Words: Del Read

Photos: Nick Wilson,
Tom Clare,
Jack Ledwith
& Del Read

A special thank you to Nick Wilson, who kindly offered his fabulous photos in this article. Nick runs a Facebook page to share photos of the Tryweryn, www.facebook.com/groups/
1390693251786733.

Del Read
https://delkayaks.co.uk
@del_likes_kayaking

Tom Clare
www.facebook.com/
tomclaremedia
@tomclaremedia

Jack Ledwith
@jled_photo

The Tryweryn Festival 2023

The Tryweryn Festival, lovingly known as T-fest by most paddlers, is undoubtedly one of my favourite paddling events of the year! It has the perfect mixture of kayaking, competition and social time, which makes it a truly enjoyable weekend. I wanted to share what a fun weekend T-fest is, so this article accounts for the 2023 event. Enjoy!

This year, T-Fest was held on the weekend of the 22nd-23rd July at the Tryweryn in North Wales. After work, I headed over from Nottingham with two friends, David and Jack. Jack, an Irish paddler living in Nottingham, had never been to T-fest before, so we spent much of our journey telling him all about the different events. He was, of course, very excited by our tales and eager to start the weekend.

We arrived and found it was already jam-packed with paddlers setting up camp in tents at the campsite and vans at the car park. We headed to the marquee where River Legacy had set up a bar, and Dan Yates was finishing a talk about Save Our Rivers. Luckily, we were just in time for the paddler’s quiz, although I confess I didn’t know many answers. I think the questions were aimed more at paddlers who had been on the paddling scene for much longer than me! Once the quiz finished, the party started, and people enjoyed catching up with old friends. A combination of midges and rain made the marquee and the dance floor an appealing place to be!

Boater-X – mass start and ramp heats
Saturday morning arrived, and the events got started. My favourite event of the whole weekend was the mass start Boater-X run by NRS. Once signed up, all paddlers walk up the path by the river to the starting eddy (just below Ski Slope). This year, men went first. Around 50 paddlers in a mass start is a sight to behold!

Us women followed shortly after. There were nearly 20 women who took part in the mass start this year, which is awesome! I had a good starting line and got out towards the front of the pack. As I raced through Cafe Wave, I heard Jack screaming for me from the bank – “Come on, Del! You’re flying!” I do love a bit of crowd support in a race! We finished at the rafting steps, and I was pleased with my run, coming well within the top 10 women who go through to the next round.

Following the mass start, the next rounds have a ramp start and are done in groups of three. Starting from a ramp can be intimidating, but I had done it in previous years and knew it was more fun than it looked! I was lucky to be in the heat with two lovely friends – Alice Snook ‘Snookie’ and Gabi Bain. Gabi is insanely fast, and Snookie and I agreed she should go on the end to give her the best start to get ahead of us. Off we went!

Gabi, of course, fired off ahead whilst Snookie and I got very competitive. Having nearly flipped Snookie as we landed off the ramp, I got an excellent chance to try and elbow her out of the way in the rock eddy. I yelled at her, ‘I love you, Snookie, but I love winning more!’ as I grabbed the nose of her boat to push in front. I looked up to see ‘Little Dan’ sitting in the eddy, laughing as he filmed the whole thing (see video www.instagram.com/reel/CvFoU9vNOMw). As we finished our race, we were both laughing hysterically.

Cafe Wave competition
The next event was the Cafe Wave competition run by Radical Rider. This happened at lunchtime and was essentially a competition of who could stay on the wave the longest, which generally required pushing everyone else off! I missed most of the competition as I was busy at the Pyranha stall, but what I did see was spectacular. Lots of laughter and lots of carnage! My lovely friend Jack even had a swim in it! (From a deck pop rather than deliberate, but who cares about technicalities!) This event is always a great crowd-pleaser!

Epic Enduro race
The next event was not one for the weak-hearted. Palm’s epic enduro race is essentially an event to remind all the ex-slalom paddlers that they ‘still got it’. It is a gruelling race that involves half an hour of paddling laps of the Graveyard and then running back up with your boat. The winner of this race is simply the person who completes the most laps. Some paddlers took this very seriously, and others less so. Either way, people seemed to have a lot of fun, and all the paddlers were exhausted by the end!

Tailee time!
The Pyranha Kayaks tailee jam was held right at the top of the Upper Graveyard section and consisted of an hour of people messing around in slicey boats and having a laugh! There were lots of boats being tested, including the new Pyranha Firecracker. Whilst people were pretty tired from a big day of kayaking, there still seemed to always be energy for one more tailee! Lots of fun was had.

Raft racing
The final event on Saturday was the team raft racing by NWWC. Paddlers could sign up to give rafting a go and race down the Tryweryn. If you have never rafted before, this was an excellent opportunity to try it out and get a bit competitive at the same time. Lots of happy paddlers!

Food and party
After a busy day on the water, dinner was gratefully received. The food was delicious, and whilst people were tucking into dinner, the prizes for the day’s competitions were given out, and a fun night of music and dancing followed, with the volunteers at the River Legacy bar doing a great job keeping people hydrated.

River Legacy
If you’ve not heard of River Legacy, they are a charity which runs events to raise money. That money is then used to support people in paddle sports. People can apply for grants on behalf of themselves or their clubs for specific causes, such as new gear for the club, money to build the path at an access point and so on. River Legacy has helped so many paddlers over the years, and it was great to have them at T-fest again this year.

Sunday
Sunday was a quieter day. A few smaller events, such as the Palm Throw Bag Olympics and a Beginners Boater-X, took place. However, most people just enjoyed laps on the Tryweryn with friends. It had been a busy Saturday, and enjoying some time on the water was nice.

The kayaking community is such a friendly and social place. Events like T-fest are an excellent opportunity to catch up with old friends, and people value that time.

A special shout out to lovely paddlers I met in an eddy in the Upper Graveyard on Saturday from Cardiff. I had a lovely chat with a nice man called Hugo (apologies if I have misremembered your name!), who told me he reads this blog. So shout out to Hugo and friends from Cardiff!

Thanks
Big thank you to everyone who worked hard to make T-fest happen, from the fantastic Tryweryn staff, all of the sponsors who came with stands and to help run events, the volunteers at River Legacy and all of the awesome paddlers who made it such a fabulous weekend. Thank you, everyone, and see you next year!