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.
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.
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.
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.