Bank holiday Monday a few of us met up for a paddle down the river Mersey. We all met up at ford street and off loaded the kit. As this was a cross site group both SOTP and BCUK members along for the ride it was new faces all round.
The motley crew for the trip would be Regbella (sopt & bcuk), Helen (RBs better half), MikeTi (sotp), Firecrest (bcuk), Martin, Lin (my better half) and myself. At the start up SOAR (bcuk) and John (I think that was his name sorry mate) turned up for a bike ride. It was good to meet up with people and put a few faces to names.
Anyway onto the trip, after the car shuttles and a general natter about the state of the world etc etc ..nothing too big lol. As two of the group had not paddled before Stu and Helen agreed to help them along in their boats. Stu paddled with firecrest while Helen paddled with martin.
Onto the water all safe and sound we was ready for the off and down the river all of 100 m before the first get out. Now anybody who has done this river will know how bad this get out is. The river speeds up at the get out and turns a bend before falling over the weir that tried to eat me on my last trip on the river. RB and FC went first ..and missed the jetty flowing down river grabbing a tree to stop going over the weir down go Martin and Helen to help out who also miss the jetty and bump into RB and FC nearly pushing them down river .watching this sat up stream hearing the benny hill music in my head we set off to help ..only to miss the jetty as well. Where Lin leans over and puts the gunnels under the water ..the canoe fills up as she jumps onto the bank leaving me in the back of the canoe sinking. I get out into the river and pull the canoe up stream where MikeTi go into the action and guess what ..he very nearly made the jetty missing it by an inch. I grabbed the front of his canoe and pushed him back to the jetty. This whole incident took just a few minutes from dry to wet lol.
One by one we pulled the canoes back up to safety and out of the water. You know when you get that feeling its going to be a good day. Well this was one of those times. Everybody was chuckling at being wet already and joking about the rest of the paddle. You know you are out with a good group when everybody just gets stuck in and tries to help out and can immediately laugh at things going wrong. My kind of folk.
After taking stock and the short portage round the weir we all struggled down the steps and put back into the river. Floating down river with paddling lessons in full flow, with all types of topics being discussed it was easy to forget the initial mishap. All the time everybody kept their eyes peeled for the paddle and hat that I lost a few weeks ago No joy .ah well.
The island we had planned to stop on for the brews had been flooded out sop we paddled on and found a suitable stop. This gave RB who is a fully fledged stovie now to get out his latest toy, a woodgas stove to brew up on and myself to use my new flask in anger for the first time. As the brews flowed we all sat around poking fun at each other and generally having a nice chat with cakes.
Back into the water and onwards we paddled. Shortly after the brew stop I noticed a rubber duck floating at the side of the canal. This proved to be the first of many and turned into a rubber duck hunt. In about 5 mins we had ducks all over each boat acting as mascots.
Anybody who has read any of my bloggs before will be wondering where the piccys are well my camera drowned on the last trip out and RB had buried his fisherprice lookalike in a barrel and forgot to get it out at the brew stop.
By this point everybody had settled in to the paddling and we had started to mess around bumping each other and racing along. Unfortunately it was time for the get out at Northenden weir. If anything came along too soon this was it.
At the get out for the weir we walked along and had a look at it.
A few conversations and cajoling later RB, Miketi and myself got back in the water above the weir and paddled away to our demise lol.
Down Miketi goes
followed by RB
then me
the safety paddlers Lin and Martin
all happy after running the weir.
RB had a few runs with each run going down a different part of the weir.
the rubber ducky
After we had a few runs we all paddled over to the get out and portaged up to the car park. All good so far then as we hit the car park the one bad point of the day ..some scally had broken into RBs car smashing his window grabbing a bag full of straps. We found them in the bushes a short while later.......... why oh, why do they do it ????????????? Curseing the scally world we all loaded up and said our goodbyes and went home.
I was a great day out and I hope everybody had as good a time as I did. Cant wait for the next one.
Greg
The motley crew for the trip would be Regbella (sopt & bcuk), Helen (RBs better half), MikeTi (sotp), Firecrest (bcuk), Martin, Lin (my better half) and myself. At the start up SOAR (bcuk) and John (I think that was his name sorry mate) turned up for a bike ride. It was good to meet up with people and put a few faces to names.
Anyway onto the trip, after the car shuttles and a general natter about the state of the world etc etc ..nothing too big lol. As two of the group had not paddled before Stu and Helen agreed to help them along in their boats. Stu paddled with firecrest while Helen paddled with martin.
Onto the water all safe and sound we was ready for the off and down the river all of 100 m before the first get out. Now anybody who has done this river will know how bad this get out is. The river speeds up at the get out and turns a bend before falling over the weir that tried to eat me on my last trip on the river. RB and FC went first ..and missed the jetty flowing down river grabbing a tree to stop going over the weir down go Martin and Helen to help out who also miss the jetty and bump into RB and FC nearly pushing them down river .watching this sat up stream hearing the benny hill music in my head we set off to help ..only to miss the jetty as well. Where Lin leans over and puts the gunnels under the water ..the canoe fills up as she jumps onto the bank leaving me in the back of the canoe sinking. I get out into the river and pull the canoe up stream where MikeTi go into the action and guess what ..he very nearly made the jetty missing it by an inch. I grabbed the front of his canoe and pushed him back to the jetty. This whole incident took just a few minutes from dry to wet lol.
One by one we pulled the canoes back up to safety and out of the water. You know when you get that feeling its going to be a good day. Well this was one of those times. Everybody was chuckling at being wet already and joking about the rest of the paddle. You know you are out with a good group when everybody just gets stuck in and tries to help out and can immediately laugh at things going wrong. My kind of folk.
After taking stock and the short portage round the weir we all struggled down the steps and put back into the river. Floating down river with paddling lessons in full flow, with all types of topics being discussed it was easy to forget the initial mishap. All the time everybody kept their eyes peeled for the paddle and hat that I lost a few weeks ago No joy .ah well.
The island we had planned to stop on for the brews had been flooded out sop we paddled on and found a suitable stop. This gave RB who is a fully fledged stovie now to get out his latest toy, a woodgas stove to brew up on and myself to use my new flask in anger for the first time. As the brews flowed we all sat around poking fun at each other and generally having a nice chat with cakes.
Back into the water and onwards we paddled. Shortly after the brew stop I noticed a rubber duck floating at the side of the canal. This proved to be the first of many and turned into a rubber duck hunt. In about 5 mins we had ducks all over each boat acting as mascots.
Anybody who has read any of my bloggs before will be wondering where the piccys are well my camera drowned on the last trip out and RB had buried his fisherprice lookalike in a barrel and forgot to get it out at the brew stop.
By this point everybody had settled in to the paddling and we had started to mess around bumping each other and racing along. Unfortunately it was time for the get out at Northenden weir. If anything came along too soon this was it.
At the get out for the weir we walked along and had a look at it.
A few conversations and cajoling later RB, Miketi and myself got back in the water above the weir and paddled away to our demise lol.
Down Miketi goes
followed by RB
then me
the safety paddlers Lin and Martin
all happy after running the weir.
RB had a few runs with each run going down a different part of the weir.
the rubber ducky
After we had a few runs we all paddled over to the get out and portaged up to the car park. All good so far then as we hit the car park the one bad point of the day ..some scally had broken into RBs car smashing his window grabbing a bag full of straps. We found them in the bushes a short while later.......... why oh, why do they do it ????????????? Curseing the scally world we all loaded up and said our goodbyes and went home.
I was a great day out and I hope everybody had as good a time as I did. Cant wait for the next one.
Greg
