Wye oh Wye?

This morning began very early indeed. By about 6am there was no way I could convince my body to shiver in an inadequate sleeping bag any more, so I escaped to the shower block to soak hands and face in hot hot hot water and try and get some feeling back in them. We were in the 24 hour Tescos at Chepstow by about 7am buying our provisions for the 2 day canoe/tipi trip ahead. To fill in the morning until paddle start time we stopped by Tintern Abbey, and had a fabulously warming breakfast at a cafe in the village shop.

The Abbey was very picturesque, and the light was beautiful (blue skies on one side, stormy clouds on the other) but hard to capture.

Then off to meet our adventure organiser and on to Hereford - our launch site. The idea was to canoe from Hereford to Ross-on-Wye over 2 days, with tonight spent in a tipi en route. Our craft was a fairly small Canadian canoe, with room for a grown up paddler front and back and two junior paddlers mid-ships. After some initial steering difficulties, we got the hang of it and made pretty good progress. Unfortunately the map/instructions were a bit out of date and it was purely by chance that we found our tipi (where our spare clothes and food awaited).

Sadly Mr B had had to do some wading to correct the mistake resulting from the bad map and a washed away sign, and even more sadly, he had decided against bringing a change of clothes. He therefore spent the whole evening swaddled in a couple of sleeping bags trying to warm up (and very appropriately like a Native American Chief he looked too!) while I kept busy with fires and the barbie. Happily a rack of lamb and nice bottle of Italian red helped thaw him out and he was sufficiently rejuvinated to lead the marshmallow toasting activities.

The accommodation was certainly a good deal more salubrious than last night's - with super warm sleeping bags and futons for everyone. The strong wind meant that the tipi chimney wasn't working so well so it was a pretty smoky evening. After the exertions of the day (5.5 hours solid paddling into the wind) sleep came quickly and was only interrupted by a passing hurricane which threatened to blow the whole contraption away! Mr B, of course slept through it all.

The tipi was great though, but perhaps more appropriate for summer trips, and very big (4 futons fitted in in a circle comfortably around the fire pit). I will put some photos of the canoe/tipi adventure up on flickr when I'm back home - the upload speeds are a bit slow here.