Senseless Six head North for Big Water,

but it’s the Sensible Seven that paddle due to a lack of rain.

16/17 November 2002

Setting off to ‘The North’ Friday afternoon with Ray & Andrew it seems that everyone else had a similar idea and the journey was slow (not that I noticed as I was asleep in the back of Ray’s car, it seems Pete was similarly reposed in Richard’s car). Arriving late evening, we had stopped for fish & chips with Ed in York - delivering supplies to the ‘poor student’, we discovered the Centre in the fog and were treated to a tour of the bunk house (Bodders Can in hand) (beds in 3 rooms, central heating, hot showers, drying facilities, loads of crockery + cooking pots, chip fryer & griddle in addition to the split level cooker and a dish washer), by the Richard Sav & Pete team who had sampled the wares of the Barnard Castle Chippy and were attempting to build columns of Bodders cans to support the ceiling in the sitting room.

Saturday dawned with no rain so following a traditional breakfast of Bacon rolls & Porridge it was into paddling gear & off to the Tees (High Force) pausing on the way to view the 'Salmon Leap Falls' (or S bend) from the road. It was here we met up with John (a former Cambridge CC member) who joined us for the weekend. Off load the boats and carry them down to the river, whilst the shuttle was running the man who wants the access money arrives so Ray had to sweet talk him into letting us pay latter (money by then in the car at the get out), must be something to do with the accent but the man was happy with that.

On to the river and a quick warm up on the tiny surf wave at the get in, then it was off with Ray leading, for a pleasant bimble down to the S Bend where it was out for an inspection and deployment of a couple of strings. Richard led down (to take up position as cameraman). Andrew followed showing us the line to take then after some humming Pete & I followed with Ray giving the point to line up on for the first drop. As I was going backwards ½ way down I knew I’d got the line wrong but managed to recover and turn around before the next drop and somehow managed to break out in the pool, with Richard & Sav, before the last drop. Ray seemed to get the line right at the top but he also was facing back upstream half way down. Recovery was a little late and the next drop saw him upside down for the briefest of moments before rolling up just in time to see the next rock right in front of him, evasion was not possible and it was over again for another solid roll and complete the feature without any OBEs.

With everyone back in their boats it was on down the river to the next major feature, Low Force, everyone ran this successfully (although some of us gave the first drop a miss) then it was bimble on down to the get out, except for Richard inspecting the river bed whilst demonstrating his abilities to some Geography (or was it Biology) students on the bank. Crossing the second field (its a long get out!) the leading members of the party surprised some bullocks, so that one (of the bullocks) trashed the far gate to the field and went off into the next field, luckily the other bullocks merely moved around the same field as we passed through. With some ingenuity the field gate was rebuilt to encourage most of the herd to stay in the field then off we went, by the time we had traversed the next field the escaped bullock had got through the next gate and was away into the distance, but did not seem to be headed to the road.

After returning to the cars & lunch we walked up Flushiemere Beck, it’s the stream by the car park, to Gibsons Cave which is the put in for this grade 3 to 5 descent - if there is any water in it, there wasn’t this weekend so we gave it a miss, then it was off to the Strathmore Arms for old times sake, a mistake as the character of the place has changed and it would no longer be recommended (we was thrown out at 3 cuz the barman wanted a bath) and so back to the bunkhouse for Tea & Cakes.

Dinner was a slow event of enormous portions (we could have done with Justin to assist here) starting with soup & bread, we proceeded to prawn cocktails (with white wine) then onto Pasticcio with red wine, then (after a pause to find room) onto bread and butter pudding with cream followed by sloe gin. Cheese & biscuits & caramelled bananas were to follow but no one could find space. All consumed wearing silly hats from Chrisy crackers courtesy of Sav, pulled prior to commencing to eat. Feeling replete it was a somewhat reflective evening speaking of Brian.

Sunday morning found a distinct lack of milk so we had to raid the Centre’s supplies for that first cup of tea in the morning and for the wherewithal for the porridge. As we were completing breakfast the ‘horsey’ ladies came down stairs with our milk & coffee so at least we were ok for flasks. After changing and the sight of Richard reduced to sitting on the floor following an accident with his camera (unless the impact took an unintentional photo there's no evidence of this) it was back to High Force for the same section of the Tees again as there had still been no rain.

Following a long conversation with Claire (apparently she was looking for a nice young man), Ray had arranged access and it was off for more of the same. Pete led down this time and the water was a bit lower, this lead to some interesting ends occurring down the S Bend but at least we all faced forwards going down this time.

After running Low Force a second time, you to can climb back up the bank, Richard discovered he was missing his Mars Bars helpfully replaced by Andrew who had not eaten his from the previous day, then gently down to the get out. The main casualty was Ray’s paddle where he had caught a blade between a couple of rocks at the top of the river, on initial inspection he thought he had got away with it but by Low Force one blade was showing a crack all the way across. No excitement with the cows this time but a boat did get dropped into the ‘mud’ on attempting to open one of the gates.

After returning to the bunkhouse for the remains of the soup from Saturday evening it was back into the cars for the return trip to Southend, and home before nine.

Thanks to Ray for organising a thoroughly enjoyable trip with monstrous quantities of quality food. He has set the standard it’s down to the rest of us to maintain it. Is it 15 courses for the Christmas Dinner on the Dart?