Wales
Stuff you need for WalesThis page is just a checklist of what resources are available to those planning trips to Wales.
As always, there are many folk in the club who will be able to make suggestions as to possible trips.
If you are planning a river trip to Wales, suggest you get a copy of the Chris Sladden book, or at least print off the relevant sections from tinternet. Also get snowdonia book too?
You can check river levels to some rivers over the phone. Keep eye on the weather.
If you are planning a sea trip or surf, check the Pesda 50 Welsh sea kayak journeys, and the snowdonia sea and surf book. Even more important than with rivers, check out weather forecast - wind is a key factor which will influence whether your trip is possible. And of course the tides - see tide prediction sites below.
Books
The Welsh Rivers Chris Sladden. Chris Sladden has made it his business to paddle every ditch in Wales. This is an excellent book with clear diagrams of every river, and good descriptions. And what’s more its available on the web too, see below.
Snowdonia Wild Water and surf Terry Storry -Out of print? Look out for it second hand - this is the classic book for Wales. It is getting on though, so for rivers, use in conjunction with Chris Sladden’s book, or print of internet guides to the rivers you want. For sea trips, this is still one of the best places to start with for planning your trip, because it contains tide diagrams for the inshore areas used by kayakers - unlike the sailing pilot guides, which though very interesting, are on too large a scale to detail the small currents close to shore. As always, planning a sea trip is something you need to fully understand all aspects of before undertaking. For surf trips, this book has a good list of the many surfing opportunities around angelsea and the lyn peninsular. This book is gold dust. If you see any copy, buy it.
Welsh sea paddling guide - 50 journeys - pesda press. This book has super journeys in it, and super photos.
British White Water Terry Storry - This book is getting old, but its still a classic and very readable. This book packs in many rivers, so necessarily the info on each is fairly short. Don’t buy this book as your main guide to Wales, but if you do see it for sale secondhand, grab it quick.
English White Water - does have a guide to the Dee in it. But apart from that, read the title, there are no Welsh rivers in this book.
River Levels
River levels can be gotten from various sites (sadly, not integrated nicely like Scotland), and by phone. I’ll update this article and add details.
Internet River Guides
Ukriversguidebook, click on the “Rivers” section and look at Wales. Handily grouped by difficulty, very useful user-contributed guides, hightly printable, many with photos.
Canoewales, the welsh part of the BCU have a general site on all things canoeing, inluding the most excellent:
River guide to Wales based on Chris Sladden’s book. River descriptions, very clickable map, clear diagrams, perfect.
Internet Surf Guides
Internet Sea Guides
Try the Sea companion to the ukriversguidebook:
UKseakayakguidebook, browse to the “Trips” section and see the articles on Wales.
Tide Tables
Weather
Maps
OS maps are useful for getting to get-in and get-out, and for that nice walk you end up doing because all the rivers are too low.
To buy maps:
Ordanance Survey maps
For little bits of maps to detail get-in and get-out, try Multimap
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