Lower Bann Trip, 27th - 28th Feb 2007
Michele Strong
The original plan for this trip had been to leave from Toome, however the forecast was for strong westerly winds and lots of rain, so we decided to leave Lough Beg for another occasion and put in just past it instead.
The five us (Philip Leith, Aidan Dolan, George Starr, Kevin Harrell and myself) met up at new Newferry, organized the shuttle (took 2 cars up to Portna Lock and left one there),and were paddling by 11am.
Despite the forecast the weather was actually not bad at all!
The wind was more south than west, and that combined with at least a 2 knot current meant we could move along pretty swiftly at times!
The lunch stop was taken a mile or so north of Portglenone, in a field at the mouth of the Clady River. Not only had it not rained at all by this stage but now the sun actually came out!... So much for Metcheck!
After a bit of an explore of the Clady we carried on and reached our destination for the first day, Portna Lock, at about 3pm.
Aidan and I waited there while Philip drove George and Kevin back to Toome to get the cars and of course NOW was when the rain came!
Anyway, it wasn't long before we were all settled around a roaring open fire in the lounge at our guest house, Heathfield Farm just north of Garvagh.
The original plan had been to stay overnight at the Portneal Lodge which is just on the river at Kilrea bridge however whilst this would've been handy we felt that £69 for a double and £45 for single room was a bit much.
I found Heathfield on the internet, the charge was only £25 per person, and after staying there we all would recommend it very highly!
Heather our hostess really made us feel at home.... and she bakes a fruit loaf which makes it worth staying there for that alone!
A great evening meal was had at the Water Margin Chinese restaurant in Coleraine, and the next morning, after an extremely generous breakfast, we all headed down to Portna and set off again.
Before we left I talked with the lock keeper who rang the keepers at the two locks further down river ( Movanagher and Carnroe) so that they could get the lock chambers ready for our arrival, thus avoiding a couple of portages for us.
Sadly he also gave us some bad news.... It was not going to be possible to paddle as far as Coleraine, as the floodgates at The Cuts (the lock just before Coleraine) were open, making it unsafe for navigation.
This was disappointing news, however as we could get most of the way it was still worth doing, so we set off at around 11am again.
The river levels were very high and the current was running even stronger in this part of the river so we made very speedy progress.sometimes without even paddling!
We had lots of fun going through the two locks.
Lunch was had on the east bank of the river, soon after Carnroe, with excellent sandwiches provided by Heather from Heathfield Farm!
At this point the wind started increasing and moving around to the north west which was not so good for us, plus the rain came at last, so we didn't hang around too long over lunch!
As the river widened we found some parts extremely tough going into the wind which was gusting force 6... Particulary the sections around the Agivey bridge and Drumaheglis Marina.
Thankfully we still had the current to help us, so although this meant a bit of a choppy river at times we still made reasonable progress.
We finally reached Loughan Marina, which was as far down the river as we could go, at around 3.30.
Aidan decided to end the journey with his very own tribute to those Bann paddlers of yore, the Vikings!
The Lower Bann is very underused by boats generally these days, but because of this it's a great river for paddling. and in all weather conditions!
Over the two days we travelled roughly 24 miles. We weren't out to go fast just to have a good time which we certainly did!
Infact we enjoyed it so much that we're thinking this trip should be an annual club event!
In the next few months we plan to have two day trips to cover the bits we didn't get to over the 2 days. So we'll have a day on Lough Beg, and a paddle from Loughan Marina through Coleraine to the sea!
Both trips will be posted here on the club site.
Photos taken by Philip Leith and myself.
The rest of Philip's excellent photos from the trip can be seen at
http://www.pinksgreen.com/bannassault/
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