A dim gloom descended across the land as if the sun was slowing dieing. The hobbit sniffed the air and scowled. He could smell men ahead of him further down the hill. Warily he continued on down the road past gnarly trees becoming leafless and barren by the onset of winter. As he neared the bottom of the hill, voices became audible to his sensitive ears. He could hear laughing and much swearing. Fearing goblins and orcs he approached even more slowly. Carefully he peered around the corner at the bottom of the hill and surveyed the scene. Then to his great relief he could see that it was just the bunch of muppets from Chippenham that he’d travelled there with earlier that morning, tooling around as usual. “Martin” they called “you took your time”. “Yeah, had to drive slowly up that hill, I couldn’t see over the steering wheel”.
The hobbit’s over active imagination subsided and he became Martin again as the gang prepared to paddle the Barle. Ross, Simon and Mike N were already on the water. Mike H and the two young lads were getting on, and Charlie and Ian had waited for Martin to return from parking the car. Martin donned the rest of his kit and helped Charlie bung up a hole in his boat left by a missing screw before entering the water himself.
Away we went, the younger paddlers impatiently bombing off down the river while the older Mike H, Martin and Ian all took there time enjoying the many eddies and grade 2 ledges in the first half mile of the river. The water wasn’t as high as had been expected despite the recent heavy rain. The Barle rises and falls quite quickly, and 3 or 4 dry days of dry weather is enough for it to become low again. The group continued quite quickly through more grade 2 rapids, the two young Melksham lads seemed intent on getting down the river very quickly. The rest of us tried to find play-spots wherever we could, but they were few and far between. There was the occasional interesting bouldery rapid or small wave but for the most part there was little to do but drift onwards enjoying the scenery. Here and there knarly looking trees threatened to pluck the unsuspecting paddler from the water with overhanging branches. The hobbit personality began to come to the fore again. Did that tree just move? Of course it did you plonker it’s windy! “Oh yeah, didn’t think of that, thought it might have been an Ent”, the hobbit subsided again and Martin returned.
We took a break at a spot with a ledge river left which provided a little stopper fun. Another group had also decided to stop there and we took it in turns to play the stopper. Ross managed to blag a set of poggies off a lady paddler from the other group and he took them for a test ride. The weather was quite cold, so they were a good idea. I think he was sold on them, vowing to buy a set when he got home.
After lunch we moved on. More grade 2 rapids took us down to the weir at Dulverton. The normal route these days is to find the sloping bit in the centre of the weir and most of us took that route. Ian hadn’t paddled the Barle for a good many years though, and last time he did it there was a route down the right hand side. Not now though, the weir collapsed on that side a few years back and was now just a rocky mess. Ian figured he’d give it a go in the spot that he knew anyway but unfortunately he got pinned solid. Determined not to get out of his boat he threw his body about trying to dislodge himself but there was no way he was going to get out of that one. Eventually he accepted the inevitable and popped his deck and climbed out. He dragged his boat down the weir, got back in and paddled down to join the rest of us looking slightly embarrassed.
We were nearing the end now, only the narrow little section just before the get out left to go. The group played in one of the steps in this section and Martin told Mike N to stick the nose of his boat in the overflow from the step. This he did and was promptly flipped. For some reason Michael didn’t turn completely up-side-down, his buoyancy aid seemed to hold him only partially capsized. This would have been helpful to him if he’d chosen to roll on the side that he’d fallen in unfortunately he chose the other side. Finding it impossible to surface his paddle properly he failed to roll and took a swim. “Unlucky Mike! You nearly made it to the end dry, don’t listen to Martin next time eh!”
And so another Barle trip came to an end. Not the most exciting of rivers but still beautiful in all it’s middle earth like glory.
Martin Harrall
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