North Wales. The land of the gogs, mist covered peaks and wild mountain women. The place that for one weekend only, the guys and girls of Cardiff University Kayakers had decided to descend upon, to be joined by myself and some of the other Procrastinate lads.
Finally the big day arrived, and leaving bang on time the error of my well planned departure was made evident as I hit Leeds at the height of rush hour. When I finally managed to get away from the traffic and into the mountains of Wales, it turned out the club was miles behind as per the normal faff that accompanies all club trips. But some of the older and wiser guys who were travelling up separately were on time, so a cheeky pub dinner was planned.
We arrived well fed at our palatial residence that was to be our home for the next few days. Unfortunately there seemed to be some sort of mistake, perhaps a language barrier between the English and the Welsh, but it appeared the luxury pad was actually a barn at the end of a 30,000 mile long mud track deep in the heart of the Welsh mountains. Albeit a barn with a rudimentary kitchen and eventually some running water, (after a certain hero located the stop tap in a well in the front yard). A quick perusal of the sleeping quarters highlighted the division in equality about to take place. In the main residence lay a series of Auschwitz style bunk beds, accompanied by dirty, sweat stained pillows and sheets.
The North Wales Camp....
Above the boot room however lay a slightly nicer 4 bed apartment of comparative luxury, with significantly less stained bed linen. I felt my German ancestry stirring and quickly made plans to inhabit this luxury bachelor’s pad of dominance.
Not quite what it was like...
Unfortunately fate worked against me. When the rest of the Procrastinate boys arrived, a tad merry after polishing off their body weight in Southern Comfort en-route, they burst through the door like the cast of Magic Mike, flexing their bulging biceps like Roman Gladiators on steroids. We quickly felt the need to join them in this rowdy-ness, and before very long one of the two bottles of Port designed to be consumed at a steady state throughout the weekend was gone. When the rest of the club finally arrived they were greeted by a serene, quiet group of well-respected old boys enjoying a beverage or two by the fire. At least that is my recollection.
Without further ado the night stepped up a notch, another bottle of port was cracked and the ‘I Have Nevers’ began, with yarn spinning legend of the evening Rob Haley, of Stuff The Consequences, conjuring delicious adjectives from the air worthy of Shakespeare himself to describe our past misdemeanours with a certain focus on one poor individual, in what can only be described as vicious bullying tactics. The consumption of Port was slowed somewhat as Gin and Juice came into consideration, but I battled on, even pausing at times to sample Southern Comfort, a disgusting concoction.
Before the night had grown past its teenage years our eloquent drunkard Mr Haley no longer felt able to provide the nights entertainment and retired to the luxury pad, where he proceeded to decorate the mattress and floor with what was mostly the aforementioned disgusting concoction with a little stomach acid thrown in for good measure.
Now I’m afraid dear readers, I have a digressed a little in this great tale, so I will rush speedily through the next few hours and onwards to the next day. Nothing much happened of note. I may have been a little rowdy, and a certain person who owed me a favour from my earlier gentlemanly gesture of goodwill may have helped put me to bed in the kitchen surrounded by buckets, but all in all it was a very quiet, pleasant evening.
Our Hero taking a well deserved rest...
The next morning I awoke to the sound of people clearing up around me. The room was spinning like a gyroscope on a merry go round and there was no sign whatsoever of a hangover. Evidently, I was unaffected by the previous evening.
I should point out at this time in the tale that the purpose of this trip was supposedly to kayak, but this is in fact a dirty lie. I would have quite happily stayed asleep on my bench in the kitchen for the remainder of the day but unfortunately I had been tasked with taking a group down something wet as safely as I could muster, so I bravely battled on.
The first channel with any degree of debateable wetness we agreed upon paddling, was the gentle Lower section of the Llugwy. The less said about this pathetic rock scrape of a puddle the better, but quickly we were on the much more enjoyable Conwy. I can’t speak for other inferior groups but my group tamed this beast faster than a lion tamer in the Great British Circus. My team, consisting of the now legend-dary Chris Towriss, Jordan and Ross with Helena taking the helm leading the group like a boss, had almost no swims. This is almost as good as no swims, except there was one teeny little dip - but I like to think the man in question barely dipped his head in before both boat and person were rescued and we were on our way again down river within our crafts of whitewater pleasure.
The Saturday evenings jolly making was short lived for some of us, due mostly to our hangovers kicking in around 3pm, mine and Robs especially. After a few hours of attempted socialising we retired gracefully to bed and left the floor to be filled by the younger generation. I hear they did a good job. Literally, I heard everything – the bastards kept me awake for two hours. I especially enjoyed how they embraced fully the club tradition of high card something bad.
The final morning the three of us enjoying the comforts of the officer’s suite, bathed in the great luxury of a lie in and coffee in bed, before departing for a run down the River Dee. A lovely little river, it was a great opportunity to see how much Team Boom had improved, and how well their young heads could deal with the hangovers from the night before. Disgustingly well to both I am afraid to report. We had a few swims, with one attempting to pulverise himself on Serpents Tail by dredging the river bed with his legs but no lasting harm done, and the improvement in everyone was amazing.
Except the leader of another group, the incessantly stupid Jonny Cakes, who abandoned his group, his paddles, his common sense and his dignity as he drifted on upside down towards the final little rapid of the day, Town Falls. Somehow he stayed in his boat, much to the disappointment of all onlookers who watched on in disbelief, as he left his group alone at the top. We quickly divided this unfortunate lot amongst our own groups, Team Boom acquiring an honorary member, Lucy (not to be confused with Lucie), for the final section. Now she was substantially better looking than Jordan, Chris or Ross and with my group numbers swelled to six including two females, I was feeling very manly.
Now at this point I have said very little about Ross, other than to slate his looks compared to the new blonde addition to our posse, but having proved himself more than capable I gave him the task of leading the infamous dredger Chris down the section, a task he nailed with apparent ease, with Helena taking Jordan whilst I tried to make up for Jonny’s failings and take Lucy down myself. Like an absolute legend she powered down the section without missing a beat and thus ended our weekend both on and off the river.
Jonny Cakes paying the price for his failure
Quick pub afternoon grubs munch later and we all said our goodbyes and hit the road, and in a complete opposite to Friday’s journey I was home in just over 3 hours. A cracking weekend with a cracking group of people that I will remember for a long time, as will my liver and my bank manager, but totally worth it.
