Another Taste of Out West – River Tay – 30/10/05

After not much fanfare on the listserv, Lucas and I headed up to Perth with Amy for the big canoe expo. I was in the market for a cheap C-1 or a cheaper kayak that could be excavated to make a C-1. Amy was in the market for a really cheap kayak and whatever cheap kit she could find. The plan was to check out the expo for a bit and then paddle the Stanley section of Tay that was nearby. With the time change, we were treated to an extra hour for snoozing before meeting up with Amy. Derek met up with us at the boat shed, so we left town around 9:20 with a fully-laden Skoda – three kayaks and a shuttle bike on the outside as well as three paddlers and full kit on the inside. The Stanley run was originally Callum’s idea, but he wasn’t so keen on a read and run trip. We were feeling more daring, so armed with our guidebook and some maps, we headed north.

I found myself in a familiar position on the way out of town. We made a few wrong turns on the way out of town as I acquainted myself with the roads and the names. The car’s reverse gear got a fair bit of use. We found our way to the Forth bridge and were on our way properly. The sky looked quite frightful on the drive north and at times the rain was quite heavy. Once in Perth, we threaded our way through narrow and confusing streets, but the River Tay formed a nice navigation reference. There were only two bridges across the Tay in Perth. They were side-by-side and we drove over both of them, of course only because of traffic issues, before helpful Paddle 2005 signs guided us the rest of the way.

Amy spotted an Inazone 230 on the way in, which gave me hope that the show might be more impressive than something back home. We walked around to the front, and found maybe ten more boats for sale chained to bits of bike rack. The collection included a few whitewater kayaks, a handful of sea kayaks and a lake canoe outfitted for whitewater. Nothing was impressively priced. I saw a SPARC and kayak paddle for £230 or £250, which was a bit steep for Amy and me, and not nearly enough of a playboat for her. We went inside and paid £5/ea to be underwhelmed by the deals we found. Consolation was that the £5 went to the SCA, so a decent enough cause.

The show was held inside the Bell Sport Centre, which was essentially a gymnasium. The different vendors had booths scattered throughout. The canoeing outfitters that I expected to see based on the website information weren’t there. Only a handful of lake canoes were there, but that I expected. I suppose I did see the outfitters, just my expectations and reality didn’t match up. The deals on kit were underwhelming. We saw some factory second Ainsworth *whitewater* canoe paddles that looked interesting: light-weight, proper sizes, not too clunky for gripping and a decent price (2 for £30). We didn’t find much else – the sales brought some kit down to normal-ish prices back home, but nothing was a real “deal”. And, of course, some of the prices were appalling, like £8 for a Nalgene bottle.

After scoping out the car park one last time, where Amy discovered her coveted Inazone was sold to someone else and we found no other deals, we bought a pair of the Ainsworth canoe paddles and headed up to Stanley for a short river trip.

With the highway map, the guidebook, and better than half a tank of gas, we found our way to the car park at the get-out without too much excitement. Reverse continued to get better than the average amount of use. The rain was pouring down, bordering on torrential as we pulled in to the car park. We saw Robin there with some of the same group from the Awe trip last weekend. Lucas and I hiked down the steep path to the river to see what we should be looking for at the end. The stairs that Derek mentioned were there, long and muddy from the water streaming down toward the river. We took note of the waves on river left, the steep bank on river right and the old garbage bag tied to the tree branch dangling by the water, hoping these would be enough markers. By the time we got back to the car park, both of us were soaked through. The torrential rains continued as we drove to the get-in, on the other side of the village of Stanley. The access road wound down by some sheep pastures before becoming quite narrow just above the get-in. We unpacked the boats and gear, and got dressed for the river. By the time we were ready for shuttle, the rain had stopped but the clouds lingered on.

Amy ran shuttle for us – a mile or so back to the car park and then biked back to the get-in. I couldn’t help but think of Bob Pierce and his two-stroke bike moped. Robin had offered to drive us up, as his group would still be at the car park by the time we got there, but we missed connections on that offer. Originally, they were hoping for a two river day, but changed their plans to one river followed by some time at the pub.

Robin’s crew was gone by the time we put-in, but we had enough information to scout the river on our own, as planned. The eddy-line at the get-in was beautifully defined, with the mud in the shallow eddy and the dark earth in the river proper, so we practiced a few break-outs and break-ins before heading down river. The big hassle of the day was the weir, and we weren’t sure how soon to expect it. The weir was Callum’s big reason for not going. He had only seen it once, and it was a bit of a difficult place for rescues since the river was so wide. Turns out, the weir came first, maybe half a kilometer from the get-in. We weren’t sure it was the weir at first, until we saw the telltale concave shape of the white stuff: stoppers.

We got out to scout on the river left bank, and gave Amy a short lesson on water reading. The three lines that Derek mentioned were breaks in the weir on river left, river centre and river right. He said the biggest waves are river centre, but there’s a good line on the left. The right could be bad, as metal spikes and such from the decaying weir might make upside down a bad place to be. At the get-in, Robin had explained why the breaks in the weir existed – some fishermen had tried to blow it up. I couldn’t help but wonder, why the animosity between the two groups, if fishermen don’t like the dams as much as the paddlers don’t like them?

We opted for river left passage of the weir since that gave us the best options for rescue. The centre line looked good, but a swim would be a long recovery. With only three of us, left looked more prudent. Each of us took a different stunt line. I went first, scraping far left over part of the remaining spillway before hitting the chute I wanted just by the left bank. There wasn’t really enough water for my line, so Amy went a little right of my line, hit the stopper a little sideways, which spit her into the tongue that was difficult to get to farther right. Lucas aimed for that tongue and got stuck on a rock. A few scrapes later and we were all safely in eddies below.

The rest of the river lacked many proper rapids. There were waves everywhere, and sometimes the chaos of the high water level made for waves coming from more than one direction, including lateral waves. Two weekends in a row found us out west! What stoppers we did find were tough for any kind of playing because the river was moving too fast. Ferry glides from one riverbank to the other were nearly impossible. Out west indeed, except nothing was quite as big as we saw on the River Awe.

Around the bend after the weir, after bopping through many a wave, I decided I wanted an eddy. We saw some people getting ready to fish, and I pulled in maybe a hundred metres below them. Not out of side, but definitely out of the way. I enjoyed my eddy for a minute before Lucas and Amy caught up. Since this was *our* trip, we decided to look for a lunch spot, and found a suitable location maybe a few hundred metres farther downstream, by an old house that looked quite uninhabited. The rapid just above it caught me by surprise. I was leading, and I thought it was just a little ledge, until I was too close to do anything about it. It was a much bigger ledge, but I found a sweet spot between two massive-looking stoppers. Amy took a path through a stopper and Lucas followed my line. Lunch was due for sure. We looked around a little, saw some development up the hill some, but decided we were safe for this trip. It probably wouldn’t stay that way for too many more trips, though. Sadly. Lunch was good – it felt a little bit like breaking the rules compared to the other kayak club trips, which all of us enjoyed. The sun poked through the clouds a little as we finished our snacks.

After lunch, we paddled on, drifting downstream through more waves and boogie water, occasionally finding defined wave trains, and occasionally finding stoppers than none of us could reach by ferry glide. The Tay at flood was fun, but mildly unnerving for that out of control feeling. The get-out came too soon. Robin had told me to look for a house on a cliff on river right, and the get-out followed soon after, also on river right. It was as he said, and the rapid we had scouted from the bank was there on river left. Getting into the river right eddy took some effort.

The climb from the river to the trail was an awkward grunt of maybe fifteen feet. After we dragged boats and kit up, we admired the river. The sun was out completely, blue sky and puffy clouds to boot. The fall colours in the trees seemed to glisten in the light. The end of our trip reminded me of many a Tennessee trip – nasty weather to weed out the faint of heart followed by a beautiful clear day.

The long grunt to the car park seemed less strenuous without the heavy rain and the water gushing down the sketchy stairs. We beat Robin’s group to the car park because just after our get-out was a beautiful surfing wave that we didn’t know about. Next time. The clock read 2pm, so we finished faffing, changing, loading boats, retrieving the bike and headed back to the canoe expo. The owner of the SPARC was looking to make a sale and Amy did some fine haggling for me, so I walked away with a C-1-to-be. The sales inside were still nothing special, but we found some familiar faces. Chris and Rhian were shopping for kit. David had his kids with him and they were intermittently interested in the Canadian canoe and the inflatable pull toy/windsurfer. Future paddlers, I’m sure, and Lucas and I couldn’t help but appreciate their interest for the Canadian canoe. We saw a collection of Woodies for sale at one of the booths, but it wasn’t produced by anyone we knew.

The crazy Charlie was at the SCA booth. Amy had her eye on his S:6, but he wasn’t in a bargaining mindset, so she walked away empty-handed, except for the kayak paddle that came with my C-1-to-be. She might scope out the Tyne fest next weekend for possible boat deals. With all of the uni clubs and such, it might not be a bad place for boat shopping.

In the end, I spent £195 for a kayak, kayak paddle and two canoe paddles. Not a bad haul. We enjoyed a pleasant day on the river and got at least part of what we wanted from the show. Now Lucas and I have a long-term project of converting my new kayak to a C-1, and promises of entertainment once I’ve succeeded. We also have the proper kit for our Canadian, so someday soon it will get paddled, sooner than the C-1-to-be.