Devon Trip November 2009

From ICCC

People

• Tom Haywood
• Alistair Cott
• Antony Farrington
• Rik "Bad brother" Williams
• Jon "Buying a full-facer" Pritchard
• Rachel "Hungover" Fox
• Tom Leeman
• Ralph Evins
• Katherine Elvira
• Holli Pritchard
• Roy Lambert
• Chris Mark
• Jack Ashley
• Pablo "Boat breaker" Munoz
• John "In the pub" McDonnell
• Will "40ft" Eldred
• Alby Roseveare
• Theo Petre
• Chad Sankey

Honourable Mention

• Vikki "More hardcore than Rik" Williams

Trip Report

Dartmoor: the source of many canoe club epics, alas this trip would be no different.

Friday

While all the other clubs outside the union were bemoaning the awful weather forecast, several members of canoe club were spotted doing a little dance of glee. It was raining heavily in Dartmoor and the rivers were up. After some uber organised bus packing we were making good time down to Dartmoor and hatching several river plans for the next two days. On arriving at Wills house the bus was neatly parked with the other vehicles on the grass, (because nobody told me you’d left the drive clear for me to park on!) Inside we found Will Ant and Jon finishing up toasted tea cakes. After some fast shotgunning of spare beds, the drinking began and further planning for tomorrows rivers. Will had been trying to talk down his house before we arrived, however I think we’d all agree that it is *amazing*. Not only is it 15 mins from the Tavy and 30 minutes from Dartmeet, it managed to comfortably accommodate 20 members of Canoe Club. Several people even managed to operate the world’s most complicated shower!

Saturday

We were up and ready to go by 9am, feeling good about our morning’s organisation. Unfortunately we then hit a small glitch; the bus was stuck in the grass, and the front wheel was digging a large hole in the front lawn. We tried pushing the bus out, we tried putting planks under the wheels and we tried towing it out with Apu, all to no avail. In the end Will’s dad came to rescue and dragged the bus out with the 4x4 (what a hero). Feeling grateful we set off for the Dart noting several blown over trees on the way.

Just about every paddler in South England was in the Newbridge car park as we put on. The water was just lapping at the ledge, as we set off. The newbies notched up a good number of swims; making up for the strange swim absence on the freshers trip. Tom gallantly lent his boat to a wobbly Roy so that he could play with an edgier boat, although he still didn’t manage to rock splat at lovers leap (Oi, yes I did). Several play waves were found on the way down; one resulting in Holli’s first roll in anger.

Katherine walked out after a nasty swim at Lovers Leap, while everyone else ran Triple with varying degrees of success: Pablo swam on Triple 1 meaning the blue Knarli spent a long time cartwheeling in Triple 2 and was eventually spat out with a hole in the front, dammit; poor Chris swam the entire rapid; John M made it past Triple 2 before getting caught out and calling it a day. Most people got changed and had tea at RDCP, while Theo, Chad, Tom and Will went for a super swift run of a high Upper before dark, which turned out not to be quite so swift and not before it got dark. Unfortunately Chad and Will had a simultaneous swim at the top of the mad mile. Some boats were abandoned on the banks of the Upper when Theo and Chad walked out, but everyone made it back in time for chilli.

Dinner was cooked on the aga (a club first? - nah, party-barn at least twice), my inexperience with agas meant the rice was a bit of a disaster (sorry guys), however Will’s mum rescued us by producing some tacos, Yum! Veggie chilli was seasoned by Ally and the associated health warning (not the hottest ever - Ralph) was not enough to put Will’s dad off trying it. With the extra tables and chairs we all managed to sit around a table and have a properly civilised dinner, where we were entertained by stories of how many times Will has swum on the DW race. Rik's sister turned up and joined in the games (even though Rik went to bed early), but wouldn't be persuaded to paddle with us on Sunday.

Sunday

On Sunday Theo and Chad missioned off to retrieve boats on the Upper and Ralph, Katherine and Pablo went off for a walk to a Tor, a pub lunch and a cream tea, everyone else headed for the Tavy to run the section from Tavistock to Denham Bridge. Theo and Chad caught up with us just before we set off and groups were divided up accordingly.

All groups were getting on well with fewer swims than the day before. Theo’s group were first to reach the main rapid on Tavy, just after the Walkham joins it, this being the site of the aforementioned epic. On attempting the rapid Jon went over and immediately took a rather nasty rock to the face which clearly required some medical attention. Ally helped him to the side while Chad and Theo moppped up the kit. Medic Holli cleaned Jon down and applied bandages while Chad and Ally missioned off to the take out, and Theo went in search of the other groups.

Holli and Jon got a lift with a local farmer to the take out where Chad and Ally were waiting for them and then got a lift with some random paddlers to Plymouth A&E. Groups were re-shuffled, and everyone continued to the take out, most portaging the nasty weir. Unfortunately there wasn’t time to fit in a run of the upper Tavy, we’ll have to save that for next time.

After driving around Plymouth for 30 minutes in a fruitless search for dinner, we got a call from Holli that they were finished and ready to be picked up. We returned to the hospital to pick up a rather shaken Jon and Holli. It turned out that the doctor who patched up Jon was an IC graduate, and had offered to let Holli do the sutures! Happily for Jon, Holli refused. We had a speedy trip back to South Ken, stopping in Hammersmith to drop Jon and Holli at Charing Cross A&E for the next round of hospitaling.

Big thanks to Will's parents for letting us take over their house for the weekend, and best wishes for a speedy recovery to Jon

Below is an update from Holli..

ok so here is the outcome from the numerous hospital trips jon and I took...

so in plymouth A&E we had some stitches to the forehead,

after a few hours in charing cross A&E surrounded by a large drunk guy snoring away and a few other ppl with jaw fractures and bleeding mouths we got sent home and went back this morning to the maxfac clinic where there was only one doctor working (there is normally 4) so had to wait hours to be seen. so jon has lost 3 of his front upper teeth, and probably has some minor fractues to the upper jaw bone, so is going to be gappy for a while, unfortunately going to have to wait 2-3 months before getting implants to let the soft tissue and bone heal fully before we start drilling into the bone, so looks like he may dentures for a while like and old man.

he is doing ok though and surprisingly has not been put off kayaking but instead wants an Ant style helmet. not sure the rents are going to be particularly happy about that. well they dont actually know about any of this yet, they have some lengthy emails waiting for them.

Media

http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/rcc/canoe/photos/category.php?cat=734