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The Return of the Bank Support / Shuttle Bunny 2 - The Revenge A nother weekend has passed with yet another kick ass paddle by the canoe club. If you weren't there you missed out big style.We started off nice and early Sunday morning and after only some minor debate Bob managed to persuade the gang that the Conway would be a goer even though it had only rained piddling amounts. The journey to the river was a tense one as Bob was inwardly panicking that the dry Welsh countryside wasn't a good indicator of loads of water. Graemae was also feeling rather tense as he'd somehow made himself all excited on the way down........this didn't help Bob's driving as he had to be a bit more careful with the gear changes. We crossed from the Dee valley to the land of the Conway................HALLELUJAH!!! The clouds closed in and the skies darkened - the signs were good. Passing various streams on the way it became increasingly obvious that the Conway was going to be pretty high ( it turns out that the area had 1 and a half inches of rain over night). Gazing upon the river had a startling effect on the gang. Graemae suddenly lost his 'excited' state and it was Bob's turn to get jiggy with it. The river was about a foot above the guage way higher than any of us had done it before - sweet. Eventually the rest of the crew arrived and we got changed........ We were all clambering into our boats at the put in when a whimpering voice said "No I'm not getting on. It's just too much" We turned around to see who had made the statement. Much to our amazement it was our loud mouthed Love Rat of a chairman. Dan's sphincter just could take the pressure, he had to wimp out. He was swiftly followed by Graemae "Dirk Diggler" Macdonald who was also experiencing colon problems. With the pussies exposed the fun could begin.......... The river was totally different to it's normal character. Instead of the usual bouldery drops the river had a big water feel, with lots of boils and whirlpools to nail the unwary. There were also some nice holes and waves to play in. Along with some fairly reasonably sized pourovers. The river zoomed by. Polly got in her first combat roll ( well done the Polly) and without any prompting launched into that age old paddling tradition of describing your last beasting - I think she was quite pleased with herself!! We got to the class four drop (Gandy and Polly made it look pretty easy) and the random geezer who'd joined us for the ride took a swim. This was of course a superb opportunity for us to play in the perfectly formed holes beneath the drop whilst he emptied his boat. All too soon we reached the finish. We waded through the field full of cow shit and met up with our bank support who were wandering about in that kind of "I've been too much of a puss to go boating" way, you know the look I mean. Elkin always used to ponce about on river banks in a similar fashion. Bob and Dave's attempts to get a possie together to run the harder middle stretch was shot down so the more athletic of us bombed up the top for another run. All in all a sweet day. Fun was had by all and some yellow stripes were revealed. If you weren't there why not? |
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