It seemed like it could have been one of Enid Blyton’s adventure books, Five go off on a paddle, although in our case the not very famous five! So JohnT, Simon, Steve, Dave P and myself arrived at Llanidloes on the right bank of the River Severn to get into our kayaking kit. We noted how low the level was and without the water from the Clywedog entering just upstream it would have been difficult to paddle a boat through. The Clywedog had been releasing on 0.49 at the Bryntail gauge for a couple of weeks but a few showers of rain meant the man on the tap had dropped the level to 0.44. We had run the river in January with the gauge on 0.51 so decided we would still be able to paddle it just 7 cms lower. We headed up to Bryntail Lead mine and the put in and spent a while looking at the falls and looking at the lines. Steve and Simon offered to provide cover with throw lines and Dave P offered to get in his boat below the falls if we needed to chase a boat. So John & I got on the river and made our way down carefully picking our way around rocks and boulders that would have been well covered if the release had been over 0.7 on the gauge. Fortunately we both made it through and we all changed around with John providing throw line cover and me ready for a boat chase if necessary. Our services were not required as Dave, Steve and Simon all sailed through with great style and confidence. We continued down picking our way around the many exposed boulders that were frequently spinning us around and sending us off line. Nevertheless we all made it down without there being any swims with the trickiest incident being when we had to release John from being pinned on one boulder infested drop but even that ended well as he was released and glided through. Last time we ran the river a tree blocked the entrance to the chute on the weir and we had to portage. Fortunately this time their was a clear run through and we all enjoyed the thrill of shooting through the gap between the 2 central pillars with ease.
A great day for us all apart from the coffee from the machine at Harry Tuffin’s in Churchstoke on our way home.
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