So the past three days have been amazing! This weekend a group of us; myself, Erin, Mark, Sam and Dan went to stay up with Erin’s parents in Leeds Friday night with the intention of running Tees barrage on the Saturday. Erin’s parents cooked us a wonderful lasagne for dinner. Saturday morning we got up bright and early and went to Tees Barrage with Owen Jones, a friend and ex Warwick Canoe member who now studies in Leeds. Tees barrage was awesome! Although several of us had very recently been there on slalom we had only got in a few runs of the long course. However, since our trip coincided with National Student Rodeo, a play boating competition in Nottingham, and a slalom event on the Tryweryn, we pretty much had the course to ourselves! We all did a lot of runs on the long course, and several of us had a go on the short course, with varying degrees of success.
Here is a photo of Mark going down the drop at the end of the long course:
Saturday evening we went out for a tasty curry with Erin’s parents. Then on Sunday Owen Jones suggested we did the Ure, so we headed out to do that. Unfortunately Erin missed out as she had to catch up on some work. However, she picked a good day off as the weather was bitterly cold and pretty miserable. For anyone interested in running the Ure from Hack Falls follow signs ‘long route hack falls’ rather than ‘short route hack falls.’ We followed the short route signs, and though scenic, the paths were steep, muddy and slippery. The long route, putting in far above Hack Falls is much better to walk along in rain with boats. The river Ure was fun, but the best rapids were at the start and finish.
I didn’t take any photos on the Ure, but here is a photo of Mark and Dan traipsing through lots of mud on the short route to hack falls:
After the Ure Sam and Dan left. However, Erin, Mark and me had a training session with our coach Roger booked for Monday, so we stayed at Erin’s house one more night, and enjoyed a roast Sunday evening cooked by the Dunns. So yesterday we headed back to Anglesey and went training with Roger which was fantastic! I got to try out Roger’s Cetus, which is the make we are being loaned from P&H and it was really wonderful to paddle. In terms of training we discussed a lot about expedition, worked on some more navigation and did some surfing too.
Here’s a photo of Erin surfing courteously of Roger:
After the session yesterday we are already looking forward to next Mondays session, we are really enjoying our time spent with Roger as he is such a incredible coach and we are learning a lot from him! You can see his blog which has details of our days with him here.
Also would like to say a quick thank you to anyone that’s emailed us advice or offered us help so far! It really is appreciated.
