HPP

Published on 15/07/2010 in Kayaking. Closed

I headed up to HPP (Holme Pierrepont White Water Course, Nottingham) last weekend for the first time in ages. I last visited shortly after the major reworking of the course and they hadn’t finished tweaking the layout, consequently most of the features were a bit rubbish as the muncher was flushy, double wave had gone and the hole replacing it was flushy, the office was crap and the tardis just a grippy pourover, etc, etc.
This visit was much better, the inlet wave was retentive enough without being too grippy allowing for Cartwheels and loops


and for others to do far more impressive twisty turny gymnastics, the hole replacing double wave was pretty steep and bouncy but was deep enough for ends. The office has gone, replaced with a new big hole a bit further upstream:

the Plughole and the Muncher are still there but decidedly less popular for playing in now that there are the other new features, although I still enjoyed it

Ali came along with her Slalom boat to get some water time and stick chasing practice, although with the rafts on we couldn’t really put the gates mid flow. However playing in a slalom boat opens options for waves you just can’t access in a short play boat!

Adrian, Alex, Jason and Chris has a great time practicing their WW skills, the lack of pointy rocks and safe consequences meant everyone felt happy to push their comfort zone in the knowledge that the worst consequence was getting a bit wetter!

All in all, a great day out.

Summer Fun

Published on 02/07/2010 in Kayaking and Photos. 0 Comments

Now that Summer has arrived with warm weather and long evenings with light until past 9, the Tuesday evening trips have started again, so far this season we have managed several trips to the Boat Inn, Frampton (Sharpness Canal) and Purton Hulks, Frampton to Frome Bridgemill and back and the Thames at Lechlade. Also now that the beginners / intermediates who have been attending our pool sessions are looking to paddle some rivers we have run intro to moving water trip on the Avon to Strensham weir where the small friendly stopper was a great introduction to playing in moving water, although some of the expressions on peoples faces suggest that perhaps they weren’t convinced by it!

Mean while everyone had a play in the stopper at the bottom

Another great trip recently was to the Severn from Hampton Loade to Bewdley,running along side the Severn Valley Railway. The day we were there was the 1940′s weekend, so we were accompanied down the river by low flying Hurricanes and the sounds of Machine Guns, Rifles and Mortars from the historic renactment types! Some small rapids after Arley provided the entertainment for all as small waves were surfed by most, although others went swimming.

The other recent trip I’ve been on was to the Gower with Leamington CC, the sun shone and the surf was good. A decent 3-4ft wave on the Sunday provided great waves to surf. No pictures from here unfortunately.

Soca fun

Published on 10/06/2010 in Alps and Kayaking. Closed

After a VERY long drive across the continent, taking in 7 countries and nearly 1100 miles, I finally returned from a very nice week paddling the Soca river in Slovenia. Making a change from the usual camping we stayed in luxury in apartments in the small town of Bovec, which is ideally situated for access to all the sections of river. The upside of the very (very) long drive is that once we arrived there is little driving once out there as no section of the Soca is more than 20 mins from the accommodation.

This was my 3rd visit to Slovenia, the crystal clear waters, easy logistics and fun paddling keep drawing me and the club back. The majority of the paddling is grade 2/3 with a couple of slightly harder sections and one significantly harder and more dangerouse section that is more rarely paddled, with this in mind it was definately a playboat destination, the creek boats were left in the garage to gather more dust. One of the best things about the Soca is that the authorities have recognised that the pristine environment is one of their best assests and in addition to preserving it activley encourage and support its use. For us kayakers this means signposted access and egress, map boards highlighting the sections, toilets, bins and ample parking at the access points.

Sign board

On arrival the 1st priority was a quick supermarket run to pick up some essential supplies (beer) for the team. Following an early(ish) night and a relatively leisurely start we were ready to hit the river, getting on below the top gorge and paddling down to Cezsoca. This provided a great warm up for most of the group and a refreshing dip for some! After lunch most of the group headed up one of the tributaries, the Koritnica, which features an entertainingly narrow gorge in addition to really fun 2/3 rapids to slalom your way down and play on the endless eddylines and small waves. This first day of playing our way down the river really set the pattern for the rest of the week as we paddled all the main sections of the Soca.

Steve drops into a holeSteve drops into a hole

Ali powers throughAli powers through

Ollie throws downOllie throws down

As the week went on we paddled all the main sections of the Soca (with the exception of one long grade I/II section) and also headed over towards Bled to paddle the Sava Bohinjca. My personal favorites were the Otona section; this is an excellent grade III+/IV- stretch with infinite waves to shred, rocks to splat and eddylines to play on until your arms fall off (complete with killer walk in), and the Srpenica 2 and Trnovo (Slalom Site) sections. The Slalom site is great fun as the gradient and pace picks up forcing you to paddle some dynamic lines to avoid the boulders and make it around or through the stoppers. However it shouldn’t be underestimated as swim could be very nasty if not sorted quickly as the next section, syphon canyon, lies immediately beneath.

The top gorge provided many with thrills (and spills) as a tight S-Bend entrance combined with a very narrow gorge and boily, funny water made for interesting lines, some successful and others less so. Many rolls and roll attempts resulted, big lungs award goes to Ken for something approaching 8 attempts before finally swimming.


Syphon canyon, whilst runnable, is by far the most serious and dangerous section of the Soca with horrendous sumps, syphons and undercuts lying all over the rapids to catch the unwary. This was reinforced on the last day when a German group got into difficulty after a member of their group swam and couldn’t be located. Grabbing our gear we ran down to the bank to assist in the search and soon located his boat. From the boats location, pinned next to some horrible undercuts and sumps we started to fear the worst but fortunately word soon reached us he had been located alive but exhaused 1km downstream. After rescuing the pinned boat we left the area with sober thoughts on how close a fun day out could have ended dreadfully.

In addition to the excellent paddling to be had on the rivers there is a wealth of sight seeing and culture to soak up with breath taking views, ancient castles and historic monuments waiting to ambush you at every turn. Many of the fortifications encountered in the region date from the 1st world war when the Soca valley saw intense fighting as part of the Isonzo front. Its hard to believe now but almost 1 million people died in the fighting between the Italians and the Austro-Hungarian and German forces.
Memorial at Kobarid

For a group looking for a chilled out paddling holiday on mostly grade 2/3 water the Soca cannot be beaten, it offers the ideal training ground to progress intermediate paddlers looking to develop their river running and leading skills. The more advanced paddler will certainly not be bored as long as they come prepared to play the river, although if they want to tackle syphon canyon will certainly want to come equipped with full on kit.

For full pictures go here.

Woolacombe

Published on 15/05/2010 in Kayaking and Surfing. Closed

Once again we headed down to Woolacombe for the early May bank holiday for a long weekend of surf, sunshine and camping.  We got some surf and sun too! Shame that the Northerly winds brought 12C temperatures with them, its been cold for far too long.

Unfortunately the tides this year weren’t ideal with high tide not until 8pm in the evening so most of the surfing was done at low tide or on a falling tide, which isn’t great when the swells are weak and the beach works best on a rising tide. However, the warmer weather on Saturday resulted in a mega long session as we got on at Midday and surfed through low tide and slack water. Once the tide turned and started to come in, the sets cleaned up and the waves built to give some great 2-3ft surf. Most people had given up by this point so we had the best of the waves largely to ourselves. This was a good thing as everyone seems to have forgotten what “dropping in” is and why its a bad idea. For those in need of eduction try reading: Rights of Way. What surprised me was the boardies were at least as bad as the sit on tops an fellow kayakers.

Despite my rant above, everyone had a good time and the small waves were ideal to introduce people to the noble art of surfing, with varying degrees of success!

Saturday night saw us have the traditional BBQ at the campsite with frankly ridiculous amounts of meat being cooked, despite Pete Bogles absence!  With night falling we decamped to the pub where some of the younger members learned some valuable skills on the pool table!

Sunday dawned with cloud, rain and blown out surf. Doing something else with the day seemed in order and so we headed off to Lynmouth to walk up the East Lyn.  Lynmouth, despite being only 1/2 an hour away proved to have far better weather which improved everyones mood no end.  Walking up the East Lyn I was shocked at just how short the gorge (and indeed the entire section) is.  What took us 3 hours of paddling is actually a leisurely 30-40min stroll up the banks.  Returning to Woolacombe in the afternoon the surf had picked up and winds died down a little so we got on for another late afternoon session.

Monday was bright and sunny but the wind was bitter.  An hour was all I lasted before running for warmth and my camera.

All in all a pretty good way to spend 3 days!

Pics here

Cardiff International White Water Course

Published on 27/04/2010 in Kayaking. Closed

Last Sunday CCC hit the new artificial WW course at Cardiff. This is a brand new pumped course, running in a horseshoe shape with an escalator to take you back to the top!

Being a pumped course I had expectations of a Nene style disappointment, however the pumps kick out an impressive 8 cumecs at a normal level and allegedly go all the way to 16! The result is an immpresively pushy piece of water that makes you paddle and forces you to make your lines if you don’t want a kicking.

Fortunately before going down we had chatted with another club member who warned us that you needed to be of upper Tryweryn standard to paddle it, otherwise we would probably have seen even more carnage. I think we racked up over 85 points amongst a dozen paddlers! (swim = 3 points, rescue = 2, anger roll = 1)

I thoroughly enjoyed the paddling and the resulting swimmage from everyone, although I do think that the course still needs some work to get to the finished article. The water depth is very shallow through out and the stoppers and waves aren’t really defined or deep enough to properly play in.

Pop outs, the odd low angle cartwheel and spins are about the limit. If they can really sort out a half decent play wave then the course will really be the business and be the southern equivalent to the Tees Baraj.