Dart Loop Sunday 31st October

[Paul French]

Dear All


Water levels are low at the moment bu the weather forecast show rain/showers through the evening and night into the morning. Theres a good chance it will come up. I will check Cardiff as a back up and we can make a final call on where to go tomorrow morning.


Yours


Paul

[Paul French]

Dear All

For info we made the executive decision to go to Cardiff White Water Centre as the water levels elsewhere were abit suspect.

The centre is very good. Water levels when we visted were 4 cumecs to start - although we only looked at this point, then 8 cumecs. To put this in perspective the Tryweryn runs typically at 9 - 12 cumecs, Cardiff is half the width - probably shallower and being man made has alot less friction. It is fast and powerful - egress from a swim is not always immediate, but there is bank support.

The course is 250m long, water quality good and facilities excellent, Cafe, Changing Rooms plus a conveyor back to the top, Canoe Shop. Wide range of boats for hire £10 per day - and you can change them at will. This is a very useful facility - as those of us with smaller boats found out! Pragmatically hiring a boat might be better than transporting one.

We had a blast - lots of boats at jaunty angles...! Features are fairly close together, in some cases retentive and require positive paddling. Despite the numbers of people about the course was not over crowded - after a few runs you tend to re-group in the bottom pool or cafe. It is less pushy once you get used to it or you paddle a bigger boat.

Bottomline - for intermediate paddlers this course is demanding but worthwhile, good paddlers will love some of the features. We need to try it at 4 cumecs to comment on its potential at this level. Its not too far away, four in a car costs about £20 per head plus course entry £10 plus or minus boat hire. Three and a half hours travelling time from Dartford.

In conclusion I and I think the others had a good day out - some pictures are in the gallery.

Yours

Paul

[Randy Fandango]

Sounds superb. Glad you guys had a good day out.
I'd really like to try out the Cardiff course some time when, err, family commitments allow... :-/
Giles

[philip lowers]

I think we all got it wrong......UKRGB was updated Sunday am and it seems the levels were a go go go gutted !!

[Randy Fandango]

I'd be really gutted except I didn't even have the OK to go in the first place.....
Giles

[Strad]

As sunday was my lovely ladies birthday, there was never any chance of me paddling, but when folks decide to visit cardiff let me know, I think it looks pretty good

[Timmy]

Thanks to Paul, Jim and Andy for a great day, it was pushy for sure and as expected the eddies were nasty, but a amusing day was had by all i think, hows the bruise Paul?

[andy g]

I can only reiterate Tim , a great day out and I have some very interesting bruises to prove it.
Like Phil said I wish we had known about the Dart levels on the Sunday morning , but the webcam was not visible in the dark , and the last post of UKRGB was ultra low and a scrape , hence our decision to make for Cardiff, which was a very different experience.
Thanks to Paul for organising and Jim for providing the scoff , most enjoyable
Regards
(A rather sore) Andy

[Timmy]

12 cumec release tomorrow night and on December the 3rd