The trip started with what I hate most in life: getting up early… We wanted to be on the water by ten o'clock; at Taunton Services by nine, to meet someone called Rob. That made it 6 a.m. at the Club!

Incompassionately, Gromit went off at five. Gromit is our alarm clock: "Morning Gromit, time for walkies. Morning Gromit, time for walkies…" I rolled myself out of bed and to the breakfast table, looking forward to some more hours of sleep in the back of the van during the journey…

At the Club, we met the Leahy family and Kevin Kelly. Chirpy hellos and rummaging around - out of place for the time of day… I focus on the empty space next to my boat, contemplating which way would be most comfortable to lay. Whom! A carrier box being dumped into the centre point of my attention. Another one... Kevin! "I've got some bags, too." I hear him saying. "I always take some extra stuff, you know. People forget things on every trip. Scouts' experience!" There goes my sleeping space…

Next thing, Kevin pops into the door. I dutifully slip over into the horrible middle seat with no leg space. Oh well - why am I here anyway???

Kevin starts talking. Nicely. Politely… Am I alright? Do I have enough space? It has just gone six. Struggling, I put up my sugar face - yes, thanks. Had I been to the Dart before? Chatter, chatter. Just why was my bad mood evaporating? I ought to be really angry, deprived - as I was - of my surplus sleep... Was this a good omen then, for a really enjoyable trip???

Skipping the ACC-typical fluffing, we went off trying to beat the weekend rush hour on the motorway. The road was clear enough for some good going, and the sky appropriately grey for a winter canoeing trip. We watched Colin's car following us steadily. Halfway down the journey, a glowing red sun came up over the misty meadows of Cider Country. Promise of a beautiful day? -- Eventually, it started raining…

We made it to Taunton Services just after nine. The smell of hot rolls and freshly brewed coffee was enticing. We all got some tea and cooked English breakfast… Rob - or whatever his name was - was nowhere to be seen. So after the mandatory pilgrimage to the toilets, we set out again.

When we reached Dartmoor, the rain had subsided to a dribble and things looked reasonably alright. Pretty countryside awaited us, once we left the carriageway at Ashburton. The roads became smaller and smaller as we followed the signs to Princetown and Dartmeet, with hedges closing in to almost touch the van left and right. Secretly, we hoped that no traffic would come the other way. Devon country - picturesque houses, open fields, sheep, woods…

Then suddenly, a first glance of our destination: A river meandering underneath a stone bridge as old as the country. The Dart! Flowing gentle and timid, it made us anticipate low water! This was the egress point of the Loop Tour, the lower and easier section of the canoeable part of the river, where the Dart sneaks around in a six mile bend to cover an actual distance of about two miles. Consequently, the access point was "just around the corner"…

It turned out to be right next to a public car park - most handy. We found Gary, Dany and Mark there, who had come down the previous day; David who spent a week's holiday in a Dartmoor cottage with his Mum and sister; and the mysterious Rob, who turned out to be the very agreeable middle-aged owner of a Topo spud. They had all been waiting for us and were rearing to get on the water.

We got changed in no time and found a suitable spot to launch. The river didn't exactly spoil us with an overload of water and the first rocks responded with a slightly screeching noise to the contact with our boats. Nevertheless, we drifted on in high spirits, seen off by our bank support troupe Colin, Moe and Frances, and a peculiar mixture of a haze of rain and rays of sunshine.

The Loop was easy enough at that flow. The Washing Machine didn't whirl and the Spin Dryer didn’t suck anybody in. Nobody crashed into the rock face below Lover's Leap, either. We all had a really great time negotiating little rapids and drifting down the scenic bends with ample play spots for all of us to surf the odd wave or dare the occasional stopper--

-- until we came to some mean-looking cliff with big boulders strewn on it, where Sean decided it was time for some extra excitement. He got out of his RPM, manipulated it up the rock and seal-launched back over the precarious edge. A telltale "crack" upon hitting the water gave his misfortune away: Paddle broken! And what now? Still another two hours of paddling ahead and no spare blades in the luggage…

Sean wasn't worried. One half would do! The only problem was stowing the remaining half away… Gary's boat seemed to be the only one big enough to fit it in. Quite a wobbly affair that was - and Mad Mark used the commotion to clamber up the rock with his boat as well. Oblivious to the dangers inherent in seal-launches off high slippery cliffs into shallow water, he followed Sean's example - and luckily got away with it.

After this little incident, we finished the rest of our journey without problems. Sean looked a bit funny with his odd paddle, but remained the sovereign leader of the group, pulling up the rear and helping one or another beached member to get afloat again. The further down we moved, the shallower the river seemed to become. There were long passages in which it was virtually impossible not to hit rock after rock, getting stuck and pushing off the ground to get going again. Paddling was hard work and after a four-hour journey, we were all glad to see our bank support waiting for us with hot tea and sandwiches. The damp cold had taken its toll after all…

Eager to get into dry clothes, we all took the "wet body shuttle" back to the top car park in the back of Frances's van, then back down to pick up the boats. More tea and sandwiches, and then Frances and David said good-bye for the day, while the rest of us went off to Dartmeet for an inspection of the first part of the second day's route down the Upper Dart. Sean, of course, had been there before and led us straight to the access point just beyond the confluence of the two Dart spring brooks. This was scenic country - a shallow river with lots of little rapids, bordered by moss-covered boulders and wooded slopes, ancient stone slab bridges, gorse bushes, Dartmoor ponies…

We negotiated our way down the river as far as we could follow it closely, first along a footpath, then more or less hopping from boulder to slippery boulder. Nature pure, and the sense of tomorrow's adventure. This was rather different from the easy river we had paddled just an hour before - and it was leading into a committing gorge with even more difficult rapids to come. Just as well we had gone for an inspection --

-- and an inspection you could call it, if ever there was one: As dusk started falling, our ranks drew out further and I put up the rear together with Moe. What a surprise we had when we came around a bend just to find Sean standing on a lonely rock in the middle of the gushing waters, trying to cross to the island to find out whether there was a better line to be taken on the other channel!!! There wasn't, but coming back across the river proofed to be a challenge of its own. There was Sean in but his jeans and fleecy shirt, Russian hat on top, looking rather lost in front of a big gap between his "rock bridge" steps. Going back and forth, trying different approaches, he ended up taking off trainers and socks and going for a leap of faith from one slippery rock to another, finally into the safety of some helpful arms pulling him over the last bit. Luckily, this extra adventure ended with no more than a wet bum and legs, for the added security of knowing that this side of the island was the way to go tomorrow…

By the time we got back to the cars it was rather dark and the hazy rain had set in again, bathing the moorlands around us in their famous eerie atmosphere. Thick wades of mist drifted across the road as we made our way to Princetown where we had booked into a bunk bed house attached to the local pub. We made ourselves at home, Kevin sharing a room with us to save on room rates, based on his promise of "I don't snore, honestly!". Sean borrowed a pair of tracksuit bottoms off him - somebody forgets something on every trip, remember? Sean hadn't brought anything at all…

We all met in the dining room of the pub, where the local youth had gathered to watch a footy match on super-screen, digging into immense portions of pub fare. Life is good with a pint of beer and a huge plate full of fries and pies… The topic - how else could it be - was the adventures of the day, and of course the rapids were just a bit bigger and the flow just a big stronger… But there were always Sean's escapades to top it off!

We finished the day with a nice game of darts and disappeared to bed before closing time, all of us in need of a good night's rest to replenish our resources. Too bad that the light in the corridor could not be switched off and all the rooms had windows over their doors... A steady wind howled outside, reminiscent of all the Dartmoor stories we had ever known; Gary and Mark amused themselves with some local maidens (?), resulting in all of them happily giggling away; and the toilet and separation doors were self-shut - with a rather distinguishable "bang". As for Sean and me, we had the added benefit of Kevin's constant snore…

The faces around the breakfast table told stories of disturbed sleeping patterns, but eventually we all reconciled ourselves to fate and devoured huge helpings of sausages, ham, beans and scrambled egg, cooked with devoted care by Gary and Sean.

We met David with Mum and sister at Dartmeet and went to the access point to check on the water levels again. The flow had gone up slightly, a good level for intermediate paddlers. A group from a local canoeing school was getting ready for the descent as well. There were stories of the major rapids in this section. Euthanasia Falls was a certain portage - a death trap in high water, there would be a possible line somewhere on the left edge, but all things considered… At that point, Gary and Dany bottled out and disappeared on a walking tour of the moors. I had opted out of the run before due to a shoulder problem which had been aggravated by all the pushing off rocks the previous day, so I grabbed my camera instead, leaving seven paddlers for the journey.

Moe was on video camera duty while Frances, Colin and myself took photos. It all started quite leisurely with the paddle group warming up in a little stopper and the bank crew strolling along the footpath. At "Sean's Island", the real thing started. The rapids took our canoeists forward a lot quicker and Moe and I had to leap along the boulders like mountain goats to be in the right place at the right time for some good snaps. Favourite motive: funny pinnings. The flow wasn't strong enough to be of any danger, so the situations occurring were always good for a laugh. We went through a roll of film and a tape in no time, and equally soon it was time to part as we came to the point where the bank became impassable. We waved a last bye-bye while the boats quickly diminished into tiny dots on the horizon. The bank crew re-tracked their steps to the car park, ponies staring, hazy rain falling… All that remained was the hope that our friends would have a safe journey.

We went to Ashburton to stock up on film rolls. There was a handy drug store selling photo stuff on High Street, otherwise a rather undistinguished town. Parking was a Pound an hour (free on Sundays, but this was half-term Thursday…) - we stayed 15 minutes and attended to some worrying screechy noise from a wheel of Colin's car. Then it was back down memory lane - that tiny road with the closing-in hedges.

The egress point of the Upper Dart coincides with the access of the Loop, so we left the car in that same car park and started walking upstream along a footpath sort of following the river. The aim was to meet the paddle group and get some more good footage for the newsletter and Club video…

When the appointed time for the reunion had come and gone, the first worries sneaked their way into our minds. After all, whitewater kayaking was a potentially hazardous sport… We had stopped at the peak of one of the hills surrounding the river which was a good vantage point to catch a first glimpse of oncoming paddlers, but soon discussions flared up on whether we should try to go further in an attempt to find our group. In the end, we opted for staying lest we should miss them going by where the footpath veered off the river for a while.

Suddenly, Frances claimed to see some coloured dots in the far. Paddlers! Everybody got excited until we figured out that the colours of the approaching boats and helmets didn't match our group’s. It turned out to be the guys from the local canoeing school. Since they had left earlier, they were also bound to arrive first – a calculation calming our frayed nerves.

Eventually, the ACC troupe came along - slightly knackered but very much alive and kicking. We followed them down the river, taking more pictures on the plenty weird shaped drops and rapids on this bit of the Dart. Highlight was a play spot with a slab of rock sticking out on which a photographer can perch close to the action - a fact that stimulated our weary crew to call upon their last reserves for a showcase of freestyle paddling, just for the camera…

And all too soon, the Dart Trip was over. Back in the car park, it was the usual procedures: tea and sandwiches, changing into dry stuff, driving back to Dartmeet to pick up the other vans. Stories of Mark's swim, the portage around Euthanasia Falls, the Dart Gorge… Final bye-byes. Then only Kevin, Sean and me were left, fixing a deep slash in the plastic bottom of Kevin's boat with a portable soldering tool. A last taster of Devon's famous ice cream from a travelling cart, braving the February temperatures, and off we went towards home. Farewell Dartmoor - until the next canoeing season!

By Petra Hudson, April 1999