a Sunday swim down the Avon

Could the weather have been more perfect for a gentle swim down the Bristol Avon? -no, gentler reader, it almost certainly could not. 

Fifteen remarkably cheerful swimmers set off from the Dundas Aqueduct, and Mike and I followed in Mike's canoe, to dispense Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles and encouragement as needed.

It takes about an hour or so to get down to Warleigh, and the swimmers had become pretty widely spaced by then. You could hear Warleigh long before you got there; the happy hubbub of youth enjoying itself unsafely....

The early arrivals cheered the stragglers home....

And we had our picnic, complete, this time, with poetry. 

There is an album of more pictures here, on Flickr

what happened on the Sally in the Woods Wild Swim

What with all the recent rain lately, I'd been anxiously watching the Avon's water level on the Environment Agency's website. It'd been in the blue (flooding possible) zone for days, and was still up there but descending slowly. 

Sunday morning level is right in the middle of this graph

 Sunday morning was cool and cloudy, but with great cracks in the sky where the dawn was breaking through. As I got the Moggy's roof bars ready for the canoe, a young fox scampered past. The sun suddenly found a gap in the houses at the end of the road, and lit up the tops of all the plane trees; all the local woodpigeons began cooing at the same moment.


The day was trying hard to be summery, and I appreciated it.

With the canoe and passengers on board, we headed to Warleigh, and were early enough to wander round the pumping station, after gaving warily at the weir. 

a photo from a previous time at Warleigh with the river in spate
(I foolishly failed to take a pic yesterday, but this is pretty much the same as it was, level-wise)

 The water was high, and brown with sediment; the drop in level below the weir was far less than usual, maybe two feet or so, rather than the usual seven or eight, and the flow over the weir itself was too great to allow for walking over it. "I don't think it would be a good idea to do the swim in that," I said; "it would be fine until something went wrong, but it would be too dangerous to arrive at the weir from upstream and rely on getting ashore. Still, let's see what the others reckon."

They reckoned the same. So we walked and paddled up the canal to Dundas, to see if the river there was safe for a swim off the pontoon.

It wasn't. "How fast do you think the current is?" asked Sarah. I watched the water, inagined a bicycle travelling at the speed of the water. 
"Eight miles an hour," I said. 
"Holly thought five. I thought it was more like ten," said Sarah. She was probably the closest. I was erring on the low side, to counteract any natural tendency for overstatement that I may have...

So we did some synchronised rocking instead, to the tune of "Row, row, row the boat gently down the stream."

Back at Warleigh for our picnic, we met some cheerful young folk who'd come along for the swim and had joined in a group also there who'd jumped in below the weir and been swept down to the ferry steps, where they scrambled out. It sounded great fun- and indeed, looked like it too, when they did it again a short while later!

Sally In The Woods Wild Swim (the fifth!)

It's time to start planning for the next wild swim. So....

When and where: Sunday July 15th, 2012, 12:00 meet at Claverton (OS ref ST 789 641 ) a few miles south of Bath, off the Warminster road

Getting there: I'll be driving, because I'll have a canoe on the roof. Cycling is an option; recommended along the Kennet and Avon Canal towpath, either from Bath or from Bradford on Avon.



View Larger Map

The route:

• Walk (or canoe) along the canal to the Dundas Aqueduct, about 1 mile towards Bradford on Avon.
• Descend to the River Avon, and those who are swimming get changed; their gear is stowed in the canoe(s). Swimmers and canoeists then proceed downstream to Warleigh Weir, about 1 1/4 miles away. The current is sedate but helpful, the water is deep, the banks are steep. Canoes are intended to help out anyone in difficulties. (Last time was late in the season, and we had one swimmer who had to give up because she was so cold. Hopefully this will not be an issue in July).
• It isn't possible to walk all the way from Dundas to Warleigh on one side or other of the river; but if anyone wanted to walk the whole distance by riverbank rather than swim, they could start off on the east bank then transfer across to the west bank lower down, by canoe. Probably. And if you are swimming and get too tired or cold, then walking is an option.

The swim should take about an hour. We arrive at Warleigh Weir, where there is a big meadow. And then we get our picnic stuff from the cars, and relax.

Here is the description of last year's swim; and here is the very first big one

Here is a set of photos from the swim.

Here is the Facebook group for the event.

Here is the Environment Agency's river level monitoring station at Bradford on Avon. This tells you the current level of the river.

Here is the EA's water quality monitoring page. As you see, the water quality is graded A, which is the highest quality grade.

a swim along the Avon

There's a nice little round trip I've done a few times by canoe, from Warleigh Weir at Claverton along the Kennet and Avon Canal as far as the Dundas viaduct, then down the Avon back to Warleigh.

I thought that the downriver bit of the trip would possibly make a good swim. It's a mile and a quarter, but the current helps you along. So I got in touch with Mal, who is a very keen swimmer of uncharted waters. She was extremely keen. So were several other people. So it was time to get planning.

I knew that we'd need to take a boat along in case anything went wrong- the river runs deep and between steep banks, and getting out might be a problem. So I took my big canoe, and Brendagh volunteered to help crew it, as she didn't feel quite up to the swim.

There was a bit of a dropping-off of numbers as the day approached. So at last, it was Mal, Brendagh and me. And the canoe on the roof of the car.

Trundling down to Warleigh, we looked around for Mal's friends who were expected. No sign. So Brendagh and I paddled along the canal while Mal walked. It was a nice Sunday morning; it had been raining right up to the time we arrived, but the sun was beginning to make an entrance, and there was the promise of a good day ahead.

We passed lots of narrowboats, and examined them critically for style. There were the usual 'castles and roses' decorated ones, but several had more individual paint jobs. And there were lots of seriously lived-in boats, shabby and comfortable-looking, with groups of hippyish young people lounging on the canal bank next to them. We exchanged greetings as we passed.

"It's a canal thing," said Mal. "You pass the time of day with everyone. You go so slowly that there's always time for a conversation as you go by."

Mal had been away sailing the canals of Derbyshire, last month, with Adrian and Pig the dog.
"My lodger told me to look out for his parents. He said they were on their way to London, and look out for Roger and Emeline on the Charlie Beere. And I thought, how many thousands of boats are there on the canals? -and then under the bridge came the Charlie Beere! I shouted at them, 'Your son lives with me!' They looked quite alarmed- 'Who is this mad woman?...'"

Mal does have a talent for making friends. In a nice way, she reminds me of Beachcomber's Lady Cabstanleigh- "It's not meeting people that matters, it's making them meet you".

Dundas Wharf, by the aqueduct, was bustling with Sunday trippers, all armed with Tilley hats, showerproof coats and stout boots, and the occasional map case slung around the neck to aid with navigation along the towpath. A notice on a narrowboat invited us to moor alongside for Cornish ice cream. Another boat offered cheese tastings.

Brendagh and I hove to in the basin, as Mal went hunting for a loo. A kind tripper, seeing my camera, offered to take our picture.


You can see why they come here. The built things on the Kennet and Avon are very good looking. Probably being made of Bath stone helps. But the Dundas aqueduct is very solid and respectably architectural, as opposed to, say, the Pontcysyllte aqueduct that I've walked across, which may be an engineering marvel, but is also utilitarian and even plain scary- the canal there is channeled through iron sections, like an elongated bath tub with a very long drop to the side.

We hauled and pulled and dragged the canoe down the long flight of steps to the river, and Mal got changed as we launched the canoe. And then we were off.

With the aqueduct out of sight behind us, the river became very peaceful. It runs through a steep wooded valley, and although it shares the route with a canal, a road and a railway line that runs along the river bank, there is no sign of their presence, and only a distant murmuring of cars. Sometimes through the woods there came the distant call of a hunting horn. But then it turned out to be an EWS freight locomotive, or the 12:28 from Salisbury to Bath Spa, racketing past.

"It's warmer than Henleaze Lake," Mal pronounced. "If I sound like I'm not making sense, ask me lots of questions to see if I've got hypothermia."

The banks were steep and tangled with ivy, brambles, mare's tails, nettles and bindweed, and overhung with alder and willow. Occasionally, there was a cloud of damselflies over the rafts of arrowheads and the yellow- flowered brandy-bottles

"What time is it?" asked Mal after a while.
"About quarter past one," said Brendagh.
"Then I think I must have swum half a mile now."

We passed a rope that hung across the river, with a board proclaiming 500m. Probably something to do with the Monkton Combe School rowing club, from whose steps we had launched. I quietly hoped that we'd gone further than that.

We came to a bank of reeds that ran right across the river. Mal held onto the stern of the canoe, and we swooshed our way through them.

Presently we met two anglers, sitting on the bank with their gear looking grumpy, as anglers do when you meet them on a river. Mal hailed them. They had no defence against the onslaught of her good humour.

"How far is it to Warleigh Weir?"
"Oh, about five or ten minutes walk. That's how long it took us."

And indeed, a few minutes later we heard distant shouts. And round the corner appeared Warleigh Weir, alive and bustling with bathers.




There are some more photos here....