Canoeing the Wye Valley

We’ve arrived back home tired after a half day canoeing down the Wye River. It was a great day for canoeing not too hot and not a drop of rain. The lack of recent rain meant that the river wasn’t too fast flowing so we could gently meander with the current without too much exertion.

We started at the Huntsham bridge, after a short explanation on how to paddle, what to do if you capsize the canoe and we were off! We hired the Canadian canoe from a place in Monmouth and they drove us north to the start point, so we could end up back in Monmouth. The route we paddled is here.


We saw kingfishers, wagtails, comorants, hawks, swans, ducks and various other birds that I can’t name. The river was very clear, so we could see the fish in it (and a Liverpool FC mug). Unfortunately we didn’t see the otters or any other legged wildlife, but it was a good day to just sit in a canoe, argue over who was steering (we didn't seem able to go in a straight line) and enjoy the views. We stopped off at the Biblin Bridge beach for a picnic half way through the route, cooled the wine in the river and relaxed. We needed to relax after the disaster we had trying to get the canoe on the beach, we ended having to paddle upstream to try to get back to the beach after the first unsuccessful landing!


There is a set of rapids on the river, only grade 2 and at the moment rather tame because of the low rainfall. We had been advised on how to handle the rapids, what to do if we capsized etc. The hardest part was trying to line up the canoe at the correct angle that would take us easily through the rapids. We were successful, but the person in the front of the canoe gets the wettest and also can see much more clearly that you’re heading for a bunch of rocks…

In the end, we spent 4 hours on the river, the last leg was the most tiring as the wind had picked up, so we were paddling into a headwind. We also had to avoid the sculls that were out on the river practising, though they did a great job of avoiding us, which was probably easier for them than us. Now to conquer the rest of the river, it supposedly will only take a week.