What the ****? you might ask…all will be revealed in due
course.
10, (or 9 according to Clive’s counting) keen paddlers met
in the Devon village of Aveton Gifford on a sunny Saturday
morning and prepared their boats for a weekends paddle and
overnight wild camp celebrating Clive’s "25th" birthday.
Barbara and Ian, smelling less than sweet having been
kayaking for 3 days earlier, already on the water in time to
laugh at the antics on land as we tried to get all of our
essential kit (mainly wine and food) and camping kit into
stupidly small things called hatches. At the mention of
needing to leave the malt behind Andy kindly offered, taking
the bottle of malt so all was well.
Julie and Geoff were like anxious new parents having
recently purchased new kayaks, a Nordkapp and Aquanaut
respectively making sure that the rest of us kept a healthy
distance from them.
We left shortly after midday. The paddle down the river was
lovely, not much wind, hot and sunny and gorgeous scenery on
all sides. The group managed to make good progress down to
the mouth of the river where a pre-arranged stop for lunch
had been suggested in advance of tackling the surf at the
river mouth.
The landing proved interesting with a steeply shelving
channel making landing tricky. All managed successfully,
except for John Miller, who managed the first swim of the
day, to cheers all round and Barbara at the ready with her
camera. After a short lunch stop we re-launched, with getting off the beach proving as challenging as before.
The plan was to paddle down towards Hope Cove where ice
creams all round were promised. It was a lovely paddle down
towards Hope Cove, with enough swell to make it interesting
and to keep attention focussed on paddling. We abandoned
plans to land at the first beach due to the size of the surf
and paddled round to the more sheltered harbour where all
landed successfully. The 10 kayaks on the beach looked
splendid and attracted a great deal of interest,
particularly Andy’s wooden kayak.
After ice creams at Hope Cove we rock hopped our way to Bolt
Tail for a gratuitous bounce before retuning to Beacon Point
Beach where all managed the landing through surf to set up
camp for the night.
All safely ashore, survival of the fittest instincts kicked
in. John Miller opted for a tried and trusted cave option in
true Neanderthal style at one end of the beach. John
Christmas had opted for an (untried) tarp shelter. I’m
pleased to report that both made it through the night
unscathed.
We all congregated for a lively evening around a camp fire
which was pretty impressive given the scarcity of wood and
helped along (the evening that is, not the fire) by
refreshing wine and tasty food (in that order!) with
Hilary’s baking providing the dessert. Most people had opted
for disposable BBQ’s and these were soon alight to provide
tasty fare. An evening of intellectual discussion was
swiftly curtailed by a “You’ve got a lovely pair of tent
pegs!” directed towards Julie, after which the conversation
went down hill rapidly. With high water at 12.30am we felt
obliged to stay up to make sure that we weren’t going to be
swept away. Retiring close to HW, it then turned out that we
had forgotten to add the hour for BST. John M reported the
waves lapping fairly close to his cave. The moral to the
tale is don’t do this trip at Springs.
We launched on Sunday morning at 09.30 in bright sunshine.
There was still a considerable swell but conditions allowed
some to paddle through the arch at Thurlstone Rock. There
was some rock hopping to be had on the way to Burgh Island
but it was a bit marginal due to the sea state. Rounding the
Island was interesting but all made it to the sanctuary of
the surfers café where we had a splendid brunch stop while
waiting for the tide to flood over the causeway. A few
launched early finding the small surf waves irresistible.
After this the fun began. With heavy surf at the entrance of
Bantham Bay, Jill was the first to swim. Luckily there are
no photos! With all her gear, a boat filled with water and
the waves it proved difficult to perform a rescue, so the
group all headed to the beach. In landing Andy managed to
find a rock which resulted in a large scratch on the bottom.
Sorry Andy! Meanwhile the second group had caught up and all
paddled together towards the river at which point John M
took his second swim of the weekend. So much excitement!
After all that activity a gentle paddle back to our start
point up the River Avon saw us complete a fantastic two day
trip, with just enough water at the top of the river not to
have to walk our boats.
All in all a great trip, great paddling, great fun and great
company. Thanks to Clive for organising and everyone else
for the banter.
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| Julie's new boat |
Geoff's new boat |
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| Heading down the
River Avon |
Heading down the
River Avon |
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| Clive and John at
Bantham |
Barbara at Bantham |
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| Barbara at Bantham |
John launching from
Bantham beach |
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| Big swells at Bantham |
Ice cream stop at
Hope Cove |
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| John M rockhopping |
A bit choppy off Bolt
Tail |
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| Clive at Bolt Tail |
Camping at
Beacon Point Beach |
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Andy surfing at
Burgh Island |
Jill at Burgh Island |
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| The group back at
Aveton Gifford |
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GPS trace of the paddle courtesy of
Clive West.
Click the thumbnail to view a bigger image. |
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