swim. Now it was my turn to jump on the ‘safety’ bandwagon as I went and rescued Fraser, boat and paddles before they all ran the last (and best and biggest) chute on the river.
Finally, order was restored, and it was time to tackle the final rapid. This is possibly the most fun water slide I have done in a long time!! Unfortunately, here, after all the rapids had been paddled, and the trip was pretty much over, Marissa decided to round off her day as it had begun: with a swim. Bex and Dan joined her as they successfully ran and in succession swam at the chute, joining the ranks of the days swimmers after all the rapids had ended.
A short climb revealed the minibus, and a headcount proved we hadn’t lost anyone. Only eight swims, and we were off the river before five!!!
Whoever said PWL rivers are a bad thing?
Paul
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Love is in the North Esk
In an attempt to make up for my pathetic level of singleness on Valentine’s Day I organized a trip to the North Esk, which is a very long way from Glasgow. We left at seven thirty which is a very painful time of day if you have been in the Hilton getting poor until three o clock that morning. We made good time despite the inability of the club to have a trip which does not involve stopping to pick up food on the way and managed to meet up with various parties who were meeting us at the river. Having got on the river we found even more people to paddle with and I still have no idea who they were.
The river starts off fairly shallow and rocky with a few little grade 2/3 things on it and we had relatively few swims, most of which were my fault. On one occasion I got in Suzan’s way and pushed her in and on another I gave the instruction ‘Go right of the rock’ without specifying which rock (seemed pretty obvious to me but Ally’s using it as an excuse for a swim). There were a couple of other swims on this section which were not directly my fault but they’re not really that interesting.
After a while the river flows into a very sexy gorge which is where most of the swims took place. I caused one of these again by getting in Ross’s way and pushing him in, and because he had no air bags in his boat took quite a while to get rescued. After a couple more swims Ross started to look a bit hypothermic so we fed him chocolate and gave him some man hugging which warmed him up a bit. Swims from pretty much everyone else also helped add to the fun of the day. Probably the best rapid in the gorge is Rocks of Solitude/Triple step (depends which guide you read) and is a fairly tricky grade 4 with two small stoppers leading into quite a big stopper. Chris went first and absolutely styled it in a playboat which made me very excited. I don’t think everyone else appreciated just how well he’d run it so looked a little puzzled by my excited wooping. Others were less successful with quite a lot o backloops and quite a lot of swims.
Gregor’s line was noteworthy as it was rubbish, however he got through it the right way up.
Just after Rocks of solitude is a little constriction where everyone felt the need to paddle into a wall so we had five swims here. After this there are a couple more small drops where we had yet more swims before the gorge opens out into a shallow rocky river again with the only real feature being Fish Ladder falls which is one of those rapids which is fine if you get the line but looks pretty painful if you don’t. Chris ran this blind, Euan and I chose to inspect before running it and everyone else decided not to do it, probably put off by the horror stories of Amy swimming down it the last time the club had a trip to the North Esk.
At this point the fading light forced us to give up on paddling and walk back to the bus, an event which is becoming commonplace on club trips it would seem. Upon arrival at the bus we discovered that Aberdeen had written ‘AUCC rule’ on it which is both unimaginative and as we know from SUS untrue. On the way to pick up the cars from the get in, Ally ate my cereal bars, this is unacceptable and he will not be allocated a space on any future trips.
- Chris Bell with his love rock.
I should also note that not all swims are listed here in detail so here is a rough estimate of who swam:
Fraser: 4
Suzan: 2
Ally: 2
Gregor: 1
Harry: 1
Ross: 6
Gregor’s friend Jen: 2
Gregor’s friend Neil: 1
Random old guy in a spud: 8
Random guy with Sweet Rocker: 6
The river starts off fairly shallow and rocky with a few little grade 2/3 things on it and we had relatively few swims, most of which were my fault. On one occasion I got in Suzan’s way and pushed her in and on another I gave the instruction ‘Go right of the rock’ without specifying which rock (seemed pretty obvious to me but Ally’s using it as an excuse for a swim). There were a couple of other swims on this section which were not directly my fault but they’re not really that interesting.
After a while the river flows into a very sexy gorge which is where most of the swims took place. I caused one of these again by getting in Ross’s way and pushing him in, and because he had no air bags in his boat took quite a while to get rescued. After a couple more swims Ross started to look a bit hypothermic so we fed him chocolate and gave him some man hugging which warmed him up a bit. Swims from pretty much everyone else also helped add to the fun of the day. Probably the best rapid in the gorge is Rocks of Solitude/Triple step (depends which guide you read) and is a fairly tricky grade 4 with two small stoppers leading into quite a big stopper. Chris went first and absolutely styled it in a playboat which made me very excited. I don’t think everyone else appreciated just how well he’d run it so looked a little puzzled by my excited wooping. Others were less successful with quite a lot o backloops and quite a lot of swims.
Gregor’s line was noteworthy as it was rubbish, however he got through it the right way up.
Just after Rocks of solitude is a little constriction where everyone felt the need to paddle into a wall so we had five swims here. After this there are a couple more small drops where we had yet more swims before the gorge opens out into a shallow rocky river again with the only real feature being Fish Ladder falls which is one of those rapids which is fine if you get the line but looks pretty painful if you don’t. Chris ran this blind, Euan and I chose to inspect before running it and everyone else decided not to do it, probably put off by the horror stories of Amy swimming down it the last time the club had a trip to the North Esk.
At this point the fading light forced us to give up on paddling and walk back to the bus, an event which is becoming commonplace on club trips it would seem. Upon arrival at the bus we discovered that Aberdeen had written ‘AUCC rule’ on it which is both unimaginative and as we know from SUS untrue. On the way to pick up the cars from the get in, Ally ate my cereal bars, this is unacceptable and he will not be allocated a space on any future trips.
- Chris Bell with his love rock.
I should also note that not all swims are listed here in detail so here is a rough estimate of who swam:
Fraser: 4
Suzan: 2
Ally: 2
Gregor: 1
Harry: 1
Ross: 6
Gregor’s friend Jen: 2
Gregor’s friend Neil: 1
Random old guy in a spud: 8
Random guy with Sweet Rocker: 6
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