ItÂ’s been a while since I paddled a new river but with the river of Wales full of water and a weekend off it seamed only fair to go forth and paddle. Me and Ali set off early Saturday morning and headed to the Mellte in south Wales we reached the river and found it at a good level, this river really doesnÂ’t give you much of a warm up!
(Ali at the start of a good day)
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The put in is below a pretty chunky waterfall (we didnÂ’t run) you then get about five paddle strokes in and fly off a super cool, must be about 15 footer! Big auto boof really nice and then it just carryÂ’s on, we didnÂ’t really stop and look at much, as I dropped of the edge of the 25 footer I kinda wished I had!
(Not a great picture! but a great little drop at the bottom of the river)
But it was all good. Really nice river, after the long walk back to the car we loaded up and headed north, driving threw Wales was really nice great autumn scenery, bloody long way through didnÂ’t realize the place was that big! With the rain hammering it down we arrived at Plas y Brenn for dinner and to meet up with the big man Sam Ellis and local boy Evans. The rain continued to fall and river rose like crazy we all went to sleep with ideas of huge spate runs on tiny unknown welsh rivers infesting are dreams.
(The boys at the get in on the glen!)
(The Big man Sam, Drops into fairy falls)
When we awoke all the water had gone thought! And we decided to start are day with a cheeky run down the Fairy Glen on the Conwy, IÂ’ve never done this run but itÂ’s one IÂ’ve wanted to tick off for a good number of years, allegedly this is the UKÂ’s test piece run! IÂ’m not sure if itÂ’s the hardest thing IÂ’ve done in the UK but itÂ’s up there! I think we had a low to medium level, but itÂ’s a good solid run, powerful drops really nice technical rapids, Pipe line was my personal favourite. A really nice solid run! Then we set off for a bit of a scout about, by now it had started raining hard again but none of the river we looked at had much water in, bit odd we all thought! But Â…Â…. So any way we headed back the fairy Glen for another bash, by the time we got back the water here had come up a fair bit and all the drops seamed a good notch or two up on the first run, Pipe line was great fun again, the whole river was great fun a really stout test, think we did the run in about 15 minuets! It was way cool! I also have to admit to my love of my Everest! Some days I donÂ’t like it, but on days like this I just love it.
(Ali and Me! in the rain at the bottom)
Stays up in the water really well, moves around nice and positive a really nice safe easy boat to use, not saying I made a hash of anything! But even if you do fudge a drop the boat really looks after you, surfaces nice and controllably and fast to get going again a really top top boat! And what a top weekendÂ’s paddling. Two days, two new river, Great.
(Weapons of choice loaded for another run!)
Oh and on Saturday night we went out to a local pub for dinner, IÂ’ve never laughed at the graffiti on the wall of a toilet so muchÂ…Â…Â…Â….