University Canoeing Residential Day One

We left Buxton about 10.15 and went west to Leek then Newcastle and down to Shrewsbury stopping for coffee at about midday. Then  down to Leominster and further west to Glasbury and finally on to Llyswen to meet up with Ollie about 2pm. We got the boats and kit unloaded and the guys got the boats down to the water's edge while Ollie and I did the shuttle. We were doing the section from Llyswen to Glasbury which has a short interesting bit of white water ideal for an introduction to moving water manoeuvre in faster water for relative beginners. The water level was lowish but still enough to get down without bump and scrape. At this level the way down is often more technical so requires quite a bit obstacle avoidance, nevertheless everyone got down without incident.

We got the guys to experiment with the concepts of edge, speed and angle as they got their boats into eddies either side of the current.  There were a couple of near misses as edging wasn't quite sharp enough but no swims on this occasion. We finished on a gentle paddle down to Glasbury in a perfect evenings sun accompanied by a light breeze against. The lads decided to raft up to paddle the last mile or so while Ollie and I paddled on discussing the plan for the next three days. We egressed at Glasbury and after sorting the shuttle arranged to meet up at the tomorrows get-in at 10am. A great start to the course.