Happy Birthday Stuart

I really love the River Barle - it's always such a sociable trip. The steady grade 2 and beautiful scenery make this one of the most popular trips in the club's calendar. It was therefore rather worrying that we'd had no significant rain for weeks and it looked like I'd have to call the trip off and disappoint about 25 enthusiastic paddlers.

As Steve Rayner had signed up for the trip, I rang him in mild desperation. I'd already re-scheduled the trip from a Sunday to a Saturday to coincide with Stuart Williams' 50^th Birthday and with so many looking forward to a paddle I was very relieved to hear that levels in the Usk were holding up, thanks to some rain earlier in the week.

Because many had paddled the Talybont stretch of the Usk just two weeks earlier (Club training weekend) we decided to risk the Sennibridge run.  

Having collected everyone in a layby near the finish, we quickly shuffled boats and headed for the start. Mild chaos followed as we tried to get our group organised and onto the water at the same time as another club waited for the rest of their team to return from the shuttle.

Normally we split large groups like this up to make them more manageable and keep the trip moving. But with so many young paddlers and the excuse of Stuart's birthday everyone felt like a party so we opted for the one big group approach. While this made progress down the river fairly slow, the fine weather and good company meant we had a very chilled and sociable trip.

George made sure his Dad stood out from the crowd by decorating his OC1 with balloons and banners. Frankly though, the idea that Stuart needed any more attention drawing to him seemed a bit optimistic. His OC1 has to be one of the hardest boats I've ever paddled and it wasn't long before he decided to test the temperature of the water. The cheers wet up and then everyone started singing Happy Birthday.

This section of the Usk is notable for three main drops which get steadily larger as you make your way down the river. The first; a dog-leg gave everyone a chance to practise their boat control and their singing. Steve did a great job of coaching the newer whitewater paddlers on the best line and on whole the descent passed without incident.

We knew the second drop just downstream would be more challenging, but Stuart surprised us all by falling in even before he reached the lip of the drop - ‘a chorus of Happy Birthday to you was sung by all..'. The OC1's (short open canadians designed for large whitewater) paddled by Stephanie and Stuart demonstrated how hard it is to do a support stroke when you're sat high up in a narrow open Canadian - more singing. Great fun.

We made the stop for lunch at the 3^rd and biggest drop. This gave the adults plenty of time to inspect the line over the weir and enjoy a sandwich and coffee. Meanwhile the kids jumped in their boats and shot the drop, Climbed back up and did it again and again. Lots of fun - with competitions for the best ‘Hammer' and ‘Boof' keeping everyone entertained.

As the wind picked up, we gathered our group together and headed off for the finish. A lovely paddle in winter sunshine gave everyone a chance to chat and practise breaking out on the numerous little rapids that populate the lower section of the river.

As the group became a little stretched out, Chris and I stopped to help a sheep that had fallen down a bank and broken its leg. After a lot of pushing and pulling we managed to get the sheep back to the field and we returned to our kayaks. Soon after we began to see other North Avon paddlers come running up the bank - realising that we'd fallen behind, they'd stopped and waited. When we didn't appear they had to run back up river to see what was wrong. An important lesson learned - if you're last in the group - make sure the group in front of you know where you are.

Thanks to everyone who came and made it such a special day.

Nigel

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