Liverpool University Canoe Club

By Andy R 

Easter comes around again, and with it our annual crusade in search of scottish waters…. for me, this year was a little different from the normal however

Easter

Scotland

45 people

and a cubic sh*tload of snow to go with it

After discussing how Mary was going to travel from Devon to meet us in Roybridge on the Thursday, the options included; train, plane, bus, driving and cycling. After we’d established that cycling up to Scotland was ridiculous, train and bus tickets were booked and the matter was sorted….. A short time after this conversation, involving short term memory loss, it was decided that i was going to set off early on sunday morning and cycle to scotland, to meet the minibus at the river get in on thursday morning.

Four days, 323.5 miles and 24 1/2 hours in the saddle later, i arrived at the bottom of glen etive, where a warm bed in Stu’s bunkhouse (the “Smiddy”) awaited me. Thursday morning involved serious bum-ache and a further cycle up the glen in search of signal, to find the others were getting on the river a further east in Glen Orchy. I abandonned, and braved the winds a further thirty miles to wait in Morrison’s for them to show up. (serious bumache by now…) The Orchy from what i gather, was an iconic run featuring swimmage from messers Si and Will, amongst others, in true trip’s first river style. Sad to have missed helping pick up the pieces….

Friday involved the Arkaig and the Spean in miserable cold conditions. After difficulty scouting the only drop of worth on the Arkaig, team safety Lloyd myself and Andy H set our selves up to prepare for the carnage that was about to unfold. Barring the safety team and perhaps 3 or 4 others, of a group of 25, everyone ran the drop on their head, resulting in utter carnage with boats, paddles, bodies, swimming, rolling all over the shot. A picture ingrained in the back of my retinas for a while yet i think. A special shout to Andy Squirrel, who’s whole group ran the full length of the drop following on their bums, being overtaken by all their equipment! Utter Carnage. The Spean proved less eventful, a couple of swims, but all survived (freezing) to the get out, while Team-Shoulder headed on down the gorge. A fair amount of rolling (most notable was Adam’s capsize on the eddy-line above headbanger, in which he ran completely on his head, only managing to correct on 10th attempt in the pool below - lucky boy) and Swims from Penny, Rob and Adam (cough!), resulting in reoccuring shoulder dislocations, a sad end to nice run, and more bother for future medical implications. The Ade-machine ran (litterally) the shuttle for us and we were back at the hut for tea (as ever, cheers Ade). Spean gorge an excelent run, tight and technical.

Saturday - cough, The etive. utter carnage on triple-two, lots of fishing from the Nicholl’s yahoo squirrel combination, as per the norm, and Loonsey (among others from other clubs) doing an excelent washing machine impression in Letterbox (more Nicholl’s yahoo squirrel combination fishing), before heading to hospital. Politics forced a walk out, but crack team chris, myself and dale met Squirrel and Andy H at the bottom to shoot right angle.

Sunday - SNOW and lots of it, on the way to the Findhorn. Ever seen a brown river????? This was brown from snow….. and rather chilly. Excelently run, groups and leadership sorted, and a very nice river. A Captain swim amongst a few others (Si sent to stand in his corner), and extremely cold conditions to arrive for lunch at the church. A few hardy souls further braved the gorge and made a very good job of it in tricky medium levels, but most were content warming up in the front of the van - yes, that would be eleven in the front of the van (dave left brown residue on the gear stick he was enjoying it so much)

Monday - again, the etive. Everyone on the same river at once this time, and everyone progressing and taking less swims and less rolls in the process. The Duo worked well down the whole river, but paddling efficiency is much reduced when you are preparing to hold your deck on down drops, instead of actually putting strokes in. Mixed with going deeper under water than ever in your life, and gaining access to this depth by way of a 7m waterfall is an experience. Having not personally seen it, a highlight must have been Will swimming embarassingly on the dog leg above right angle…… and was it on camera????? Monday afternoon, and the minibus, van and all related cars leave for liverpool, leaving Myself, Mary, Loonsey and Andy H in glen etive to carry on the holiday with stu and other friends in the “smiddy”. (insert chinese poker shots here - drinking marmite, cheese, curry power, sunflower oil, and sweet chilli sauce supirsingly good fun!)

Wednesday, my 21st birthday, and the guys had gone to Argos to buy inflatable swimming pools. A drive up the road to Right Angle falls in borrowed dry cags to plunge down the waterfall in said inflatables, in pairs. Absoultely hilarious fun, theres a whoooosh and a huge thrill running it in a kayak, and a larger crazy head moment running it in a duo, but drop off it in an inflatable mini-copper clutching a can of beer out the window, is jsut something else. Unfortunately this also resulted in Loonsey’s second injury of the week, as Mary headbutted her, and broke her hand. the holiday continued. As for getting home - Loons and Andy set out to meet Warwick Uni CC, Mary and three others left for Bristol/Bath in Nick’s car, leaving me and stu to hitch home via trucker and van BMP van driver. Free trip home, and quite a funny experience, getting back to liverpool at 6:30, before the other guys arrived in Bath. a crazy end.

Top notch trip, Another successful scottish Easter, thankyou all concerned

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Trip Reports.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.