Not the Usk - Hurley instead

Our annual trip to the Usk was called off due to lack of water. So...

On a cold Sunday morning we woke up got dressed and went outside. Bad idea, it was freezing. There was ice on the car, ice on the windows and the biting cold was hand numbing. Stuart and Jezz started putting the boats on the car and were shortly joined by Cliff. The boats went on in about 3/4 of an hour and after we went back inside to warm up and eat some breakfast.

At 9 we left the house packed and ready to Mel’s house where Cliff drove straight past and had to reverse to pick Mel up. With Mel safely in the car we continued to Joe’s house where we picked him up and headed towards Hurley. With little traffic on the road we arrived at the Hurley car park to find Garry, Kenny, Ciaron, Geoff and Dom. We quickly got changed and headed down towards the river.

We got to the river to discover that as well as the air temperature being cold, the water was also FREEZING. We paddled upstream and shot the weir to see that it was running on 2 gates and there were more people arriving after us so there were plenty of people there. Jezz and Stu got stuck straight in and were encouraging Mel, Joe and Dom to get on the wave and surf. Mel was the first to go on and like a natural she hopped on the wave front surfed for while got off of the back of the wave capsized ... AND ROLLED BACK UP :-) - it seems that all the practising in the pool has helped Mel to conquer her roll and she did it on big white water; everyone was really impressed. Joe approached it much like Jezz did in the Hurley classic and he got washed off the back first time … and the second time. But on the third go he got on the wave surfed on it for a while came off of the back and determined that he wasn’t going to roll he did a huge high brace right over his head and stayed upright. Jezz and Stu had a couple more runs and Jezz in an unexpected attempt managed to bottom out his boat on the bottom of Hurley weir.

On Mel’s second attempt at Hurley she front surfed like a pro, carved down the wave and span to turn off of the wave and then ended up in a back surf (with that move she would have got more points than Jezz at the Hurley Classic). She then attempted a cartwheel (a bit ambitious at this stage) and unfortunately came off of the wave upside down and her paddles were ripped from her hand and sadly she swam. As the water was so cold Cliff decided to get her off of the water and back o the car to get changed and warm up. However Mel, being Mel, had decided she would be warm enough in just a long sleeve top and jeans so Cliff lent her his fleece, Stuart’s scarf and turned the air conditioning onto the highest setting to try and warm her up.



After a little while Jezz, Stu, Joe and Dom headed back to the car park to pack up and get changed. We welcomed Ian when he turned up because he brought chocolate biscuits, hot chocolate and tea for those who wanted id. It was perfect to warm our cold hands back up. We headed back home but not before finding fish and chips in Princes Risborough. We found the chips in a Chinese restaurant after driving around. They were nice chips some tasted like the Smiley Faces you get for the oven and others had a hint of prawn cracker but they were still very nice.

We dropped everyone back home and after a thoroughly enjoyable paddle we all felt really good. Mostly because we were nice and warm.