The East Lyn with BJ

So Boring James and I have been making plans to go river paddling for the last month or so without much success- every time we are all set there's no water! It has infuriated both of us repeatedly! Since I work odd hours it makes it hard to organize anything much in advance (and if we do, there's never any water!). Anyway, we finally managed to make it and set off for the East Lyn in Exmoor for a day trip. Since BJ had to pick up a bike he had bought on EBay from down that way we were killing two birds with one stone. I was paddling a Jefe Chico borrowed from Will and BJ was demoing the new Karnali.

We made it down there, and despite the fact that there was snow on the ground, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. Our luck was in- as rather than having to walk the shuttle as planned we bumped into another couple of paddlers who we shared the shuttle with. They were already changed so put on while we were getting changed with the promise of meeting up at the bottom for the shuttle back up.

I had an awesome run down, loving the Chico and really having fun. BJ hadn't taken the time to properly outfit the Karnali so grumbled a bit, though luckily for me, Will and I are about the same size so I was nice and snug without having to go to any effort! We were warned by walkers fairly early on that there was a tree across the river further downstream, so as BJ knew the river better he took lead and was confident we would see the tree before it became a problem. We found it further downstream and stopped to help Pete Thorn (the local BCU access officer) and another paddler cut the tree out so we could still run the rapid.

It was great to be back on a tight technical river, and after a month on the huge volume of the Nile it made a nice change- pity about the cold water though! I continued to have a cracking run down and was loving the gorge section which is the crux of the run. It had been over a year since I had paddled this river so I couldn't remember the lines and that always makes it more exciting! All in all it was an excellent day out, a nice drama free (well apart from a bit of a dent in the chico- but I have no idea how that got there!) run down a good river in beautiful weather, if only it could always work out so well!

We attracted a bit of attention wandering around Morrison's in dry suits to get lunch, but that's always funny! After lunch we headed home and stopped off at BJs parents for a coffee and some more munch...