Canoeing the Wye
This was our first unsupported canoe expedition. We aimed to get out to the Welsh border and paddle in a group of six friends from Hereford to Symonds Yat within 5 days we booked off work. It was a trip we really enjoyed, which allowed us to try out multi-day canoe touring through the beautiful landscape of the Wye Valley. If you want to get canoe touring, then we think this is a great trip to start with.
What we were looking to get out of the trip
Our first unsupported canoe touring adventure. Why did we do it? We wanted to get an idea of how the whole camp-paddle-camp thing worked. Over the years we have done a fair amount of camping, and although canoeing was relatively new to us at the time, we’d still have quite a few days out on the water (non-consecutively), but we had not done them both at the same time. This 5-day trip was a trial of sorts. We planned it to test out doing both, and see if we (and four others) really wanted to go and thru-paddle the Northern Forest Canoe Trail (NFCT). Or if it was if canoe touring was something we’d not be happy doing.
There are sections of the Wye that are stunning, this was from a latter section that had plenty of water
A little about the Wye
The River Wye is the fourth-longest river in the UK, stretching some 250 kilometres from its source, Plynlimon in mid Wales, to the Severn Estuary. Now for those of you in other parts of the world this may seem a little short, however, this is a good stretch when looking to paddle across the UK.
The Wye Valley has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and it really is stunning. The river that formed this valley is the border between England and Wales for part of its length, a beautiful, winding river that is popular with canoeists and kayakers alike. It is one of the longest paddle-able scenic rivers in the UK, attracting many day and multi-day trippers, as well as a fair number of DofE expeditions. What this has led to is a fair amount of support for touring paddlers, as well as understandable disdain from land owners.
Overview of our itinerary
We planned this trip around the rest of life, and managed to find five days where the six of us were available. To give us the best chance with the weather we chose the tail end of August 2021. However, this did have the knock on effect that the summer had been rather dry, making the river levels pretty low.
Day 1: Getting to the start
The first day was all about getting all of us, and all our kit, into the right places. This involved people travelling from across the country to descend on the Hereford Rowing Club. This club has a camping and caravanning site attached and is right on the river. Once we had all arrived at the club we sorted out our kit, and made sure we had the right number of stoves in the group (having previously shown up to expeditions with more stoves than people!). We shuffled our three cars around, putting two at the finish point and leaving one at the club. We took advantage of the fact there was a chip shop within walking distance, and enjoyed a light meal together, sat on picnic benches, whilst we caught up with each other before the start in the morning.
Day 2: Hereford Rowing Club to Tresseck Campsite
The excitement was palpable, despite the slightly damp start to the morning. We had to go and pick up a boat from Wye Canoes, who will helpfully drop you a boat, paddles, buoyancy aid, and a 60L watertight kit barrel off at a number of starting points (the Hereford canoe club being one of them) along the river. They warned us that the river levels were low at the moment and we would have to be careful picking our lines for the first 20 miles or so. They were not wrong!
It is clear to see that there was far less water in the river than is normal. This was us stopping for a quick snack and a stretch of the legs.
The day largely went ok, no big dramas, just settling into where to best put equipment in the boats to maintain trim, paddling laden boats, and working as pairs. We also had a lot of fun at each other's expense, trying to read the water and pick our way through the shallows. Each boat would laugh whilst drifting past a beached boat in the group, only for it to be the other way around 10 mins later. By the end of the day much of this had been worked out and we were still in high spirits after 18 miles when we reached Tresseck campsite.
The campsite had something rather cool for canoeists, an elaborate contraption of ropes, pulleys, chains, and plastic to help you get your boats off the rocky shore and up to the campsite. This was quite fun to use after spending most of the day in the boats. We quickly portaged our equipment to our pitch and set up camp. This is where we encountered our first DofE group. They seemed to be amazed that somehow we turned up after them, pitched our tents, put up a washing line (suspended by two sets of paddles lashed together), cooked our meal, washed up, and were chilling out playing with frisbee all before they had even got to eating their hot food! It was at this point Robert realised that we probably had a load of skills and ways of working that many people don’t know, and if we shared that knowledge we could make others' experiences of the outdoors much more enjoyable. We could say that this was the moment when the idea for this website was formed.
The Tresseck Campsite canoe lift contraption which was super fun to use, and well appreciated after a day of paddling.
Day 3: Tresseck Campsite to Ross Rowing Club
We had had a good night's sleep and were ready for the day ahead, which was fortunate as we were awoken by the DofE group's attempt to get an early start. A hearty breakfast of fresh pancakes, peanut butter and hot chocolate set us up for the morning. Once we broke camp and portaged back to the river we were on our way.
As we were feeling much more comfortable in the boats, we started to feel more at home on the water and were able to enjoy the scenery more than the previous day. There were even a number of disused bridges that we passed under.
We hardly saw any other boaters that day, but plenty of people fishing, with various levels of grumpiness at having to pull in their lines as we passed by. We were always courteous as we could be, and tried to give them as much room as we could, however this did not stop some less than pleasant interactions. But with scenery such as it was, these brief moments of friction were soon forgotten.
The views on the Wye have got to be some of the best we have seen in the UK while paddling.
This was the shortest paddling day, with it only being 12 miles. The river was deep enough for us to get to the rowing club, which was our overnight stop, before 14:00! We had a choice at this point. We could push on and do another 14 miles, or stop, chill out, and have another practice camp. We chose the latter, which also gave us the afternoon to explore Ross-on-Wye. Later that afternoon (while full of foraged ice cream and pastries) we were chilling out and chatting nonsense, when we were yet again joined other people canoe camping. It was clear from the interactions that they were not having a good time of it. While filling water bottles we had a chat and it turns out they seemed to have a bit of bad luck, and a lack of basic outdoor skills. We gave them a few pointers and advice on how they could make life a little easier on themselves. It is hard to hear someone say “I never want to go outside again, this is a stupid f**king activity, and all the people who do it are crazy” when you know the only reason they are feeling like that is they are cold, wet, and hungry. All things, that with a bit of knowledge, you can rectify; or at least lessen.
The take out at Ross rowing club. You can see that the town is only a short walk away from the take out point.
Day 4: Ross Rowing Club to Symonds Yat West
Another pleasant night of sleep was had in our little tent on some rather soft, long grass. We realised that when looking at our wonderful little expedition tent that morning (a Terra Nova Super Solar - which unfortunately aren’t available anymore), that prior to the NFCT we would need to get a new expedition tent. The seams were peeling, and it didn’t look good for daily use anymore. It felt like a sad moment (as it always does when you have to say goodbye to a friend).
In comparison this had to be the best day of the three we spent paddling. There was enough water, fantastic views, and wildlife galore. We got to see a surprising number of kingfishers along this section, some inquisitive cows, and a wild swimmer!
One of the local animals that would stay remotely still enough to photograph. There were many kingfishers as well, just none of the pictures we took had anything that looked like a bird in them!
It is worth noting that we came across lots of boats on that day, both paddlers and motorboats. We happily made it to the getout point by late afternoon. We had taken it easy and savoured the views. The most significant portage of the trip was right at the end between the takeout point and where we had parked (typical!). During this portage we were somewhat of an attraction at the amusement arcade, with many people asking us what we had done, and “why are you carrying those?” Though admittedly walking through a commercial camping resort with canoes is a little out of the ordinary. We knew we were going to have to get way better at portaging before the NFCT as this was painfully slow and hard going.
We were originally planning on staying the night at that campsite at Symonds Yat however, due to us finishing our paddle 4 or so hours earlier than we planned, we decided to drive home that night. This would give all of us a full day to recuperate at home before heading back to work. The 4 or so hours we then spent in traffic was probably not great, but you take your chances.
Equipment & Renting
Out of the six of us who went on this trip we were able to personally source two boats (with paddles), three 30L barrels, and all the necessary camping equipment. This left us needing to find another boat and associated paddles. After a bit of research we found the appropriately named Wye Canoes who were more than happy to rent us the other canoe we needed for the 4 days. They even dropped two of us off and picked the boat up at the end. It is with noting that at time of writing it does not take too many rental canoe trips to make it more economical to purchase a canoe.
Wye Canoes were also able to supply buoyancy aids if you don't have your own, maps, and also helpfully 60L waterproof barrels that you can use to store your kit. This was helpful as one of our group found that the majority of their dry bags had disintegrated since their last outing and if they had fallen in all of their kit would’ve been soaked. The boat they provided was a typical rental boat long, wide, heavy, and bombproof. We are also all getting a greater appreciation for the differences in canoe design at this point and the impacts on the feel in the water.
Our canoe with all our stuff in it. We realised that although we could paddle with this equipment and it would do for this trip, it was far from optimised and we could make significant improvements.
Navigation
This has to be one of the easiest trips we have done navigationally. It is all one-way downstream. There are not even any wrong turns you can take! There are plenty of way points and items of interest along the river, be they bridges (used or otherwise), buildings, or large geographic features (hills and the like). We did however use this as an opportunity to test our Garmin Explorer+. This little device not only told us exactly where we were, but also enabled us to check in with our home contact each evening to let them know where we had got to. This is a little habit we plan to take forward during our future adventures. If anything happens, at least they will know where to start looking for us.
There are a few guidebooks we have found for this river, including one compiled by Paddle UK and the Environment Agency, but we chose ‘Paddle the Wye’ by Mark Rainsley as we used books from Mark before, as they've all been well written and contain a wealth of information for planning and some interesting historical tidbits. We had more confidence in the route after reading, however it was a bit pessimistic on how far you can get in a day, hence why we ended up ahead of schedule two of the days. We used this trip as an opportunity to practise our river route cards. We will probably write a whole article on route cards for paddling rivers, but here’s a snapshot of what we put in them. Even creating these gave us a good feel for the river before we even got to float on it.
Snapshot of one of our route cards for this trip
Accommodation - Why not wild camp?
If you look at other adventure types who go and paddle the Wye, they often make a big thing of wild camping. So why did we not wild camp? To answer this, we’ll give you some more context. We went on this trip in the summer of 2021, and there was a localised increase in the amount of people looking for adventure in the UK as restrictions were lifting just after the pandemic lockdowns. This meant that many of the wild camping locations around the country were experiencing somewhat of a backlash due to destructive behaviour of a small minority. We even saw evidence of reckless, thoughtless wild camping as we went. This meant that much of the Wye river banks were plastered with signs warning you not to stop, and that landing was prohibited. As not to make the problem worse we decided to stick to commercial campsites. Fortunately there were quite a few within reasonable distance of each other.
You can make out the boats we used and our little green super solar tent in the top left.
Water
Water, water everywhere - but not that you would want to drink
When we went on this adventure there was not only a lack of water, but also a significant issue of pollution from agriculture. Much of the water was a mucky brown or green, and you could not see your paddle blade just under the water. Although we had water filters they would not take out the chemical pollutants and we just didn't want that in our bodies. This meant that we carried a fair amount of water, and thankfully all the campsites had fresh potable water available.
Nice views above the water, just don’t look down too much.
Lessons learned from this trip
As we approached this adventure as a training trip for our NFCT thru-paddle we thought it would be helpful to reflect on what we had learnt. Here were our learning highlights that we took forward:
We needed to find a better way of estimating how long it would take us to paddle a section of river.
We needed to find more comfortable paddles. There were a few blisters between the group.
We needed a better way of carrying equipment. The duffle bags and dry bag combination was just not cut out for portages.
Moving a free rolling barrel around is hard work and a barrel harness would make it much easier to portage.
Carrying water in larger volumes than 1L was something we didn’t have an elegant answer to. We knew that we were going to have to carry water for multiple days during the NFCT, so water containers would be something to investigate.
We need to sort out our rain gear, as the kayaking waterproofs were not cut out for this type of activity.
We needed more detail on our route cards, adding elevation between sections would be helpful, and also needed to consider how to indicate whether a stretch was upstream, downstream or a portage.
We need to have something to wear from the waist up that works better for multiple days rather than our rash vests. They absolutely stunk!
Katrina in her rash vest that has been used for years kayaking. Turns out by day three you did not want to stand down wind of either of us.
There are also a few things that it is worth noting that we tried which worked well:
Our food for this trip was tasty and travelled well in a barrel.
The Garmin Explorer + worked flawlessly.
Our route cards worked well, and we used them extensively while on the water.
We can cover more miles than we expect.
Would we recommend this trip?
This is a fantastic trip if you want to have a go at canoe touring in the UK. Critically there is the infrastructure in place for you to hire equipment and stop at canoe friendly campsites. The views are spectacular, and it feels at times that you are miles away from civilization, despite the fact that you are often only a short walk from the river bank to some form of building or road. All in all we were very pleased with this little trip down the Wye and would recommend it to those who would like to try out canoe expeditions.