Taf Fechan - the night before & the journey home

Friday 14th saw the end of term for Cardiff Uni, and the usual ' Drink The Bar Dry' which I attended with some of the Cardiff Uni Kayakers. A few pre-drinks at Jonny King's saw some laughs, then a sweet night spent in the Student Union. My memory does not serve me overly well, so tales of the evening will have to go un-regaled.

Rowan rocking it RSB style

This night on the 'razz' saw in Saturday feeling absolutely shattered. Unfortunately I am not built for late nights; apparently my body likes it's 8 hours sleep to start on the night prior to my wake up, as opposed to the early hours of the day that I am meant to be getting out of bed. Therefore at 08:00, when my body feels though it should normally be getting out of bed, my head was spinning.

Everyone in a merged orgy

Luckily my brain kicked in, knowing that I had nothing planned for the day, I headed back to the land of nod. 11:30 came, and from the warmth of the bed, I saw there was water in South Wales. Getting hold of Procrastinate's Max Emery and Stu Sheath, both of whom were also hung over, the Taf Fechan was the river of choice.


Stu's girlfriend had his straps and roofracks, so all 4 boats went on Joanna (my Saxo). This made her heavy and sluggish, increasing my view that overweight women are just no help! The slightest incline saw her power drop, and our speed decrease! This was thoroughly annoying, yet we got to the river, and there was water in it!

Stu getting ready at the Taf Fechan get on

Stu and I went to run the shuttle with Max map reading. This meant that we were leaving Jonny at the top with the boats. Now you may think that this is a bad idea, and reading the NSPCC website, namely "what the law says", it does show that children shouldn't be left alone (I assume this also means adults who have the intellectual capacity of a child as well!). Luckily Jonny met someone to whom he was intellectually superior:

Jonny's latest friend

Apparently her name was Abigail, and Jonny and her shared an apple together.
Actually, now I am thinking about it, if it was the same Jonny we saw at Drink The Bar Dry on Friday, he was probably flirting with her!
Hhmmm... Now I'm glad that no-one else turned up.





With the Shuttle over, we were getting onto the river at around 15:00, so I was hoping for a relatively fast run, as we estimated about an hour and a half of useful light left. This increased my nerves a bit, but when on the river it didn't seem to matter any more. The run was a beaut. and although there were trees in some of the sections, which was a real shame, the run was great fun.

A cheeky Go-Pro screen shot from the river

It was a real treat to be boating again, even if motivation was low during the drive up. The best part of it was that this was a first run for us all, which made it tremendously fun. We finished the river at around 16:20, so perfect timing really, as it was just getting dark. And by the time we picked up Stu's car it was dark.

Screen Shot of the get off - Showing just how dark it was

Now, I have always been sceptical about the roof-racks on Joanna, and today confirmed my suspicions. Jonny and I were in the Saxo, and on the A470 when it happened. The rear bar of my racks came off. All I heard was a noise from above, and then in the rear view mirror I see Stu's boat flying! I pull over immediately and Jonny and I get the boats off the road, running onto the A470 like mad-men. Luckily the cars behind stopped in time and didn't get hit by the boats. Max came running up to help, and him and Stu were close behind, and we cleared the road.

A Copper pulled up about a minute after, with the small amount of traffic behind us now cleared and made sure everything was OK, seeming very casual about the while thing.
Copper, "Everything alright boys?"
Me, "Yer, the roof-rack has broken."
Copper,"Oh, OK. Wanna make sure everything is off of the road now I'm here?"
Me, "Yer alright, sounds like a plan"

As he reversed up the road, I had a quick sweep over, but the lads had done a good job getting the debris off of the carriageway.

The Officer then asked us to pull our cars off the road a bit more, and then to all our surprise he just drive off, clearly he thought we had it under our control. Both Stu and I put on our high visibility jackets to look the part (a very important part of roadside safety), and Max got on the case of getting someone to help get the boats back, as my roof-rack didn't fair well in it's tumbling to earth.

This is the part of the story where the Hero's of the day are named. Max managed to get Helena Goode and Zoe Pelech to come and pick up the boats. A conversation that started, "Hi Helena, can you do me a MASSIVE favour..."

So Helena and Zoe drove to find us on the A470, and took the four boats back to Cardiff. Dunno what we would have done without them, and a massive thanks has to go out to them both, coming to find us and give us a hand on a Saturday night.

Assessing the damage to the boats showed that they were in good nick still, and the roof of Joanna also seems fine. The only thing that broke was feet of the roof-rack, and all in all a good outcome from what could have been a catastrophic f**k-up.

Hope that was an interesting read, and a Merry Christmas to Everyone.

Till next year...