Monmouth to Brockweir.

Ten keen, lively people met up at the lock-up at 8.30am to ensure we had enough boats, paddles, spray decks etc for everyone. It was noted that we almost needed to line up like the army with our pile of kit folded neatly beside us. We then set out to drive to Brockweir in three cars, thanks to Mike, Dave and Phil for driving. We got into our kit and ensured that all dry kit and warm clothes for the end were left in one car, while loading all canoeing kit into two of the cars to drive up to Monmouth. With one near-miss as Andrew nearly left his spray deck and buoyancy aid at the bottom- we then set off for Monmouth.

 

At Monmouth we quickly unloaded the trailer and Dave's roofrack and took everything down to the water's edge. After a brief safety talk by Dave, we got everyone onto the water- by 11am- possibly a bit of a record for PaddleOn! Phil and Dave did a very good attempt at tipping Ruth out of her boat before we even started, but they didn't quite succeed. We then paddled off down the river in remarkably low water. Those of us who had paddled this stretch several times before, including a week after the July 2008 floods, were amazed at how low the water was. There were many more sections of rapids and riffles than we had seen before, making the paddling much more interesting.

 

We passed several groups of very young fluffy ducklings, a couple of herons, geese and swans among other wildlife. The river was beautiful, and most of the day it was quite sunny, which made for an extremely relaxing day.

 

Simon decided to see how cold the water was, and to see how wet he could get his trainers, by capsizing in a riffly bit while breaking out of a current. Ruth almost got knocked out of her boat by a submerged rock, and Simon following her decided to avoid that route and managed to get wedged on top of the rock. However Phil pulled him off and there were no other incidents.

 

We stopped for lunch, climbing up the bank, and enjoyed freshly made coffee and tea to warm us up, thanks to Mike and Dave. We then continued down the river, occasionally paddling against wind, and through a short-ish heavy rain shower, past an island where previous club members have decided to go swimming, but Dave positioned himself in the main flow in front of a tree to ward off less experienced paddlers and keep them out of harm. Chelsie and Max, who are relatively new to kayaking, decided to join Dave in the open boat to paddle the latter half of the journey, and towed their kayaks behind. They developed a new code for changing the side to paddle by shouting pizza (something to do with "Hut" being the normal call!!)

 

We arrived at Brockweir, having had a thoroughly enjoyable paddle, all feeling as though we had done a reasonable amount of exercise, but surprised that we had already arrived at our get-out. After getting changed, the car drivers were taken to the start to collect cars then we loaded the trailer etc and returned to Bristol

 

Thanks to Dave for organising us and keeping us safe and to Mike, Phil and Dave for driving.

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