CONTENTS
- Date, Distance & Duration
- Map of the Route
- River Levels & Weather
- Whitney-on-Wye to Byecross kayak
- Logistics
- Pubs & Restaurants
- Dangers & Issues
- Kayak used
- Kayaking the Wye River
- Summary
1. DATE, DISTANCE & DURATION
24 August 2023.
12.5 miles.
Launched from Whitney-on-Wye at 12 noon. Landed at Byecross at 16:45. Lunch stop of 45 minutes. 4 hours paddling.
2. MAP OF THE ROUTE
3. RIVER LEVELS & WEATHER
The water level at the Bredwardine gauging station on 24 August was 0.58 meters.
It was a warm day, mostly sunny day with a high of about 22 Celsius and light winds of about 7mph from the West.
4. WHITNEY-ON-WYE TO BYECROSS KAYAK
We launched at about 12 noon from the launch at the Boat Inn at Whitney-on-Wye.
There seemed to be a reasonable amount of water and flow in the river which would assist us on our progress downstream.
The scenery was stunning as we passed green pastures flanked by wooded bluffs with the Black Mountains in the background.
The river was mostly deep and gently flowing along at between 1-2mph as we paddled downstream from Whitney-on-Wye.
We passed a campsite at Locksters Lodge, one of several we would pass that day along the river.
Occasionally, the river got faster in sections when it became shallower and narrower, so we had to keep our wits about us.
We passed the hamlet of Old Castleton, the name of which no doubt stems from the early motte and bailey castle alongside the river which dates back to 1070.
Although it was a warm day, at times dark clouds gathered ominously but it did stay dry for us.
The trees lining the banks we still heavily laden with their summer foliage with their branches drooping down into the water.
At 13:30 we were about a third of the way along the 12.5 miles route and we decided to stop for a lunch break.
We were a bit worried when some cows from a nearby field came down to the bank until it came apparent that they just wanted to drink from the river.
The tall monopod on the front deck of our kayak was the ‘invisible selfie stick’ for our newly acquired Insta360 X3 camera. We had tethered the tripod that it was attached to with no less than about 8 bungee cords to make sure that it didn’t come off!
We headed downstream again, refreshed after our lunch stop (nothing to do with the cider, I’m sure).
By 15:00 we were about halfway along the route and nearing Bredwardine.
About 7 miles along the route, we came to Bredwardine Bridge, which is touted as one of the nicest bridges on the Wye River.
By 16:30 we were about 10 miles along the route with about 2.5 miles to go. We seemed to be encountering less sections of rapids since we had passed Bredwardine and the river was now almost entirely deep, wide and steadily flowing.
We are somewhat cowardly when it comes to rapids so we prefer the gentle, slow flowing sections of rivers and always get a bit nervous when we encounter even Grade II rapids (unless we’ve just had our cider ration in which case rapid do not bother us).
On the final straight towards Byecross, we passed the hamlet of Mornington. The place-name ‘Monnington’ is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Manitune.
We hardly saw any other paddlers on this route which is a much quieter section than some of the lower sections down towards Kerne Bridge and Symonds Yat in particular.
At 16:45 we landed at the canoe launch at Byecross Farm camp site. What a great paddle on another section of this amazing river.
5. LOGISTICS
Whitney-on-Wye
At Whitney-on-Wye, there is a canoe and kayak launch, just below the Boat Inn.
This is not actually owned by the Boat Inn itself, but rather is owned by the Pound B&B which is right next to the launch. We phoned the Pound B&B the day before we went and cleared with them that we could use the launch, subject to paying the £5 launch fee (per kayak).
If you want to use the Pound B&B’s car park and then there is a further £5 fee, although you can normally just park free on the road nearby near to the Boat Inn.
Byecross Farm
We phoned by Byecross farm campsite the day before and checked with them that we could use their canoe and kayak launch to land and also that we could park there.
They confirmed this was fine, subject to pay in £9 to park and land our kayak there.
Public transport & taxis
We left a vehicle at either end of the route for this journey.
This is quite a remote area and there are not really any feasible options to use buses for this particular route.
If you only had one vehicle, then your only option would be to try and book a taxi from one of the companies in Hereford or maybe Hay-on-Wye, although it would not be cheap because of the distances involved.
6. PUBS & RESTAURANTS
The Boat Inn, Whitney-on-Wye
he Boat Inn at Whitney-on-Wye is a great riverside pub set in a traditional old building.
It has a great beer garden terrace overlooking the river and there are also views out over the river from bar and restaurant inside the pub itself.
I have had food at the Boat Inn after my kayaks on the 2 occasions that I’ve launched/landed there and it was very good on both occasions.
The Red Lion Hotel, Bredwardine
The Red Lion Hotel at Bredwardine looks like a nice traditional pub in a a traditional, red brick building near to Bredwardine Bridge.
7. DANGERS & ISSUES
While the Wye is generally a safe river to paddle, we would flag up the following issues.
River Wye water levels
We would suggest that you always check the water level of any non-tidal river before you plan a kayak on it.
We use the website riverlevelsuk which has live readings for gauging stations along most rivers. The relevant gauging station for this route is at Bredwardine.
Access to the River Wye
While the Wye is a magnificent paddling river, we would stress that access points for landing/launching can be few and far between. You cannot just land/launch where you like since most of the land adjoining the river is privately owned.
We have thus identified the land/launch locations in Section 5 above (LOGISTICS).
The only other location along this route that we identified where you could land and launch would be at Bredwardine, where you could park, just up the road from the bridge in a large layby and land or launch just underneath the bridge.
8. KAYAK USED
On this trip we used an Itiwit X100 (2-3 person kayak) which I had recently bought from the Decathlon store at Cardiff.
The Itiwit X100 is an inflatable kayak which can accommodate 2 adults or 2 adults and a small child, although it can be used as a large solo kayak too.
It has a high pressure drop stitch floor which inflates to 5psi and which provides a firm base to sit on.
There is a smaller, yellow coloured version of this kayak called the Itiwit X100 (1-2 person) we previously did a review of.
It normally retails for £500 at the time of me writing this blog but I got it on offer for £400.
We liked the Itiwit X100 and a full review will be forthcoming once we have used it more and uploaded to our gear reviews section of our website.
9. KAYAKING THE WYE RIVER
This 12.5 miles journey was part of the Kayak Crew’s undertaking to paddle every section of the Wye River between Glasbury all the way down to Chepstow.
This map shows how we broke the Wye River up into sections for our paddles.
We are uploading our blogs of our exploration of the Wye River by kayak to our Wye River page of our website.
We are also uploading videos of all of our trips to the Wye Valley playlist of our Youtube channel.
10. SUMMARY
In some ways, the scenery is more dramatic on the upper reaches of the Wye River than the lower reaches, because you often get great views across the Black mountains in the distance as you meander along the river.
Much of the time we felt like we were paddling through a wilderness other than the odd occasion when we passed some fishermen or passed a camping site, which reminded us that we were still relatively close to civilisation.
The Boat Inn at Whitney on way, he’s a great pub for a post-kayak beer and some food and is the icing on the cake as far as this route is amazing route is concerned.
