North Wales in January...No Water? No Problem!

So we arrived back on Saturday from another epic trip to Wales! Yes it is January, yes it was cold, no there wasn't very much water and yes, despite all the above it was still great craic! We made the most of the water that was there with some great days on the Dee and the Tryweren, took a day on an easier river to chill out and enjoy the scenery and towards the end of the week when lots of tired bodies were feeling the effects of paddling for several days a row we went hiking on Mount Snowdon! With darkness coming unfortunatly early in North Wales in winter there was also plenty of time left over for a bit of banter in Jesse James' awesome little bunkhouse in the evenings!

Lots of people learned a whole lot over there, which is the focus of a more detailed write up I'm doing. It may or may not be appearing here...if you're interested in finding out more then I would keep a close eye on Irish kayaking publications in the near future! In the meantime, here's a video Diarmuid Moloney put together of the trip: ULKC Wales trip 2015 on THE Dee.

 

Post snowball fight peace! Photo by Diarmuid Moloney.

Solid Start to the Season!

In keeping with the age old tradition of Irish Kayakers, last Saturday myself and a few of the lads from UL headed to Glenbeigh for New Years. Although the news that the Ross Inn wouldn't be opening caused a bit of uncertainty about how the week would go, it didn't seem to have put anyone off from going down and down there we met up with groups from UCD, NUIG, UCC and Napier University in Scotland, a mixture of old friends and new faces. Although water levels were low when we got there and dropping, it was great to see everyone from the other clubs again and we still managed to get out paddling, starting with the ever reliable Upper Carragh and moving out to the Comeragh the next day, which is a tight, technical, rocky, bog-fed ditch which was great in a group of four but would be totally impractical for a larger group.

Over the next few days more representatives from UL showed up, the other college's houses became packed to the gills, the parties started to get bigger and it started raining. It was all great craic and we were able to vary the paddling a bit, including the Gearhamean at decent levels with a big group from NUIG which was awesome craic and the Lower Carragh, which kept our beginners busy and on the water. On the lower Carragh we were able to spend a long time working on paddling technique and rescue skills, which will hopefully help the first years a lot when they head to Wales in a few weeks time! Unfortunatly, with the Ross Inn closed there was nowhere for everyone to congregate in the evenings. Although an ordinary country pub with locals in it is never going to match the Ross for a kayaking party we made the best of it and the evenings were still great craic! 

Due to water levels the Flesk race which had been scheduled for the 27th of December was moved to the 3rd of January, the last day of Kerry for the majority of people down. After a week of paddling, partying and driving around looking for water it was a tired group of paddlers that showed up at the Flesk on Saturday morning. The water levels did help to wake everyone up, we arrived to find it massively high for the second year running! Again, the race had to be confined to the first two hundred meters of the river since we didn't have enough people to set up rescue at all the locations it would be needed at that level. This is an awesome race course, with approximately one hundred metres of fast-flowing flatwater into a hundred metres of rapids with a choice of lines and a couple of tricky moves to make. Race times of about a minute meant that there was no chance to make up time after a minor mistake, every part of the course was crucial. In the end, third place was taken by David Higgins with joint first going to myself and Andrew Regan! 

Before Christmas, when the Glens race had to be called off due to low water levels, the whole circus was moved to the Ennistymon Falls for the day. Great water levels and a huge turn out made for a deadly day on the water, helped by decent weather and sunshine which are pretty unusual at whitewater events in Ireland! The day started off with a time-trial event, followed by a boaterX competition followed by a mass start spin down the river. The mass start event was pretty impressive, with 40 or so paddling down the falls together! Unfortunatly I went out in the semi-final of the boaterX, but the time trial more than made up for it since I came first overall! Combined with the results from the Flesk and Buncrana it's been a dream start to the season, hopefully I'll be able to keep it up for the rest of the series! Jackson are putting up a prize boat for the league again this year, which I'm inelegible for due to my association with Wavesport back in the day and a few of the other lads can't get it either. Since only four races are being counted for points this year the series is still wide open, if you havn't been coming to the events so far you really should start making time for them, they're a great way to meet new people, paddle new rivers and you never know, you could get a new boat out of it! 

BoaterX heat at Ennistymon, photo by Barry Loughnane.

In other news, I got out on the Glens a few times after exams finished, and took a bit of a hit on Constriction on one run. The video is pretty funny, check it out!