Right of Navigation...

Nice article here from Griff Rhys Jones about the rights (or lack therefore) for canoeists to navigate English and Welsh rivers. It is also interesting in that he isn't the gung ho white water type; he just enjoys a gentle flat water paddle.

Also, a really poor reply to the article here, from someone who claims to be a canoeist, but given he thinks improving access will lead to 'anarchy', I'm not convinced by his credentials...

Trymendous...

Just spent an excellent warm summers day paddling on the River Tryweryn; a fantastic river of quality grade III/IV water that thanks to the Environment agency gets turned on at 8.00am and off at 6.30pm during the summer (though releases vary of course).

One of its advantages is the ease of multiple runs: the first to sort out any confidence issues (I always seem to go after not paddling for six months or more), and from then on, as many runs as you can until the energy runs out, hitting (or missing) as many eddies, stoppers and waves as possible.

And travelling down the night before, we camped next to a river at Ty Islaf campsite, a cheap, very basic campsite, but one that allows you to while the night away in front of a good old-fashioned campfire.

Camping and paddling: two of my favourite things...