Llandysul
River Festival
Llandysul River Festival 2010
It was a cold and very wet early morning when in our wisdom (well really it was just Jimmy’s enthusiasm!) we decided to head off on the long journey to Llandysul to see what went on at the River Festival. There was also the slight possibility that we might get to paddle but at 6.30 am with the rain hammering down that idea wasn’t looking so appealing to me!
Three hours later we approached Llandysul Paddlers HQ, Sutton Bingham eat your heart out! The rain still falling we decided to investigate. The Teifi River was bursting with life as we watched people paddling down through the rapids. Jimmy’s face lit up, Christmas had come early for him again!
Well we had come this far, so we might as well just get slightly wetter and actually
go in, so we signed up for our day -
We paddled around for a while getting warmed up on the lake until we found Matt. Matt was a Llandysul instructor and was about to head part way down the river with one other paddler, he very kindly let us tag along. Here we go, another adventure on moving water was to begin..........
The river started entertaining us immediately, after only a few strokes we were on for our first ‘ride’. Down a weir we went before we had to navigate around some rocks, unfortunately my navigation skills weren’t up to scratch and I beached myself on the rocks in the middle, but I didn’t come out of my boat! I launched back into the water and quickly broke out into a welcoming eddy! George was waiting for me and we sat and waited for Jimmy to join us.
The next ride was exhilarating and before long I was sat smiling in the safety of an eddy, camera at the ready for George and Jimmy to paddle on down.
We got out at the bridge and headed off for a spot of lunch. Under the cover of canvas we found some familiar faces from Sutton Bingham and before long we were booked onto the afternoon session with them.
Our afternoon trip took us further up the river and enabled us to play on the way down to the rapids, ferry gliding and breaking in and out of eddys. Excitement and nerves began to build inside me as I saw the white bubbling water of the weir approaching once again. This time we paddled all the way to the top of ‘The Quarry’, enjoying the ride that this incredible river was giving us. The river levels had risen in the past few hours and now we stood surveying the rapids at The Quarry deciding if we would venture down them and take everything they threw at us. Jimmy of course didn’t need to think he was always going to attempt them, George sensibly decided to be in charge of taking the pictures so that just left me! I couldn’t let Jimmy down; I knew he’d be impressed if I did them, so I did, twice. It was amazing, a rollercoaster ride on water and I even smiled all the way down!
After that high what else could beat it you may ask, bridge jumping that’s what! There I stood on the wrong side of the bridge railings about to jump 20ft into the water below..........one........two.........three........SPLASH!!!! I wasn’t sure why I had done it but I was so glad I did!
That evening we managed to get on to a river run expedition, the rapids but this time without our boats, just swimming. It was total submission to the power of the water, it was total insanity, and it was completely unmissable! Swimming, jumping and laughing all the way down to ‘The Quarry’ and just to end on a high we jumped of that bridge one last time!
