Thursday 22nd February - Nothing in the Greta - look elsewhere then.

Over to Keswick so that Andrew could give his new Burn a run out. Bought a bit of kit and half dozen curried veggie pasties and down to Fitz Park... The tide was out, with 3' of beach showing under the steps. Two days of rain and drizzle and no water - what's that all about?
Rather than just turn tail I suggested to Andrew that we at least take a look at Newlands Beck for a future mission. Just as well since, driving along the valley between Stair and Little Town, we saw white water and tumbling rapids through the trees. Note I mention trees....

We jumped on at Little Town and flew off down a tree lined ditch; after a quarter mile Keskadale Beck came in from river left and doubled the volume. Opening up now, eddies became feasible and we started leap-frogging along, grade 2 / 3 rapids in quick succession. A longer rapid appeared so out onto the left bank for a look. The rapid was good but a tree trunk strainer blocked all but 18" of the exit. With at least 2' of water under the tree, and unable to shift it, we decided that it was a safer bet to hoof it than chance a pin.

Carrying on, we soon started into continuous rapids, then under a footbridge to a short gorge section.

Andrew styles the first rapid (above the footbridge)

The drop into the gorge looked sticky at the bottom, so I grabbed my camera and throwbag so that Andrew could run it first...

Into the Gorge - sticky at the bottom but the Burn sails through

Once out of the gorge, the beck eased off; thankfully, as we rounded a bend to find a mass of trees right across the beck. A bash of a portage followed with a tricky balance / seal-launch to get back on...

"I think I can see the line.." - Strainer at bottom of Newlands Beck

Easier water for another half mile or so delivered us to Stair where we got out. The map suggests that it would be ok to continue the run to another road bridge, probably doubling the length of the section; however with a shuttle on foot to do, enough was enough. A really good outcome seeing as we thought we wouldn't paddle at all!

Monday 20th February - What? The Dee is on 6 at JJs!?

Ho Hum, drop the car in Llangollen, hump the boats up to the canal and off to Chainbridge... Sound familiar? Paddling with Mark and Heather, more water than my last 4 visits to the Afon Dee (6 on the gauge), promising a good day on the river. Oh how fortunes fade!

Andrew ran Serpent's Tail in his playboat, hitting every eddy from the mini one, top right, down. He was followed by Heather, who also ran a clean line. He then repeated the performance, carving it up in Heather's Burn!

I'm saying little about my run other than it didn't impress anybody. Mark followed on before we regrouped and set off down river.

Andrew takes the sting out of the Tail...

All had a good play at JJ's with Mark giving A some useful advice on blunts before heading down to Town Falls. Note; there is an eddy midstream just above the Falls. There is a fallen tree in this eddy. The tree will eat you if you float into it whilst being lazy and enjoying the scenery. For this to happen first time on the river with strangers is really most embarrasing....

Mark, Andy and I dropped into the river right eddy just above the drop only to watch Heather come sailing by to "probe" the Falls for us! What a star - she ran a tidy looking line but joined me on the swimmers list after the tow back tickled her back into the stopper. No worries, she soon eddied out and we were quickly back in the car park and away home (except for a brief detour to Pyranha in Runcorn - costly, but Andrew was a happy bunny with his brand new Burn strapped to the roof of the car!)

18th & 19th February - Expedtion Symposium at PyB

Superb weekend at the Brenin; Andrew and I plus about a hundred other paddlers taking in the best of international expeditioning.

Workshops covered Sponsorship and Funding, Staying healthy, Exped. packing and provisioning, In-country contacts and transport, Pre-trip planning (dealing with emergencies / fatalities), Remote First-aid... the list goes on. Excellent evening lectures (Ollie and Ben in Greenland, Manby all over the place - literally since he was full of Guiness) and a great social buzz (OK - too much beer).

Fantastic event; likely to be repeated alternate years.

Pete Catterall - organiser and river god!

Thursday 15th February - another day out of the office : )

A quick run down the Leven with Debra before her coaching day at PyB. Twice down the rapid above Kirk's, three times through Backbarrow Bridge, the big weir and a storming run through Fisherman's Gorge by Debra. Very low, but still worthwhile. More sneaky mid-week paddling is called for!

February 5th to 9th - A Whitewater Masterclass

Guess who's been to JJ's a lot then!???

Seven hopefuls arrived at the Brenin with hearts set on making the most of a Masterclass coaching week. Sadly the weather Gods decided not to play fair and promptly froze all the water in North Wales. Minus 9 Centigrade is not the best temperature to visit Swallow Falls or Pont Cyfyng (imagine a vertical bob-sleigh event...). On one occassion my neoprene boots actually froze to the rock next to the Dee - pity I was wearing them at the time...

Four days of five spent between Chainbridge and Town Falls, but, boy, did we perfect our lines through Serpents Tail! By the end of the week we were hitting 5* challenges (according to PC) and paddle muscles bulged (the canal does that to you!).

A morning of ropework, access on steep ground and retrieving pinned boats was followed by an afternoon open boating on the lake. The lake with more ice than an extremely icy gin and tonic with extra ice. This required Karrimats to insulate knees from hulls and icebreaking technique in the canoes; I stayed home and edited videos in the bar, thank you so very much.

A good team, plenty of refreshments taken and another satisfied customer so far as PyB are concerned.

Saturday February 3rd - Family fun at Halton Rapid

Andrew & I met Jill, Phillip and Robert at Lancaster for his kayaking session. As a nine year old with quite severe autism he was rather excited; in fact he announced that "This is going to be the most exciting day of my life so far!" as we chatted over a coffee before going down to the river.... Robert & Phillip changed into wetsuits in the hotel loo and we nipped down to the river.

Despite the cold (both were well togged out in spare kit) we all had a good couple of hours paddling up and down (and around and around) with Jill videoing from the bank.

Andrew had to go play in the weir so Robert decided that he should as well. He loved it, bouncing his way down with me rafted alongside. Of course this meant that we had to bale out and do it all again.

Jill and Phillip fed us royally afterwards with home made soups, bread, flapjack, etc.

Top day out and really happy to see Robert enjoy himself so much.

Saturday January 27th - Bouncing along with the West Mids posse

I really ought to write todays jolly up in full, but am running out of time due to having to rip out my gas fire and boiler, shower, airing cupboard, old hot water tank, landing carpet and generally trash the house.

I'll be spending tomorrow (today being Friday) introducing a nine year old autistic lad to kayaking and getting my shit together for a week at the Brenin, starting Sunday. That's after meeting Pauline, Bill & Gill for lunch in Grasmere on my way to the Brenin.

And having spent two days with Tony and the FC team during the week. And having had the car vandalised. Oh - and doing well over 40 hours on my strategy paper in between times....

So, no time to write up a good run out on the Leven, albeit at a lowish level (ran the big weir, so definitely lowish!) with a great team from the W Mids. Great to get on the water with these guys again and looking forward to the next trip - Goat Inn weekend in early March.

Saturday January 20th - Big Water makes for Big Air

Some day all rivers will have waves like this! Nobody was able to confirm just how much air there was between my i4 and the top of the haystack at the bottom of Abbey Rapids. The guy stuck in the hole below me was paler than a pale thing after the colour had drained from it as I passed clean over him and his boat before landing... the only time I ever went in with a boat and paddle and came out with a boat and two paddles!!

Barnard Castle to Winston; 13km of swollen G3-4 Tees - big volume, fast, near river-wide stoppers, a couple of critical (or suffer!) lines and some "challenging" surf waves.....

As MarkB posted on UKRGS:

"Below the bridge at Abbey Rapids, the sight of two kayaks downstream 'sky rocketing' out of the hole was sufficient encouragement to help me stay on a boily left line. Below Whorlton, the other highlight was circumventing a large stopper river right , to see its twin just beyond it and then to discover just in time that there was a third one just as big below me on river left."

As it happened, one of those going airbourne was yours truly; apparently I passed clean over a hole which, at the time, had another paddler perfoming an auto-eject from his boat having been through the rinse cycle several times... about time I had the lucky break! We mostly got around those stoppers - those that didn't learned from their experience ; ) "Yip yip coyote" as Quickdraw McGraw probably never said...

About to take the plunge - the bottom fell out of the hole over on the right!

Sunday January 14th - Wookie Weir - Curleys go play...

Heaps of rain meant high levels at Wookie Weir... Two hours playboating half an hour from home. Andrew really is a spoilt brat; he even admits as much : )

I'm aching way too much afterwards. Maybe I should just give up working and spend more time getting fit........

Saturday January 13th - Does 150 metres count as a river?

MarkB, Simon and Andrew - Andy and I dashed into Keswick for pies then on to Threlkeld where we met about a dozen open boaters lining up to fall into the Greta. Maybe it was a rescue drill or something? MarkB turned up followed, while we sorted the shuttle, by Simon...

We didn't wait to find out what the canoeists were up to because we had a plan; the Greta for starters, MarkB had to leave, then up into the hills "back o'Skidda" with Simon to see what the torrential rain had done to the upper Caldew - and it had done plenty : )

Andrew clinging to a line through the broken weir outside Keswick

Getting to the Caldew was the hardest part - flooded roads giving a hint of things to come. The river turned out to be much bigger than the rock-sliding boulder dodging ditch that we had heard about; it turned out to be technical, fast and tight. And with the 5 metre "Picnic Pool" slide / drop right at the start. Much Joy! Another 6" depth would elevate this to "one of the best" but doubt it sees this kind of level too often....

On the upper Caldew - bigger than it looks...