Southern Polo Academy (SPA) – First Training Day
A few photos from todays SPA training event
River Dart – Friday 12th – Sunday 14th April
On Friday 12th April evening seven intrepid Nomads met at the Dartbridge Inn in Buckfastleigh to plan the weekend’s activity over a meal and an enjoyable glass of wine, beer or mineral water. With a driver prepared to do the shuttle run (thanks to my wife Sue) the logistics were simple and we arranged to meet the following morning at 9:30 after breakfast in the hotel car park in kayak kit ready to depart for Newbridge, our put in for both days and then shuttle the cars and dry kit to the takeout at Strawberry Fields Farm Shop and Café in Buckfastleigh The weather was being kind and the safety briefing, warm up and launch were all done in beautiful sunshine. The river was at an ideal hight (just touching…
River Nene White Water Centre
When: Saturday 24TH October 2023 Where: Nene Whitewater Centre Paddlers: Tony McKenzie (Organiser), Nigel Atkinson (lead coach), Graham Summers, Chris Brown, Conrad Chambers, Ian Walker, Martin Edwards, Aled Johnson, Paul Childerhouse (coach), Lleyton Fiordelisi, and Andy Slatford. On a bright October afternoon eleven Nomads made the trek up to the Nene White Water centre in Northampton for some Grade 2 white water shenanigans. It was a mixed bunch ranging from seasoned white-water paddlers to paddlers that had never previously paddled white-water. Not an issue as in true Nomad style there was plenty of help at hand in the form of both formal and informal coaching. The group split into two groups with the less experienced paddlers starting at the lower pools and slowly working their way up the course with coaching support provided by…
River Tees 26th-28th August- Cancelled
Unfortunately there were no takers for this trip to the river Tees in County Durham so Nick and I decided to cancel. The river level goes up and down with the rain and dam releases but levels looked ideal earlier in the week so here are a couple of pictures of Low and High Force to tempt our white water paddlers to join us next time. PS: We don’t paddle the High Force!!!
River Dee and Tryweryn 28th-30th July
Just returned from a great weekend Nomad trip on the river Tryweryn. Three paddlers from Nomads and two from Suffolk canoe club enjoyed higher than normal release on the Saturday and Sunday.Weekend started on the Friday with a warmup at JJ’s on the Dee where Tony decided to practice his roll a few times. All survived the Tryweryn and we had no swimmers! Thanks for a great weekend to all.
River Dart
A few intrepid paddlers (Nigel, Nick, Dave and Graham) from Nomads met up on the Friday evening to plan the next days paddling, or maybe it was to check out the food and drink at the local hostelry. Either way the plan for Saturday was to meet at New Bridge and paddle down to Holne Bridge along a stretch more commonly known as the Dart Loop. The water in the river was rather low so a bit of a scrape but ideal conditions for all of us to practice our break ins, break outs and ferry gliding along with a few surfs on small waves. We met at Newbridge and sorted the shuttle and set off at about 10:30am. This was a rather emotional trip for Dave as he had spent many happy…
Youth Polo Tournament
On Saturday 21/1/23 Nomads were superbly represented by our youth Polo team at Bedford. The team comprised of (in alphabetical order) Aled, Cameron (goalie) , George, Jenna , Lleyton and Teo. The evening started with a tough game against St Albans A one of the best teams at the tournament and considering this was the first match playing together as a team they put on one of their best performances of the evening losing in a hard-fought match 2-1. Throughout the evening the confidence of the team grew culminating in them winning 2 games comfortably against Meridian B and St Albans B and only losing by one goal against Meridian A who scored for the win in the last 2 seconds after Cameron had kept Nomads in the game with…