Tag: Cardiff

Hoping for the best with the weather…

Getting a pleasant paddle in during the Winter months is a challenge – especially if, like me, you aren’t yet that competent or confident in your paddling. I seem to live with the BBC weather app open on my phone- how windy will it be, how cold, how much rain? Sometimes you just have to take a chance…. This is what we did, first on 30th Dec 2019 and then to celebrate New Year’s Day 2020.

As we unloaded the kayaks on 30th December 2019 we stared into a murky distance, but by the time we were on the water we needed sunglasses to travel up the Taff.

New Year’s Day was lacking the sun, but unlike the racing yachts, we were delighted to have millpond conditions for our trip into the lagoon to start our New Year.

Setting out

We started out both times from the very small car park by the Cardiff Rowing Centre and launched easily. (And with great excitement to try out the Christmas present – super new Werner paddles to replace my 30 year old New Wave dumb-bells). For our first trip we headed up the Taff to get a completely new view of Cardiff.

We wanted to see some of Cardiff’s great landmarks by Kayak – modern buildings and old ones too. Idling past the St David’s Centre we thought that a bit of shopping and taking in a film at Vue might be an idea; Kayak and Ride might be a plan?…

On reflection, spraydecks might not look that cool whilst shopping in central Cardiff.

I was loving the novel view of the Castle and the grounds around it, Pontcanna fields and the rugby stadium, Bute Park and Sophia Gardens. We passed under the Millennium Footbridge between Bute Park and Sophia Gardens. If you are a cricket fan, you’ll know that Sophia Gardens is home to Glamorgan County Cricket Club and the Sport Wales National Centre. It was named after Sophia Crichton-Stuart, Marchioness of Bute (1809-1859). She wanted to provide open space in Cardiff for recreation in memory of her husband (the second Marchioness of Bute) who was an industrialist, heavily involved in coal and iron in South Wales and in the building of Cardiff Docks. (Wikipedia).

Being novice…..

So, being something of a kayaking novice, I’m never sure if I get tired because of poor technique, general fitness or the equipment and its setup. Up until now I had been using a heavy set of paddles with metal edges, large, thick blades set at 90 degrees with a straight shaft, (apparently great for canoe polo, though I don’t know why). Today, I’m out to test my Christmas present from the wonderful Christopher: Werner Corryvreckans. Well, what a difference. First, the drip rings! (OK, so you are all going, ‘whaat? these are a novelty??’. Well yes. But they are a great improvement). Next? The size and shape of the cranked shaft meant my hands were not rubbing and getting sore. And I reckon that it’ll help when I get disorientated when I’m trying to roll. Did I mention how light they are? That helps too. The blades are quite big but felt stable in the water and buoyant coming out, so they made the paddling itself much easier. All in all, I’m a very happy paddler!

Oh, did I say how light they are? Ah well, they are that good it’s worth saying twice.

Sunshine on the Taff

As we left Penarth and Grangetown we went under a number of bridges – roads and then rail, as Central Station is surprisingly close to the river. On up and we passed Brains Brewery and the shopping centre before seeing the Millennium Stadium come into view.

As a beer enthusiast, I’m going to take a slight diversion here, Brain’s website tells their story (https://www.sabrain.com/our-story/our-heritage/). Their founder was a Bristolian and having trained as a brewer, managed to marry a girl whose father owned a brewery. Well done that man! The first pint of Brain’s was brewed in 1882 at the Old Brewery in Cardiff (previously Thomas’ Brewery.

I love seeing Cardiff from a new perspective – I hadn’t realised how much the central part is lined up along The Taff. You can see history developed too -the stone bridge carrying the A4161 has clear brick additions to either side to accommodate all our modern traffic.

We had to watch out for the Aquabus as it wake is noticeable (!) and it cannot pass through the central bridge arches – it all looks rather shallow in places. It’s OK, easy to identify the right route because there are clear red and white no entry signs on the prohibited arches.

The best bit about the aquabus is riding over the wake – just enough ripples for me!

Heading back down the Taff and into the Bay

After a while, paddling upstream became a bit tiring, so we headed back down to the bay and on New Year’s day continued the trip towards Cardiff. We started by heading straight out and under the A4232. (Watching out for the aquabus and water taxis of course). We were lucky with the weather – millpond (just my kind of white water!!)

It was an easy trip across to the barrage where we slowed to look at the ornamental sails, the people walking round and taking in the sunshine and the cormorants diving or finding perches on buoys or solid structures to rest and dry their wings like some strange kind of washing, or a mystic symbol.

The Paddling Community

I am quite sure that this won’t be the first or last time that I write this, but we’ve met some lovely people through paddling (even in my very short experience). Not just friendly, but interesting too.

As we headed across to Mermaid Quay we spotted a moored yacht with a man shouting ‘stop! I’m coming with you’. He quickly released his kayak from the side of the yacht, went below board and came out ready for a kayak trip in Winter.

Off we went, two, now three on New Year’s Day.

Not much later we glided gently past the Cardiff Wetland Reserve, just between the St David’s Hotel (with its distinctive architecture) and beside the yachts at the mouth of the Taff. It is a great habitat for wildlife, created on former salt marshes.

From there, we went towards The Ely where we gained fellow kayaker number four – Roy Beal. He was piloting a very beautiful wooden kayak and I’m going to give him a mention because he does some interesting fund-raising and awareness raising projects. Have a look at his site: https://www.cleanjurassiccoast.uk/

We four had a little trip up the Ely towards the Cardiff International White Water Centre (Olympic fame!) and site of my first proper canoeing course (see my previous blogs about the very spinny little boats. I am endlessly grateful that Tess the Scorpio is better at going in straight lines). Periodically the pleasure craft would come past, pilot shouting ‘beware Tsunami, beware Tsunami’. He slowed down enough for us to just rock gently on the Ely though, and after a few minutes wondering how often the yachts left their moorings and whether it would be possible to go underneath the catamaran (decided ‘no’!), we turned and headed back tot he Taff and to our start point, Roy and the yachtsman heading back their own ways too.