A group of 8 of us arrived at Dobbies only to find the rivers we had hoped to run in North Wales had dropped too much to make the long haul worthwhile. We were left with the Dee or Tryweryn and the general consensus seemed to be the Tryweryn. On arrival at the Bala car park it was quite obvious the new charging policy was putting people off with the car park nearly empty. A couple of cars arrived with roof bars and kayak racks so we asked what the new charging policy was. BCU and WCA members and affiliated clubs who had registered were paying £7, non-members £14 and for that paddlers were being issued with a wrist band to identify whether you’d paid or not !! As we hadn’t intended paddling the T yesterday we obviously hadn’t pre booked and no one was willing to pay even £7. 3 or 4 in the group weren’t BCU members and none of us had up to date membership cards with us anyway, with car parking on top it was going to cost us a minimum of £86 !! So we decided we to run the lower after first checking first whether any “River Police” were on the bridge above the NRA wave. Most got on
below Chapel falls but a few did sneak a free ride down through NRA and Chapel. Anyway we weren’t put off by the pre amble and we had a great paddle on a beautiful spring day. Geoff managed to get some great pictures of everyone running Bala Mill Falls successfully.
When collecting the vehicles from the car park we popped into the reception and registered the club in case of future visits and said a list of paid up Wombourne members is on the club Web site. So if you intend on going to the Tryweryn in the near future, don’t forget to pay your membership or you may end up having to pay £14 !!
Having saved a few quid ourselves we decided the money would be spent more wisely in the Corn Mill at Llangollen on the way home. A good finish to a great day.
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