The remainder of the journey to our accommodation in Roy Bridge was fairly uneventful, with just the heavy rain to contend with.
Following dinner, we headed to the pub for a swift drink, which very quickly turned into considerably more than just the one. Having decided to head east to the Blackwater today, and with the clocks going back, an early start was required – 8am was decided on. That would have been a lot more pleasant had some of us not been suffering sneaky hangovers.
The river starts of with Milton Falls – a nice, technical 4-drop rapid – a perfect warm up! The only incident suffered here was a certain Mr Surman having his deck pop in the first drop, requiring a quick empty. We continued downstream until we arrived at the entrance to the gorge. Vicky went first and nailed the line. I went next, and all was going well until I failed to get across to the desired line above the 3rd drop of the rapid. Dropping down where I was, I landed sideways in the stopper at the bottom, surfed along that to escape, before getting spun around and running the final drop backwards. My first ever attempt at a backwards boof failed miserably as I completely subbed before managing a nice backwards pop-out. Everyone else made it down with issue – with the exception of the same Mr Surman, who decided it looked to easy, had to limbo under a tree which separated him from his paddles leaving him to run the remaining 2 drops with paddles. It looked like he was going to make it successfully – until capsizing at the bottom of the final drop and swimming. We later discovered that Stuart and Phil had also taken a little swim each around the same place. The river then eased off with just one raped of note remaining. Both Ian and Ben managed to pin temporarily, but managed to free themselves.
We are now driving back to Roy Bridge, the temperature is a balmy 1.5 degrees and we are admiring all the snow that has fallen on the higher ground around us. Drying our kit is not looking like an easy task – leaving it out on porch will more than likely see up with ice blocks for kit in the morning. Hmmm… maybe not.