In true fireworks night style, the trip accordingly started with a bang, the alternator belt shredding up and leaving 12 of us stranded at the side of the M4, playing with sparklers. however, after about an hour wait, a nice AA man came and squeezed all of us into his less than accommodating cab before towing the van to the nearest rest stop.
Whilst quaffing cups of hot chocolate and the odd beer (and 15 little tubs of milk), Dunc managed to negotiate our way to getting us taxi rides the rest of the way to Wales, hooray! On time, two of the three cabs arrived at midnight, and we bundled most of the kit and people in, leaving Dunc, Josh, Wayne and myself patiently waiting for the shortly arriving taxi.
Unfortunately this supposedly short wait ended up being standing in a car park until 2 o'clock, drinking beer and waxing lyrical about the stereotypes of Wales, with the added bonus of finding out that my brother-in-law-to-be is actually Dunc's boss, and that consequently he now must do everything I say.
Once the completely inept taxi driver had eventually collected us and tried as hard as he could not to follow his sat nav (and I'd had a great snooze), we eventually met up with the rest of the now heavily drunken rabble at 3 a.m., only 11 hours since the meet.
Whilst all drinking as quick as we could, there was no catching up the likes of (of course) Lee, and Matt Ball - who'd had a little to much and was making as many little vomcanoes as possible in our bedroom.
After much banter, Twister, Jugs of Doom, songs, and general chit chat in our pretty nice bunkhouse, we put our heads down at about 6, in order to at least get some shut eye prior to our 9 a.m. wake up call.
After a stereotypically delicious fry up, improved by the Honey Club's (Dave, Kate and myself) upgrading of buttered toast, we managed to squeeze all of us and the kit into the cars that had driven up, due to the current situation of being sans a minivan.
After unloading at the Usk, the rush for desired kit, and a safety talk in which we learnt taht rocks are apparently friends and trees were not, we got into our groups for our first venture onto a river (me being with Doug, Sarah and Sammy).
After being taught about eddying in, I watched on as Dave managed to fall at the first hurdle and go over, but low and behold he managed to roll! This was something that had been plaguing him at the Gower, and he achieved it within the first 2 minutes on a river, so sort of a great start for Dave.
After all of us subsequently eddying in successfully and gotten used to the bumps, knocks and rocks that inherently accompany a river, we came to our first feature, a smallish weir after a tight right hand bend in the river.
After getting out for a look, and seeing Matt Ball swim - blame the hangover, and pretty much everyone else cope fairly well with their first feature experience, it was our time!
Going round the bend a little too tightly and getting a mouthful of tree, the drop was upon me, and after following Doug's motto for the day "lean forward and paddle like fuck", I found myself out the other side with surprising ease. The same couldn't quite be said for Sammy, who had his first (and not last) swim of the trip.
All the newbies already feeling much more competent and confident on the river, we all bobbed along a bit further before going straight down a slightly easier but higher feature ledge generally without much issue, our lead Doug using some poor hand signalling that I'm sure the missus would tell him off for if she knew.
At the third feature of the day, there was split opinion as to go to the safer left and risk looking stupid getting stranded for a while (as Anne Mai did), or risk life and limb on the recycling left side. In true maverick style we threw caution to the wind (and not really understanding the fairly small risk entailed) and opted for the cooler left side, again employing Dougs PLF technique whilst a few 12 year old chavs watched from the bank. Unfortuanetly it didn't quite work this time, and I got my first taste of river water, though managed to mimic Dave and successfully roll up - Very pleased (though looking back at the video, the seemingly super turbulent water that threw me over was merely me rocking the kayak after a dodgy entry, not as cool as intended). Sammy did an awesome high brace to stay afloat behind me and Sarah as usual went down as though it wasn't there.
After sticking around to watch everyone else successfully negotiate the drop, and Rosie paddling in a half sunken boat (it had a leak apparently), we had a shortish paddle before it was time to get out into the freezing cold and head off back to the bunk house.
After showers etc, we headed over to the pub, where a tiny little old lady miraculously produced about 20 pies for about 1p each, though on the downside they tasted terrible, wallpaper paste appearing the main ingredient.
After much darts, X Factor, getting 7-balled by Simon at pool, and flipping of 18 beer mats, we headed to another pub where we had further drinks, and David scared another victim's (Rosie's) parent's into thinking she was stuck under a fridge - how he does it I have no idea. Whilst most of the people there looked as though they wanted to kill all of us, we had a laugh, even getting more sparklers and seeing one of the guys that tried to break into the house the previous night.
People being fairly tired, we soon headed back to the bunkhouse and got an earlier night than thought, ready for another day at the Usk, and the challenge of Millfalls.
Breakfast eaten and cars almost loaded (we had to come back later, such a pain), we headed off on our second and last day on the Usk. Everyone feeling pro, it all got under way pretty smoothly, enjoying watching Cardiff uni doing their warm up before undertaking some lunges and going for a quick pre-kayak jog with Ricky to stave off the brisker weather for a few extra minutes.
After laughing at Cardiff's terrible attempts to eddy in, we all headed off, getting a little taste of our own medicine with a couple, including Sammy from Team Awesome swimming.
After a fairly long stretch of calm water, we came to what appeared a simple little bend with a tree sticking out a small way. Planning to easily navigate around it to the right, I quickly changed my mind when I was my lead - who I was told to always follow, sharply turn and go the other side. Frantically trying to do the same, I didn't quite make the necessary adjustments, and ended up with a face full of tree. Doing exactly what we were told not do, and going against the Rocks are our friends , trees are our enemies thought process, I tried to bat it away with my paddle (and possibly my hand), and quickly found myself tangled, and subsequently upside down in what was much colder water than that which I'd previously experienced. Luckily I again managed to roll, but as this visit to the fishies was a lot more unexpected and foolish, and left me a both bit miffed at myself, and more than a little cold.
After eventually catching the others up and practicing some more eddying in on some quicker water whilst Dave sat on the bank complaining about his chunky thighs, we then foud nourselves at the big one, Mill Falls.
Upon getting out and watching, I saw Dave and a few others negotiate it successfully, before Beth ended up swimming after getting bashed over by her ever helpful lead, Ricky.
After picking our line and having our pep talk from Doug, I psyched myself up and had another one of my many Boost bars.
Eddying out slowly, I almost went the wrong side of the first rock and had to PLF to not be completely screwed. As a result, I ended up going down a pretty poor line (though I blame Doug), and it was a series of panicked high braces that just about kept me upright. After all of us making it through unscathed, all of Team Awesome bar Sammy went for another crack, as it was the only feature of the day, and I thought I could do better.
After lugging that bloody heavy big Ken precariously back along the rocks all the way, seeing Doug swagger quickly past us along a previously unseen walkway to my left, we went for it again.
The second time was much better, ferrying across to get a better entry line at the beginning playing a large part. Heading down I felt a lot more in control and confident, wishing that it was the second run that had been caught on camera and not the first. After finding Sammy and doing terribly at a spot of surfing on a little wave, we eddied out, caught up the others and before we knew it it was time to leave our first river trip - though not before getting changed in front of an angry man's house.
Overall, I think all the newbies did really well, everyone improving both in ability and confidence immensely over the two days. However, this is in no small part to the help that we all received, I can't thank Doug and Sarah enough for answering all my questions and helping me out (not so much Sammy - but if I want to watch sculling for support I'll look him up). My deadlines having been moved to week 8, it now looks like I'm able to head to the Barle, so we'll have to see whether these learned skills will indeed pay the bills - or just add to my student overdraft.
N.B. Special mention must be given to Wane's mate Steve, who drove a minibus all the way from Brighton for us to drive home in, without him we would have been well and truly screwed; cheers buddy!
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