Saturday 27th July 2013 “THE UPPER TRYWERYN”

Well Well Well,

How to start  ! A small group of us, Rob, Dave Y, Chucky, Ricki ( in love with Bianca) and Myself, decided we would venture to the “Upper Tryweryn”, today and as this was the chosen venue, I fancied a couple of New challenges, “The Graveyard” and “Ski slope”, two items on my personal goal list.

We arrived around 10-50AM, got kitted up and on the water, it all appeared very quiet for a Saturday, lots of rafts but lacking in Kayakers, we couldn’t work out why, was it due to the fact the River was running on a 10 ? or just one of those days.

We warmed up for half hour above the chipper, then moved round it to seal launch into the main flow of water, eddy hoping etc as we made our way to the upper Graveyard, to play and practice a little more. After a couple of runs above the Graveyard it was that time !! “The Graveyard” itself Rob, Chucky, Ricki and Dave, chatted with me on the bank giving simple but good advice, I watched them run the rapid then my time had come ! My first attempt started well, BUT ! I fell at the 3rd hurdle , the Big drop about 40 metres in caught me out as I stopped paddling, (basic error Mr L), over I went head nocking the river bed and bailed, (Barry, your right,not really the best piece of water to fine tune your swimming skills, lol) , I swam the next 120/140 metres and was thrown a great line by Rob, which he managed to slow me down and bring me near the edge to get out. Not one to be easily beaten, in more ways than one, and nursing a couple of bruises I wanted to tackle the run again, Chucky kindly offered to lead me down, AWESOME a clean run .

We then paddled down to the “Ski slope”, and decided not to view just to run it, as lots of water as it was running on a 10, we all had a clean run AWESOME, once again, Thanks to the Chuckmeister, who once again who showed me a line.

On we paddled a couple more decent drops, then a into view came an old stone bridge which I had seen in photo’s , yep Miss Davies’s bridge, with it’s notorious tricky line, I missed the eddy river left above this and went backwards down the next drop, tried to turn the boat around to tackle this radid and you’ve guessed it over I went heading for the drop, as I dropped into the fall I visited the GREEN room for several long seconds, strange sensation. To my surprise as I excited the river on the left bank, I was joined by Mr Yates, who had kindley decided to join me in a swim after hitting a rock exciting the eddy river left above the bridge , thanks Dave.

Big  thanks to Chucky, Rob and Ricki, who chased 2 boats 2 paddles and a throw line through the rest of the section and eventually managed to secure the boats around 100 metres below Chapel falls, Ricki took a sexy roll in the big left hand wave, just around the corner from cafe wave. Yep the boats were eventually bought to rest below Chapel ! These guy’s did a sterling job, they managed some very tricky drops and falls chasing and retrieving kit, which was all retrieved and given back to the right full owners. 🙂

All in all a great trip, some rescue practice ,some great paddling , excellent synchronised swimming from yours truly.

Big thanks to all present for the great company and superb motivational support.  🙂