Whitewater kayaking opportunities have been few and far between this year with – would you believe it – a general lack of rainfall. All that has changed of course in the last few weeks so it’s been great to get some river action. At the weekend a few of us from the club were planning to run the River Whitewater in the Mournes. I set off from Belfast at 4pm aiming to meet the guys in Newry at about 4.45pm or so not knowing the chaos that was the Westlink underpass at Broadway. I basically spent 3 hours driving round Belfast. At 5.30pm I was still sitting on the Boucher Road so I decided to give up on kayaking and head for home…which took me almost another hour and a half! In the end it turned out that when Rodger and Kevin scouted the Whitewater it was just completely tanking and pretty unsafe so they didn’t run it. And ultimately what was worse was the situation for many people across the land with their homes waterlogged.

The Saturday before that another 3 of us got together to try something new. One of the guys, Ciaran, had a look through the Irish Whitewater guide and came up with the Annacloy river in Co Down. After driving round to find the put-in just outside Ballynahinch we put-in at the Grade 3 rapid at the top and set off. It was a nice wee run, mostly Grade 2 so nothing too challenging and just one weir at the bottom to watch out for – 2 of us walked it as we didn’t fancy getting stuck in it if we didn’t get our lines right. The weather, despite the forecast, was beautiful and it was great to paddle something new – makes you lift your eyes to see further down the river and spot what’s coming up next.