Friday 8th December and the sun shone all day. For the whole week leading up to Friday it had rained with Flood Watch warnings from the EA in force for most Cumbrian rivers. Then it stopped...
Me and the youth headed over to Keswick on Saturday morning with sunshine and a following breeze; no bike but the expectation of blagging a shuttle on the Greta - we weren't to be disappointed. About 8 paddlers were getting on and a further 4 arrived as we finished changing. A quick chat later and the shuttle was sorted with the late arrivals offering a lift back from the Pencil Mill get-out. The level was about 4" above the mark at Threlkeld bridge, putting us well above the minimum "agreement" level; certainly enough water for a fun, bouncey run, but nothing approaching what was to go off later in the weekend.
We took our time running down, really working the technical sections with cross river ferries into ever smaller eddies and surfing anything that looked surfable. Unfortunately for Andrew the Mill playwave was too grabby for fun though he did enjoy spinning his boat from a rope swing just before we got out....
Pity that our new found shuttle bunnies didn't know where the get-out was, two hot chocolates (Climbing Wall vending machine, 50p required) later and they waved us a cheery "hiya" as they paddled on past towards Bass Lake, signalling time for me to call a cab! Oh - and no mention made of a technical swim after getting off the river, eh mate?
The river had fallen, possibly by a good 8" while we were on, down to the bottom step at Fitz park - probably not worth running at much less than the white bridge marker.
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