A couple of weeks ago I attended the #shepaddles festival at the Tryweryn. I missed out on a coached ticket at first, like I did last year (this time they sold out in a few hours!!). But the week before the event I arranged with a couple of ladies that I don't get to paddle with all that regularly to paddle together on the friday. So I thought I may as well buy an uncoached ticket to the festival and then I could at least join in with the camping and the evening activities. I knew people that would be paddling over the weekend so I would have found someone to paddle with while the other attendees were being coached. But luckily (at least for me) a few days before the event lovely Annette messaged me and asked me if I'd like to upgrade my ticket to a coached ticket as unfortunately, someone had to pull out due to injury. And by luck the spots left on the coached sessions were the exact ones I would have chosen anyway, so I jumped at the chance. I signed up to Freestyle on the Saturday morning and Rafting in the afternoon. I am not much of a festival person (anymore) and I don't drink so I was a little apprehensive but the whole weekend was incredible. The vibe was wholly about paddling and about supporting each other on and off the water. Eddies were full of women chatting, laughing, shouting encouragement to each other and cheering each other on.

I had a few personal goals for this weekend. First and foremost was to meet new lady paddlers, catch up with freind I don't see very often (and those I bump into often) and make some new friends; 2nd was to get my Ozone back on the upper T after nearly a year of only taking it to the Dee and Jackfield because I lost my confidence in it after sustaining a concussion on the Graveyard, followed by an unpleasant swim on the same section 3 weeks later; the 3rd was to surf cafe wave for the 2nd time, the first time ended up with me getting window-shaded and rolling up several times before it finally spat me out (I've been told it was impressive to watch, it didn't feel it though), I haven't been near it since.

The Friday was ace. I was lucky enough to spend the day paddling with Tanya, Steph and Melissa and we had a great day of river play. Messing about and setting each other challenges, a couple of boat chases were involved as we were pushing each other's limits and generally just mucking around on the river. One occurring about 3 seconds after this photo was taken as we were untangling ourselves off the rock we were perched on in the middle of the river. My good friend Adam also joined us for the last lap and he had us all trying new things. Including getting Tanya and Steph to get on Cafe Wave (I chickened out).

I also got my first paddle in a Ripper 2. We had just chased it down the river and I was emptying it and attaching a sling to tow it across the river. I was holding onto the sling and the handle of a boat, unfortunately, that handle was also attached the ripper and not (as I thought) my boat. So my Scorch went on a solo adventure down the river. Steph and Tanya chased after it whilst I hopped into the Ripper to chase my boat too. I think I liked the ripper but I wasn't really paying attention to it! I'll have to paddle one again when I'm not chasing my own kayak.

Friday

The friday evening was one of chatting and introductions. River Legacy had set up an excellent space for us to relax in, although we were all getting eaten alive by midges. As we all headed back to our tents at around 10.30 for an early night ready for the coached sessions on Saturday, I took a detour and went for a moonlight walk by myself up the side of the river. It was beautiful and peaceful and I got this ethereal photo of the upper graveyard. There's a lot of nocturnal wildlife in the temperate rainforest surrounding the Tyweryn and I could hear Tawny owls calling to each other near the campsite.

The Graveyard at night

Lights had been put up to light our way to the campsite

Melissa, Tanya, Steph and me perched on a rock in the middle of the river.

Saturday Morning

Freestyle with Mayo

On Saturday morning we all gathered together at the tent to get put into our groups for the AM coached sessions. I had signed up for the freestyle session with Mayo I was a bit nervous as I hadn't taken my Jed on the T before so this was a new experience. There was 3 of us in the group me, Dawn and (I've forgotten your name, I'm so sorry!) We started off with tailee's under topsite railway bridge, which was a lot of fun and I got some really good coaching from Mayo and definitely improved my technique. Then we spent some of the morning trying to do loops on Worlds Hole, I was really keen for this, so was very surprised when I came to do it, that i found it really intimidating. Normally I am not fussed about capsizing when I'm playboating and I'm very confident in my roll. But one of the ladies demonstrated pretty quickly that if you don't get your first roll there, you can get a face full of rocks and that really messed with my head. And instead of being able to focus on the techniques I needed to try to loop I was already thinking about how I needed to roll up quickly as I went in for the plug. After 3 attempts I was ready to move on. I think I'll leave the freestyle tricks for places I'm fairly comfortable that there are low consequences afterward, at least for now. We then moved down to the tailee eddy above pre-graveyard and worked on some cartwheels. I was getting much closer to doing one by the end of that session and made a lot of progress. We then paddled down the graveyard and down ski slope which was very... interesting in my small Jed, but a lot of fun.

Saturday Afternoon

Rafting with Emily

I'd only been on a raft for a short session at Jackfield once so I was really excited for this. What I hadn't expected was how scary it would be. I think nothing of dropping into graveyard now in my kayak. But when we were coming over the top of that first drop into the rapid, and Em shouted "get down get down" I was actually pretty scared (I think it was because I wasn't in control) But that fear quickly turned to exhilaration! It was so much fun, like the best rollercoaster I'd ever been on. My personal favourite parts of it was being in the front of the raft as we surfed cafe wave and going down graveyard. We had three runs of the river and we switched places around the raft everytime. It was brilliant! Emily was amazing and I'm glad we had her as a guide (keeping the Girl Power theme of the weekend going!!).

Sunday

Sunday I set out with one mission, to paddle my Ozone on the Tryweryn. So with a considerable amount of trepidation, I picked up my ozone from outside my tent and walked down to the middle carpark. I believe the groups on the 2nd day were worked out depending on, if we had made any specific requests the evening before and by trying to match up ability levels. I was in a group with Tanya, Melissa, and Fran and we were coached by the awesone Laura Wynne. I was a bag of nerves getting on the river and I seriously considered picking up my scorch instead. But I didn't. The shuttle picked up our boats from the carpark and we wandered up to the top, the others launched down the ramp but I decided the best way to get out of my nervousness was to do something immediately stupid and try to splat the rock on river right above the chipper, I messed it up, rolled and I was fine, I fell right back into the flow with ozone and I was paddling it better than I had before I semi-retired it.

That afternoon at about 3pm we did a very tired, very silly last lap of the weekend, and I got some good tailees in under the railway bridge on top site and a new rock splat at the bottom of the graveyard.

As soon as I got to the graveyard though the nerves were right back and I was getting in my head replaying what happened the last time I paddled that boat down that section. Laura was a very reassuring presence and after catching an eddy halfway down ( I call it slalom pole eddy, I don't know if other people do) I realised how silly I was being. I realised how much I love that boat, and after Laura told me how solid I looked in it I realised that I am perfectly capable of paddling it well. The rest of the day was spent mucking about and I even got a hand surf in on international wave. Laura gave me some great coaching and playing over some footage in slow mo picked some little improvements I could make on my ferry gliding (which i have been using since).

Laura, Tanya, Me, Fran and Melissa, photo credit Laura Wynne

Why #shepaddles?

I have often hesitated with "women's only" activities, mostly because I would be upset if I wasn't allowed to take part in something because it's a "men's only" activity, I don't like the idea of purposely excluding people. But over the last year, I have realised how valuable women's only spaces can be in such a male-dominated environment. I want to preface this with the fact that I paddle with predominantly men, my best friend and most of my closest friends are men, and I have not been treated differently by the vast majority of them for being a woman. And I have received a huge amount of support and encouragement from them and my club in my progression and development.

A theme of conversation over the weekend was that most of us are used to being the only women in an eddy. And many of us paddled with crews of mainly or often only men. Most of us love the men we paddle with and aren't looking to "replace" them. But it was a nice change to paddle with only other strong women paddlers. When we were messing around and having fun as a group of women, it was novel, I suspect some men (and some women) miss this point, that for them, they wouldn't even notice that they were paddling with a group of all or mostly men because that's just a normal paddle, it wouldn't even register. It's easy to say "We don't care if you're a woman, so it doesn't matter" and most of them genuinely don't, but it doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Over the weekend, we got comments (and I've been told by my close male friends, who were at the Trywryn over that weekend, of similar comments made to them) saying the "eddies are full of women". Bare in mind "full of women" was only 50% women. A women-only paddling festival, many of whom traveled from across the country for the event, and even then only 50% of the paddlers on the water that day were women, and it was noticed.

If events like this can help to change that trend, to make an eddy with half men and half women feel, not like an "eddy full of women" and more like just another day paddling. Then I think that can only be a good thing. These spaces serve as an opportunity for us to grow and connect with other ladies on the river, and I hope that the visibility from these sorts of events can encourage other women into white water paddling. It is after all, I believe one of the few "sports" women can participate in at the same level as men with little (if any) disadvantage. Pure strength offers little advantage against the force of the water and technique is much more important.

I left that weekend buzzing, feeling like I had accomplished my main goal of meeting wonderful new people. Paddling with groups of women definitely brought a different vibe and atmosphere, a lot of love and a lot of support was exchanged. I also accomplished my 2nd goal and I have not paddled anything other than the ozone on the Tryweryn since that day, so I have overcome that particular demon. The cafe wave surf will have to wait for another day.

Special thanks, to Annette, the National White Water Centre, all the coaches and everyone that made this weekend possible.