The River

Another action-packed day! We had a really early start to make the most of the sunshine and hired canoes for the morning. We had four hours to paddle down the Wye from Glasbury to Hay, giving us plenty of time to try and capsize each others boats, and stop for a swim / paddle. The river was quite high, so our boats didn't get stuck on the pebbles, which apparently can be a problem. I was surprised how shallow it was though, and it was so interesting to see how the river changes. We went through (very mild) rapids, right next to stretches of completely still water. I was a wimp and paddled whilst the others swam - mainly due to the threat of massive fish! It was a lovely morning, and I can't quite believe I haven't done it before in all the years I've been visiting Hay. Once we'd got back to dry land we walked along to a country fare and spent the afternoon watching the dog show and eating freshly made welsh cakes.

After our busy, yet relaxing day, we cracked open the beers when we got home and Clare and I started deconstructing the massive bonfire to look for hedgehogs whilst Carl made the chilli. We didn't find any, which was a bit of a shame as it took so long to do, so reassembled it all with aching arms and lit it up before the rain started. As everything was so dry, it was such a quick fire, and didn't take long to get down to the smouldering remains. We chucked on a couple of logs to keep it going whilst we sheltered from the rain under a tree and ate our chilli and jacket potatoes. It wasn't long before the bats came out, and circled round our heads eating all the bugs. It was pretty special.