The first paddle of the new year was on the River Usk from Sennybridge to Aberbran. We had arranged to meet at Morrisons in Leominster at 8.30 where we had breakfast and coffee. This is a good stopping off point for some of the rivers of South Wales and a great place to fuel up with Diesel at 99.7p per litre. We should have been a group of 7 but one member had been to a party Friday evening and hadn’t made it home. No prizes for guessing who it was ! This is a classic grade 2 and 3 paddle with designated canoeing access and egress points with car parking, albeit rather muddy due to previous heavy rain. We passed over the Wye which was close to flood levels. Fortunately the Usk runs off quicker than the Wye and the level was ideal. Rainchasers put it at a medium level and the EA gauge at Trallong (which we paddled past) was reading 0.93 that morning. The group of six was made up by Steve, Geoff, Nigel, Shane, Dave P and myself. Apart from myself none of the others had run this section of river before so I felt I obliged to take the lead, but as Geoff will testify my memory of river runs fades rapidly and the 3 weir/ledges seemed to arrive far sooner than I remembered ! Nevertheless all went well and everyone came through the first 2 features with ease and had great fun “boofing” the second ledge, Shane going back for a second run. The third weir is the most daunting so some portaged this drop before we moved on down through some good bouncy wave trains and practised breaking in and out and surfing. A really good start to the year and everyone appeared to have a great day. Hopefully conditions will be kind to us again next week with a few less experienced paddlers joining us. If all goes well we will stop at Middletown, Welshpool on the way home. http://www.thebreidden.co.uk
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