Teign 20 February 2011

On a dull and misty, but not freezing February morning 13 paddlers, mostly from SVCC gathered at the A382 put in for a trip down to Steps Bridge. The River was low, at 0.65m on the Cliffords Bridge EA gauge. Sue and Darren had brought open boats whilst the rest of us were in kayaks.

Participants

This was also an opportunity for for trainee river leaders Jeff and Dave P to practise their skills, with Jeff taking the lead for the first half.

On getting on the water we proceeded on down to "Hedley's" weir, so called because Hedley had not succeeded in running it on his last two attempts, including a particularly bad line once before.

Hedleys Weir

Several individuals ran this with a variety of results. Most notably with Dave demonstrating why a stopper is  called a stopper - with an excellent display of side surfing. Jeff tried to pull him but only succeeding in tipping him up, and he ended up have to bale. Will had two runs, both of which ended up with him rolling spectacularly on various parts of the drop.

 

Proceeding on downriver, James managed to equalise the swim count with on one of the grade 3 (ish) sections.

We proceeded down river through the various weirs, drops and the boulder garden, where Dave P took over trip leadership, without further incident.

Boulder Garden

On reaching Steps bridge the low water level meant Steps weir was a definite portage for all.

All in all an excellent trip, finished off with well earned tea and cakes at a tea shop in MoretonHampstead.

Lastly well done Olie for completing his first grade 2/3 trip without incident.