COLLEGE COURSE WORK (YEAR 2):
Canoeing Along the River Wye from Glasbury to Tintern Abbey, Summer 1971…
This week long expedition was something I had quite dreaded as the time to set off moved ever closer. We as a PE group had worked in canoes a little… We had all turned one over in the local swimming pool, had tapped the expected drum-roll on the bottom with our heads vertically downwards in deep water to show that we were fine, then we had slipped out to side-stroke the upturned canoe to the pool’s edge.
We had even been given an opportunity to make our own canoes… Naturally, given my school construction records in woodwork and metalwork, I declined. The ultra-keen Kevin Nutt and his girlfriend made, cradled, nurtured and loved their fibre-glass creations. They married almost immediately college had finished and they looked alike, walked together, ate in unison and answered each question simultaneously…
They would divorce, I was told much later…
We had river-practice on the Thames near Pangbourne and I almost enjoyed that. I’m sure I missed a second drive out there through illness (or more likely out of disinterest) and I know I didn’t actually perform the required ‘Eskimo-Roll’ before the Wye trip began…
I had somehow become paired with Bugsy Moran again, who had changed courses to study PE, being a decent soccer player as aforementioned. Later though he would drop out of college life. He wasn’t a gymnastic type and he hated water…
We were ushered towards an old canvas double-canoe as the one we would paddle along the Wye and eventually the departure day crept up on us. We then boarded a mini-bus for the long drive to Wales. We had been given a loose timetable and were expected to be in a couple of towns on certain dates: one meeting was to get to a Welsh riding stable for pony trekking and although I really didn’t want to paddle a canoe, I REALLY didn’t fancy pony trekking… I’d never even sat on a horse… Actually the only guy who didn’t seem to mind the arrangement was Kevin Nutt…
Anyway, Glasbury in Powys was the starting point and as we looked at the shallows below the bridge, ‘shallow’ was certainly the perfect description of a river which had received no rain for several weeks. The department had been split into groups for the expedition and each group was expected to try to camp at the same place together. Camping was a worry, for I’d never done that before either… And what made my concern so real, was that we were having to choose somewhere to pitch a tent somewhere along a major river and I’d never pitched a tent in my life… Fortunately, Bugsy had.
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| THE STARTING POINT: GLASBURY BRIDGE... |
I recall surveying the scene, which was a wide, shallow expanse of water, spotted with rocks and stones lying before me. Ritchie Mitchell’s single canoe came to grief within five minutes and he was driven back to Reading. He enjoyed the tennis from Wimbledon on TV all week… Bugsy and I tried to carry, float, scrape and blunder an advance. We genuinely hoped that our desperate vessel would be damaged beyond repair too but it was not to be. Bugsy was so scared of water that he insisted on sitting at the front of the canoe and when the shallows were left behind and all of the canoes were heading for the first communal campsite, it was ominously evident that we were leaking river water.
The rear of our vessel was only slightly ripped across the canvas but that was enough. My sleeping-bag and some of my clothes had become wet, for they were jammed into the back-end of the canoe but I was offered the experience of a ‘metallic sheet’ wrapping, lent to me by one of the accompanying lecturers to sleep in. I simply rolled inside it and I oozed warmth. During that first night, rain poured torrentially into the low Wye River. Tents were tested to their limits, we made taping-repairs to several canoes and eventually, at around 11am, we all set out onto a fast-flowing tide.
It was brilliant… We hardly paddled but basically just steered, made good ground but gradually got lower and lower and lower in the water at the rear. I was sitting in shipped water, a position I was to get used to as the week wore on, with Bugsy having panic attacks each time I rocked the boat. My belongings were now tightly protected by a heavy wrapping of plastic bags and the June sunshine began to make Wye canoeing seem not such a bad way to spend a week after all…
CANOEING THE WYE…
That first canoeing session on 17th June 1971 began at 3pm, passing unsympathetic fishermen but we became wedged high on a rock under Hay Bridge but eventually reached the Boat Inn at the 10 mile mark before the rains came.
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| THE BRIDGE AT HAY... |
Day two’s heavy rain meant that the canoe was shipping a great deal of water. This was unfortunate because we needed to stop and empty the vessel at intervals but the local river-patrons were often quite disagreeable and we were told to move on. We only just managed to reach Monnington at 5.45pm with a 12 mile stretch behind us.
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| MONNINGTON ON THE RIVER WYE... |
The camping area was at a difficult landing stage and it was a walk of a mile or so to Preston-on-Wye for provisions and a most welcome pint of beer in the Yew Tree there. The canoe was in a shocking state but day three began in very fast water, even allowing us a beer stop nine miles out at the Camp Inn. The surroundings were superb with marvellous forestry but another canoe ripped our canvas again. Fortunately however, the fast water carried us quickly to Hereford, some four miles or so away. We camped on the riverbank and even managed a shower in Hereford town…
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| PRESTON ON WYE... |
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| HEREFORD... |
On Sunday 20th June we worked hard with our paddling. We reached Mordiford, seven miles out but then had to walk about a mile to an inn in the village. We rolled into the bar wearing life-jackets and sporting muddy legs.
The ale gave us the mental strength needed to negotiate a powerful current past Capler Wood and a nine and a half mile stretch into a lovely evening of red skies, good air, a smart camping area and fresh water from the New Harp Hotel, Hoarwithy Village.
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| CAPLER WOOD... |
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| HOARWITHY... |
Day five took us to a pre-determined campsite. It was a PGL camp at a place called Hole-in-the-Wall. We had the use of the tents and coffee-bar there, although the landing stage was rather awkward. An island took the mainstream Wye right and it was very rapid but there were narrow waters to the left. We had to go past the stage, attempt a left turn and paddle furiously against the fast water and into the bank. Not easy in a sinking double-canoe with a non-water-lover in the pilot seat…
The camp was surrounded by some superb walking lanes and green riverbanks but it was the treatment of some American schoolgirls in the camp which made for an unfortunate end to the evening. They were roughly handled by their camp-leaders in a dazzling show of petty discipline and pseudo-military control.
Only six and a half miles were canoed on that day, the eve of Tuesday 22nd June, when pony trekking would happen…
We were driven back to the Glasbury area, which was in itself a little weird, after having canoed so many miles away from the place and the Mills Riding Centre was reached. I was almost desperate not to undertake this exercise, where a pony called Heather was saddled with me… The day was warm and we trekked in green valleys, negotiated steep stream crossings and trekked amongst rolling hills. It was superb and I enjoyed every moment of it… Amazingly this became a feature of the week.
Back at the PGL camp, I was given an opportunity to paddle a single canoe for the five mile stretch to Ross-on-Wye, a real improvement on my seat in a double-canoe and 8cm of river-water. Good fun in the rapids for me…
Day seven at Ross-on-Wye brought me saddle-soreness and the whole group was provided with a chicken-in-the-basket meal at the Kings Head Hotel. The next stretch was past Goodrich Castle and on to Symonds Yat, a place where I had eaten picnics a couple of times on Sundays out with my family when I was young.
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| GOODRICH CASTLE... |
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| SYMONDS YAT... |
As usual, I was sitting in several centimetres of water and we were approaching the Symonds Yat rapids. Bugsy and I had to stop to empty the shipped water before negotiating the shallows but the scene was watched in amazement by a party of pensioners who were about to board a pleasure-boat. They saw two guys emptying their belongings from inside a battered canvas canoe, then they proceeded to gawp at us as one at each end, we lifted and lowered the upside-down craft. This of course caused a pouring of water each time to the audience’s incredulity, before we re-packed the canoe and and relaunched it, then waved heartily to our spectators and paddled off…
The nearby rapids caused Bugsy some consternation but after we paddled on past a Forestry Commission camp, the hill scenery before Monmouth became breathtaking. We camped in a brigadier’s field, some three miles from Monmouth and in absolutely marvellous surroundings. A 45 minute walk into the town ended a good day really well, a canoeing stretch of 18 miles.
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| MONMOUTH... |
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| WE PADDLED ON PAST THE STEPS ON THE LEFT, WHILST MOST OTHERS CAMPED NEARBY... |
On day eight we paddled into Monmouth, well ahead of most of the group and spent the day there, visiting the castle. A few of our peers then camped at Monmouth School but eight of us paddled on to Llandogo where we were fortunate to find a splendid camp-field in a superb village-in-the-hills setting. So a ten mile stretch had been achieved and just four miles remained to reach our goal, Tintern…
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| LLANDOGO... |
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| TINTERN ABBEY... |
The ninth day, Friday, June 25th brought us a 75 minute paddle against a strong current, searching for an old wooden landing stage to the right. The old canvas canoe, the shipped water, the need for a bath, the yearning for a mug of tea all rolled around in my mind but we had arrived in Tintern as the third or fourth canoe to finish, so I suppose our vessel had done really well to succeed…
A long journey by road followed back to Reading, then to my digs in Bracknell for a strong cup of tea, then a bath and a real bed…
Show-off of the week: Mary Mooney…
The only horse rider in the PE Department, she chose to ride a horse on pony-trekking day, really looking the part until she spurred her horse into a gallop and, er, fell off…
Many of us enjoyed that moment…
Animal Spot:
Hissing swans were a real threat to us canoeists, especially if the paddles got close to the cygnets, at which point the parents turned very nasty.
Our lecturers had warned us all of the dangers…
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