A Weekend at the Bitches

Last weekend I headed down to St Davids to join Deb Pinniger and the Zanskar Youth Trip people, of which my brother is one, for a weekend on the Bitches.
The bitches are a tidal rapid which form once a month off Ramsey island near St Davids on which a perfect glassy wave forms as well as a hole.
The bitches are not your average park and play, getting there requires paddling up to St Justinians head and ferry glide across the strait. To paddle across as the sun rises over such an immense volume of water is breathtaking.
The wave was working this weekend, though very difficult to catch in short playboats, once I got on the wave I could stay on and carve across the face, with the water being clear enough to watch the seaweed on the rock below.

Varsity Domination!

Clean Sweep for Oxford with victory in Mens & Womens Marathon, Canoe Polo and Freestyle.
Congratulations to Andrew Spurr for dominating the Marathon, the polo team feat Giacomo for a 9-0 victory and all the girls, also I won the freestyle, yay!

Corsica - A water park for grown ups

With Easter fast approaching a plan was formed to head to Corsica for a cheap 5 days paddling in th birthplace of creek boating. The crew was Rob Moffat, Stu Martindale, Tom Venebles and Me all from OUCKC.
It absolutely lived up to its reputation, Corsica is awesome, everywhere you look perfect drops and slides, combine this with cheap wine and plentiful brie it made a great trip.
Gravona: We wanted to do the Liamone but it was too low so we hit the Gravona as a consolation/warm up - it actually proved to be a fun little river with some nice moves, but nothing challenging.
Rizzanese: This year could be the last year of the Rizzanese before it is flooded by a damn project at the get out so we were super keen to get on and paddle it before it goes, tragically, forever. And what a river with big attractions including a 10m drop it would be easy to forget how fun the rest of it was. Did walk the 50/50 drop though, but that should still be there hopefully.

Travo: - Bravo! Sweet Slides
Codi: Hahaha I love this river, genuinly I think its one of the best rivers Ive ever paddled. It starts off with what looks like a ditch descending very steeply into a wooded valley, and thats how it continues, around every corner we found a 2-3m drop with a good move.

Rob Moffat rock bashes his way through the gap

With no swims and no drama come the last day something had to go on, so it was inevitable to wake up on our last day to a car that refused to start. A call to the rescue services in broken french got us going again, with enough time for a final sprint down the Rizzanese.

Corsica's an amazing place, I cant wait to head back next year.
Cheers to Kayak Session for their video guide.

NSR MMX

This was my first time to attend the famous National Student Rodeo.
What a weekend it was, the boys at Leeds and River Legacy put on a great party on the saturday night and it was a great chance to catch up with mates from all over the country.
I entered the Topo Duo competion with Mike Geary and after winning our race and dominating the freestyle heats we found ourself in the final. We had a strong run in the final, but alas it wasnt to be with the judges from Leeds awarding the Leeds boat victory.

The student life.(+a video!)

So, my first term at Uni was not very productivel in terms of kayaking, but there was a lot of other stuff going on, including drama, rowing and climbing, the lack of a car in Oxford also meant I had to rely on other people.
By the end of term I was desperate for a white water hit, so on the day after the end of term I headed down to Exeter for the Sunday of the G17 weekend to paddle with Hugh Graham and got the Upper Dart at the perfect level and a cheeky run down the Erme.
After that I headed up to North Wales to meet up with Broadley and did a few runs of the Fairy Glen, a new river for me, and it didnt go smoothly with a deck implosion on Fairy Falls forcing me bail. We did it again the next day which went a lot better.
No photos of this, but I have made a brief video from some shots I got over the last year.
Wanderings:

Wanderings 2009 from Nick Roberts on Vimeo.

Wet West Paddle Fest 2010

I had a great time at the Wet West Paddle Fest, this was my first time to go there and I headed up with Jono and Chase
The Garry was fairly dull, but the party on saturday night was great, caught up with loads of friends and drank Slovenian wine.
The Morriston on sunday was fantastic, with a big first drop and some fun rapids, the organisers did a fantastic job with regular minibuses making it easy to do laps.
We stayed on the next day to paddle the Falls of Lora tidal waves which were at the best levels for the year and formed a really good standing wave.
Cant wait for next year!