Party

Made it to half term and not died. Bonus!

Teifi Tour in Llandysul. Normally an opportunity to get riotous and not paddle anything good. Luckily it rained loads and we managed to hit the middle Tawe and the Mellte at “classic” levels. Nothing too pushy but plenty of fun, and in the sun to boot.

Hiking to the “cheat’s” puton. Photo by John “Perfect Day” Vincent

Keeping my eye in for SlopeJam 2009…. Maybe. Photo by Mike “Classic Burning Man” Moxon

Lowri resurfacing from some sort of sketchy pitony thing. Photo again by MM

Hopefully some more fun before the week is out!

Well, that’s it. University is well and truly over. I’m currently pretty much camping in my house. Sleeping bag, living out of a rucksack, and not having any toys means it’s a bit boring!

Fort Crew - The good times… pic Lowri Davies

Post Rum n Bass n Drum n Bass Carnage… Pic Me

Scott from the Screaming Citizens - Pic me.

On Monday I head south to London town to try and have a planning meeting about August in Inida, and then it’s home for a couple of days before heading to the French alps. Bonkers levels means that we might divert a little bit and head to Val Sessia or Austria, who knows!?

Last weekend was Mitch’s birthday, and in true Bangor style we paddled down the straits to the pub.

Hiking in to the put on. A pleasant 5 minute walk.

A very blury me.

Woo, pretending I am James Bond, I peel off the drysuit to reveal shirt and cords.

#

Birthday Boy Mitcharooo.

Woah. I made a dissertation. Exams are on their way. Crikey, time has zipped by, and before we know it I’ll be in France and it will be time for the student boater X and SlopeJam! (www.studentboater.x.com)

We’ve had the first shortie cag sessions of year, some BBQ action and I’m slowly getting filled up with minging jabs for India. Back to the Grindstone, my poor nose!

 Girls in the Fort, Tweed not pictured  — Tom P gets to grips with the meat.

Look closely and you will see I am topless. Phwoar.

Last weekend (as you may have gathered from various other blogs) was the National Student Rodeo. Every year it grows, every year it gets betterer and betterer! Thursday afternoon was spent helping out with some of the set up, and grabbing a quick run down the course in my squirt. It was ridiculously chilly, and high levels meant that none of the squirt spots were going very well however. A “quiet one” on Thursday night ended up in a trip to Nottingham’s Rock City and a bit of emo handstand bashing, before trying to ride a horsie. Ooops.

Friday dawned far too early, if a little windy. Most of the day was taken up with carting about enormous speaker stacks for the boys at Extreme Events who provided top notch tunes all weekend. I also discovered that while I’m no DJ, I can tape XLR cable to the floor and put up banners…

Every year we all say “We’ll just have a quiet one” on Friday, and this was no exeption. I spent some time convincing people to try and sleep on the roof of the Pyranha bus (sorry sammy!)….

Saturday dawned even earlier, and even windier than Friday, but not dispirrited the million or so entrants began endless runs down the extreme slalom course. Personally I decided that as it was a Pirate theme, that a galleon was the only logical choice.

The entry to squirt this year was enormous, with 40 odd people entering, and a fair few shreds being bought out and dusted off. The standard was also loads better than last year. Good to see the Perception Minge out on the water again. Ben White, Claire O, and Emma ran some awesome coaching on the lake at the top, and I finally got my head round totally vertical stern stalls. Then 20 or so of us were invited to head down to the Pyramid Pool for the heats. I had a couple of pretty good runs, though the heliwashout eluded me this time, and was chuffed to have made the final.  The rest of the afternoon was spent judging men’s novice heats… expect an “Explains” on the “Fresher”, a badass new move for this year sometime soon…

Saturday night was the premiere of Sam Ward’s short film on the section of the White Nile that is going to be lost with the new dam. Max has it on his blog. It’s very good.  After that we gotvery merry to some random band who were a bit pants, followed by Paddy from Palm mixing it up before Dave and Al from E-E took us through to the wee small ones, before we headed off to find place/vans to kip in.

Sunday was even earlier! The squirt final was a knockout affair, which I really enjoyed. The magic roundabout serving up some tip top downtime. After an (unlucky?) splat based error I washed out of the eddy and spent most of my time fighting my way back into it. Ooops. 5th for me, and once again Dave F took home the bacon. Nice one Dave!

There are loads of stories and jokes from the weekend, that will come out in due course I’m sure. My photographs should be online in the next few days, so look forward to a bumper photo edition soon.

All that remains is to thank everyone who made the event so amazing again, Nick, Tim, LUUCC, Extreme Events, the sponsors, Ben, Emma and the squirty massive, Emily, Claire and the judging crew,  the runners, the hog roasters, River Legacy, and everyone else!

(Pics by Paul Wilkinson - more at the NSARRRR site )

Bangor Uni Canoe Club’s Christmas dinner this weekend… Wrap up warm.

Also known as BUSA slalom, hosted by Durham Uni CC and chums at Teeside in the industial North. A crack team from North Wales set off in a state of disrepair after a night of celebrations at the end of exams. Accomodations were shared with Manchester, and proved to be salubrious throughout.

Ooops! - Pic Lowri Davies

A shocking first run saw me accidently dodge outside of a gate, and mess up the following sequence, leaving me an unimpressive 103rd, and secretly pretty miffed. My second run proved to be just the ticket however; somehow it all clicked, I made every gate, with only one 2 second penalty. Regardless of the time I positively skipped back up the bank, delighted to have redeemed my run for myself. When it was all totted up I had made 33rd, which I am very proud of, particuarly as I was in a creek boat, mainly due to my own laziness!

Our C2 team was a disgrace, and the rest of Team Bangor did admirably, putting us in 15th place over all, despite limited numbers.

Yeah, I know, the pictures aren’t that great! More coming soon when I mend my Gallery.- EDIT - Pics now in the gallery

Big thanks to Rhi and the Manchester Uni Canoe Club, Durham and the organisers, and anyone else who made yet another weekend fantastic.

Well that was a helluva year! “What!?” I hear you cry, “its only half way through December”.

Very astute of you, but on Monday I am off to the big playground that is Sun Peaks in British Columbia for some festive fun, and then a bit of a new year do in Portugal. I gather there are a few waterfalls out there as well….

It’s been a corker, bring on 2008, graduation, more student boater X, SlopeJam, the rodeo, Busa Slalom, my 21st, Dublin, France, Norway, teaching practise, India, and no doubt some academic work as well….

… I’m applying for an extra 12 hours in my day, I certainly need them.

Some recent photographs…

We had a pub lunch. It was lovely.

Photographs can be found HERE for the daytime shots, and HERE and HERE for the night time party shots. Photos by Me, except the ones of me!

Thanks to everyone who helped out, or got me drunk.

This weekend I went to Warwick to catch up with my dear chum Chris Eastabrook (holder of fine parties) dress up as a school boy, and go for a climb.

Chris - Holder of fine parties.

We achieved all of that and more, but it’s mainly in jokes, drunken lunacy and far too much silliness. Instead I feel i should tell you about an amazing service. AQA. Simply text any question you can think of to 63336 and within 30 min or so, you get an informative answer. Here are some examples…

“AQA; With China showing no signs of renouncing its sovereignty & foreign governments continuing to recognise it, freeing Tibet is probably impossible.”

“AQA; David Fairweather loves to kayak. He is 26 years old and lives in Machester. He is studying for a PhD but finds time to visit his gorgeous girlfriend”

AQA really does know just about everything!

Leaping merrily on the bandwagon started by the esteemed James F of reviewing this and that on ones blog, here is a review of Academi, formally Main Bar, in Bangor, North Wales

Drinks - Reasonably priced, if you have lots of money

Music - Mixed at best. Requests are played, and Nick the DJ is a tolerant soul, although he does play some utter shite sometimes.

Dancing - Often explosive, always outrageous.

Apres MB food - Subway is open late on Saturdays, my house is a 2 minute stumble.

Once again I made the pilgrimage up North to the Wet West Paddle Fest, a fantastic get together at the start of the season, with some dam releases, and some partying.

Thursday afternoon, we left Bangor laden down with haribo, crisps and quiche, the food of champions. After being pulled over by the police and questioned about our drug habits, and a few wrong turns we made it to the Falls of Falloch, and kipped in the car park. In the morning we were joined by Jules Pike and Liam Kirkham (of Design Crisis fame) and made tracks for the Orchy.

Me running a drop on the Orchy, it probably has a name. - Pic C. Mitchell

The Orchy was running at a lovely “2″ on the gauge, with some fantastic curler rides and wave trains to enjoy all the way down. Pausing only to admire Jules and Mitch’s lines on the drop above, and to watch a salmon leap clean up the big drop towards the bottom, we blasted down in a mix of sunshine and showers.

Jules, Same drop, different line. - Pic C.M.

The afternoon was spent in Fort William searching out some tip top 70’s funk gear, and generally loafing about, before pitching camp at the Kinlochleven Ice Factor for an evening of frivolity. The entertainment for the evening came from a series of talks, me on Corsica, Dave and Giles on the Thule Beri, and finally the 4 Borders gang on their jaunt to Russian parts. Well lubricated by beers we slumbered merrily, for tomorrow was the Moriston.

Having looked in on the Thistle Stop tea room, just the other side of Fort Bill, for all day breakfast (the service takes all day it seems) we made it to the Moriston to join the million and one other people that were already there. The carnage was, quite frankly, amazing. How so many people avoided serious injury is a mystery to me, with only one ambulance called (I think). Still it made fantastic video!

Atti cruises down the Moriston, Pink lid and all. - C.M.

A few runs later, suitably knackered after a flat out speed run we called it a day, grabbed some fish and chips, and made fot the Nevis Centre and Mama Funk. A quick warm up game of 10 pin bowling next door, followed by some inventive drinks, and we were ready to throw shapes til the wee small hours.

Some old geezer. - CM

Once the wee small hours arrived, we discovered, to our joy that we were at the house of a local dentist, enjoying laughing a lot and a not very hot tub. These duties dispatched, 3 hours kip was all that we needed to go and watch Mitch and Atti have a crack at the Etive with some water in it, before stealing the march, and heading for home.

The Wet West Paddle Fest was fantastic again this year, and this is in no small way due to the hard work of the SCA Recreational chaps and chapessess, Cheers everyone! We videoed a good deal of boating on the upper Moriston, which will feature in a short video, available shortly on my blog. I’m sure I have lots more thoughts on the event, and hilarious stories to fill many pages, but these can wait a while.

Rosie tries a new look. - CM

It’s all over, France was a giggle as usual, and the Boater X was the jewel in the crown for me. A massive thanks to everyone who turned up, helped out, raced, gave us prizes, or got “Savaged”. I am already super keen to do the whole thing again next year, bigger, more prizes, more partying, and a return of Bar Savage. A few more photos, and some results can be found on the Boater X page here. All pics by Paul Wilkinson, thanks to him!

The next day, we were all a state.

Turns out the alps are a long way away, and take about 3kg of Haribo to get back from.

The boater X rocked, full report coming up when I am more alive, cheers to everyone who helped/raced/cheered/got naked.

It was the summer solstice on the way home, by total chance.

My academic work for the year is done and dusted, and now I have a whole pile of things to look forward to…

Dressing up smartly and getting mucked up drunk. (Sam Leach and Rat Boy featured)

Shortly after that I’m off to the French Alps for a couple of weeks of fun. (Me in the Lions Den, Ubaye last year)

While I’m out there I’ve organised a Boater X, click the banner for more info!

When I get home I have a few weeks of kicking about, doing odd jobs, then I’m going on a sea kayaking adventure, followed by some open boat coaching, liberal amounts of squirt boating, maybe some surfing, and maybe an Ardeche trip.

All too soon it’ll be freshers week, and the whole thing will start again.

Continuing the informative “Explains” series, Dave Fairweather explains his latest creation, known colloquially as “The Local Stuff”or a “Gin-Genie”.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=WmzIQ_DzMEU]

I’ve just got back from a long week in Val Sessia and Val Aosta in Alpine Italy. Some of the nicest steep paddling I’ve ever done, a truly excellent time was had by all. Enjoy these photos and short tales, there is video and more pics to follow.

A quick warm up on the Egua in low water. A cracking Grade V Leisure run, slides and boofs all over the place. (Pic Nick Horwood)

Some classic airtime on the race section of the Gronda (Pic Chris Eastabrook)

Tom P on Cave Drop, Semenzini. (Pic Tom Laws)

Far too much happened to try and compress it down to one reasonable length update, so I’ll let it filter out over the next few days.

I’m back in Wales after a short foray to the shire, and back in my seat of learning, with paper and pens and everything! Obviously we couldn’t start the term without a barbecue in our damn fine garden, so we did.

George, Mitch and Adam near the summit of Tryfan

Mmm, meat!

George gets stuck into the cider

In the first of a many part series of short, informative films, Owen explains how to make a refreshing beverage.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-a_HMsRi8]