River trips

1.6 metres ........ 12 August 2007

The river was rising quite fast, when I first arrived, it was 2.75 on the Burnmouth gauge. By the time I had done a shuttle, it was up to 3 on the gauge.

Looking at the SEPA website next day confirmed the fact that the river had been rising quite fast, and it actually went up to around 2.45 metres by late evening, then dropped again quite fast.

So the figures shown above are only approximate, during the time I was actually on the river.

The Linn was good fun, and I spent a lot more time there than on the rest of the river.

Linn

Good fun at this level, I ran seven different routes down the Linn at this level - some of them I did twice.

I ran the main channel twice - starting the run by running down the smooth green wedge towards the very substantial diagonal standing wave, then turning left away from the standing wave, and down through the edge of the rough water below the wave.

The second channel had two ways down.

River right gives you a fast ramp, dropping into a fast stream alongside the rock wall - my right to left diagonal line worked well on both runs, taking me out away from the fast stream beside the rock wall.

Hard river left was just a bit to rocky, and going over the protruding nose was going to drop me into a nasty toe-back. However between these no-no routes there was a gap, which allowed a nice run down - it worked well both times.

The third channel had a narrow run of water, with just enough water in it to make it paddleable without banging into rocks on the way down.

The fourth channel had water going down the river right side, but it was a bit rocky, however I got down okay without leaving any plastic on the rocks.

The left side was much better though - there was the usual hole there, which is okay to bash through. As well as that, the shoulder of rock on each side of the hole had enough water coming over them to make them alternative routes down. Neither are easy to get on to, as the current is pushing you into the hole - but should be possible if you have the right skills. I managed to get onto the left hand shoulder okay, but didn`t quite make it on to the shoulder on the right, and dropped in to the right hand edge of the hole - the same thing happened twice.

All in all, at this level, the Linn is good fun, and worth spending time at, as I reckon it is one of the best bits of the river at this level.

Linn bypass

The Linn bypass was running, but probably not worth the effort, the first exit was stoney at the bottom end, I didn`t look at the second exit.

Wall

The wall was at a good enough level for taillies, I caught a few.

Wave right hand side of wall

I got onto a wave in the middle by coming down river right of the island, and got a quite long surf on it, though it wasn`t particularily easy to keep my boat on line.

Weir

The weir is just covered over its whole length except at one end, but the cover was very thin in places. The middle chute of the weir is a straightforward grade 3 rapid - the water is flowing straight down the chute, and this is followed by about 50 metres or so of bouncy waves.

The main chute was virtually flat and no use for playing, however to the right of it there was a nice stopper which provided some play time.

Rapid down to Hell Hole corner

Coming down the centre should present few problems. There are some odd bits and pieces river left which sort of offer play potential, but I got washed through them all.

Hell Hole corner

The river left side was too washed out to provide much playing.

Hell Hole corner to Thistlebrig

As usual, nothing much in this section. The hole above the Mill wasn`t really noticeable.

Thistlebrig

Thistlebrig had its characteristic left to right diagonal current,

The easiest run down is to stay well right of centre as you approach Thistlebrig, and then just follow the relatively calm water down through, or break out to the right into the big eddy.

The river left side has the usual playspots, which I didn`t look at.

Wave below Thistlebrig

It was surfable, but only just, and wasn`t worth the extra walk back up the dyke.

website design by ron-t

website hosting by freevirtualservers.com

+ +