Saturday 11th October, Wnion & Leven

It’s great that as a club, after a bit of rain we can find paddles to suit everyone. So on Saturday we split into two groups. The younger group consisting of Ricki, Dave, Andy & Keelan were heading up to the lakes to run the Leven on a good medium level around 1.05. According to AA route planner this was a journey of 194 miles and 3.5 hours ( although Ricki reckoned he could do it in 2.5 hours in his new car ! hope no police are reading this ). Footage of this trip now on Facebook courtesy of Geoff.
The older crew, consisting of myself, Barry, John, Rob, Gary and Kev (sorry Kev ) decided a 400 mile round trip needed a weekend away with a couple of rivers to run to make it worthwile. So we opted for a 2 hour 90 mile trip to the Wnion. Low water on the Wnion is 1.8 to 1.9 and the gauge was on 1.78 so lower than we had hoped, but as this was to be Kevin’s first trip on anything more than Jackfield it would still be a challenge at mostly Grade 2 with a grade 3 rapid and a grade 3+ ledge drop. We put on at the campsite at Bontnewydd which had previously been used by some members for the Mawdach estuary weekend. This is a beautiful river with crystal clear water and some stunning views around Snowdonia and Cader Idris. Although it was a bit scrapey at the put in, this section had far more features than expected and at 1.9 to 2.0 metres would be well worth coming back to do again. Well done Kev on an incident free first real outing with the club. Oh, and well done to Gary for putting his point across to the fisherman (retired police officer ! ) who thought kayakers were causing damage to the Salmon !!
Another great day finished off nicely with a pint and bowl of chips at the usual stopping off point just outside Welshpool.