We decided to hit the Nedd Fechan which is one of those rivers where the higher it flows, the more fun it is! After smashing the warm up drop we decided to lap the 20 footer four times. This is one of my favourite waterfalls. With a fast lead in and a large hole guarding the lip, it's difficult to get a clean line. If you stay dry over the entrance hole you can carry your speed and fly off the lip. If you get subbed out, you lose your speed and pencil which isn't great as the landing is unreliably shallow.
After some sweet lines and some not so sweet we cruised down the rest of the run which has so many fun drops and rapids which you need to be on your game for.
The Nedd Fechan has a tributary called the Pryddin which is a small creek with a number of large waterfalls. The levels seemed good and Lady Falls is something we all wanted to tick off the list, so we hopped out and headed up the trail to the raging falls.
Lady falls is a near vertical 40 foot waterfall with a very shallow pool. The lead in which is a slow moving flat pool is perfect and the lip is fairly clean. Whilst scouting waterfall we had two decisions, play it cool and let the bow drop to a sweet 45 degrees and risk penciling it, or boof and tuck to save our backs from the huge impact. Ben went first.....
Ben went for the 45 degrees and he had a great line. All smiles, Success! I was up next. I took my time getting in my kayak and made sure I was comfortable and ready to go, a quick splash of water in the face and I started paddling toward the lip.
I gained some speed heading to the lip hoping I would cruise away from the base of the falls where it is rocky. I placed my blade on the lip and with a big boof stroke I tucked my body forward as far as I could.
The impact was pretty big. My skirt partially blew off and my back ached but no injuries, success! Pods Turn! He went for a similar technique to me with the same results, big impact but all good.
Ben was so stoked on his first run he decided to go again. This time he went for our technique, but he didn't tuck enough and winded himself. After Ben got his breath back we paddled down to join back up with the Nedd and headed to the take out with big grins on our faces.
I'd been looking at this waterfall for years but never caught it at a high enough level, finally it was under my belt!
Looking forward to some more rain and hopefully many more laps of Lady Falls!
Happy paddling people!
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