River Lune

Seven intrepid paddlers met at Bowes on Sunday morning, it was blowing a gale and the rain had some white stuff in it. Anyway we thought at worst we could drive to Sedbergh and sit in a warm tea shop. The plan was to get on the river below Tebay next to the M6 and the weather was improving as we came down the Pennines on the west side.

There are three pages to the access agreement for this river with very specific instructions about when to paddle, places not to park or change etc., so it was a pleasant surprise to find a local resident having a friendly chat with Clive and Richard on the ancient art of hedge laying.

It was a bit chilly but once in our boats the joy of a river with good water level (yes really!) and the lakeland scenery took over. Lots of nice rapids and drops encouraged Andy to go back and play, he didn't complain when he took an early swim, just didn't play so much. Tony demonstrated 'paddle twirling' while surfing the best wave in the north-west so we all had a try, well just the surfing bit for me. Helen is joining the club and wanted to find out about SOC river running order, but when she asked Clive and Richard she was met with a blank look. I explained that there really is some regulation to the group - the most important I have discovered is to try and finish a conversation before going down a rapid, although after many years of practice some club members still seem to ignore this procedure.

Apart from two man-made weirs that we portaged, the guide makes much of a constricted rapid called 'the strid', partly because it's a bit tricky but also because the landowner is very anti-canoeist. Richard inspected the route and we all survived the main rapid and landowner. Dad and Lad, Dave and Mark Sewell had come along as guests and Mark impressed with a very classy roll between falls on a 2-drop rapid. Dave took a few swims and was getting tired and cold toward the end of the two hrs trip, so he was relieved to see the River Rawthey entering from the left at our get out point. I reckon he'll be back for more though.

After packing up we made our way to the long awaited tea shop for something warm and some urgent replacement calories, one good paddle = a cream tea, a mars bar and a hot chocolate.

Well we were right about the cold, big flakes were falling now and snow was laying on the road as we climbed toward Kirkby Stephen. At Bowes we had the quickest car swap ever and straight home for a well earned nap in-front of the fire.

Lovely river, we can canoe it from November to March.

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	Swaledale Outdoor Club

River Lune

Peter Ball