Louise Fingleton, Dan Rea Dickens and (out of photo) James Edward Smith made the trip over from the UK for the week. Hopefully they'll go home with enough stories to persuade a few more to travel next year!
Now at first there are a few things about the whole plan that don't really make any sense. One is why go to west Kerry when Glenbeigh is a solid 40 minute drive from the classic runs like the Flesk and the Roughty, which are all the way on the other side of Killarney. The second is that if several hundred (yes I said hundred!) kayakers are staying in Glenbeigh for a week, why do we walk for half an hour and 2 km every evening to Rossbeigh for a beverage or two, and the same distance home again? (of course if you're lucky/sneaky you can chat up someone who's driving and get a lift, but that doesn't happen every night and you're still more than likely going to end up walking home again afterwards)
The answer to both of those questions is the Ross Inn! Rumours abound that it only ever opens around New Years specifically because the kayakers are around, and that it's changing hands and won't be open next year. I don't know how much truth there is to those rumours and it's not important, what matters is that the staff are there to serve drinks, and that's what they do. Very capably. What happens on the 'dancefloor' doesn't seem to concern them which means that all the fun stuff like crowd surfing and people dancing on other people's shoulders, which are usually a quick way to find the door of any other venue with a bouncer's boot up your backside, is fair game! At the same time, many paddlers who's crowd surfing days are behind them are attracted by the other, quieter, rooms in the pub and the chance to talk story and catch up with old friends. Several epic nights out were had there during the week, starting relatively quiet before the main horde arrived and building up all week until it culminated in a mental New Years Eve party. Well worth all the late night walks in the pitch black to get there!
The photos from the nights in the Ross aren't really PG so I'll go with this one instead. The place got battered over the last few days, on New Years Eve night when we were walking home the road in front of the pub flooded and conditions have only got worse since, resulting in severe damage to the beach front, sand dunes and properties close to the sea. Hopefully everyone down there is ok and they get everything cleared up easily enough.
Besides the mental parties, I was staying in a house full of hard core paddlers and we did manage to get out boating every day. The first day we got a low level evening run on the Flesk to learn a few lines for the race the next day and that night the water showed up, with 13 hours of rainfall over the whole country. When we arrived at the river the next morning most of the valley was under water and Dave Glasswell, bible of all the local rivers, told us that sections of the river weren't really runnable at that level. So plans for the race had to be swiftly modified and we decided to hold the event on the gates section, the 200m or so of rapids above and below the bridge.
It was a great race course, with levels so high it was possible to paddle the full thing and not touch a single rock, and I think only one paddler, Barry Loughnane, managed a clean run with no mistakes. Because the course was so short, only a minute and a half, times were really tight and when I screwed up on the last rapid it was enough to push me back into 5th place. Pretty disappointing but oh well, back to the training and better luck next time. The original plan was to hold a fun boaterX after the time trial event which would have been epic on that course but everyone was itching to get out and paddle the Flesk at all time levels. By the time the racing was finished levels had dropped from crazy to doable and we headed out with the most solid group I've ever paddled with, including Barry Loughnane, Orky, Len and Moe Kelleher and Dan and James from the UK. Some of the ULKC guys came out as well including 2/3 of the Gentlemen, Eoin Farrel and Simon McCormac and we had a great run, very pushy but in the end everyone made it down with no major drama.
Video by Dave Glasswell of the days boating on the Flesk. Much more interesting than the scrapy average levels that it's usually paddled at!
The Flesk Race was the first event of the 2014 Irish Whitewater Race League. The series is still wide open, and with races still to be held on the Annamoe and the Boluisce, as well as the Glens and Glenmac if the weather plays ball, it's all to play for. Jackson Kayaks have very generously said that they'll donate a Karma as a prize for the highest placed non-sponsored paddler in the league and there'll be lots of other prizes besides. And of course the races are great opportunities to paddle some great rivers with brilliant safety set up and get to know lots of fellow Irish paddlers. So if you're not in already, keep an eye on here: Irish-Whitewater-Race-League and come along and give a few of the races a go!
As well as that savage day on the Flesk, one of the highlights of the trip was the day we spent on the Owengar. Located somewhere in west Cork, it's been top of my to do list for a long time and it was great to finally get out there and see what it's like. It definatly lived up to expectations, I'll let the videos and pictures do the talking!
Dave Glasswell's video from the day. It's a pretty savage river! With more water I'd say it cleans up even more and gets much better again so it's definatly one that I'd like to do again.
Boof on the main drop on the Owengar, photo taken by Dan Rea Dickens.
And a sequence of photos of a freewheel on the 28ft main drop, again taken by Dan Rea Dickens!
After all that, we had a sweet day on the Roughty with NUIGKC with nice water levels and a fun crew who are really stepping up their paddling and looking really impressive, and then it was time to start thinking about heading back to Limerick. I'd like to say thanks to Barry Loughnane for organising everything, including the house, a savage bunch of people to boat with and the Flesk race. (rumour has it he's even found a way of booking the water levels!) And thanks to James Edward Smith and Andrew Regan for all the driving. James' early morning, hung over expedition to the Owengar was paticularly heroic! If anyone has never been to Kerry for New Year's, get a few people together for next year and make it happen! You won't regret it! That's it for now. Hopefully in the next few weeks the Atlantic will calm down enough for the coastal towns and villages that have been getting battered to recover and the rain keeps going so that there's plenty of paddling to be done. Till next time!
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