This weekend I went on a trip with my club which was supposed to be on the river Wye starting from Hay-on-Wye which is a beautiful little town famous for its book festival! Unfortunately the river was very low, so on Saturday we went to Brecon and paddled a there and back trip for a few hours along the Brecon canal, a lovely quiet waterway and an enjoyable paddle.
We camped at Bycross Farm campsite, a super site right on the river Wye. However on Sunday the levels were still very low so we decided to go further down stream to Ross-on-Wye we were going to paddle from there a relatively short paddle to Kerne bridge and we shuttled the cars there so we had vehicles both ends. Kerne bridge is a nice place to park, nice Cafe and you can lauunch from there if you wish.
The paddle from Ross was fun, the water was low but one of our leaders guided us though most of the low water spots.
It was a lovely day lots of people on the river and I had a lovely time.
At the end of the paddle at Kerne bridge about 5 minutes before the exit point there is some bubbly water that can take you into some trees if you are not careful. We decided to make this a training spot and we were shown by the experienced paddlers how to go through this water safely either by paddling or by lining using ropes to guide the boat though while you are on shore.
I decided to paddle it, and was doing very well paddling towards the spot I wanted to exit the bubbly water, I was pretty much through it when I ended up in an eddy which stopped my boat and started to turn it, at which point I was still leaning and over I went, splash! swim! a bit embarrassed but fine, apparently I should have done a low brace to push myself back up, something new to learn and practice this week!
It was a lovely weekend cant wait for the next trip!