Bycross to Hereford

July 2019

Banded Demoiselle and River Water Cowfoot — Banded Demoiselle and River Water Crowfoot

Overview

Continuing our trip down the Wye in stages this weekend we filled in one of the gaps- Bycross to Hereford. It is a pretty, rural and peaceful trip. It was 12.2 miles in all and took us 3.5 hours.

In July the water was quite low, so the trip down Monnington Falls was a mild grade two, with the passable channel very clear. Nonetheless, please note that it can be dangerous and warrants checking beforehand.

The journey

Points of interest (POI)	Distance from start (miles)	Distance from last POI (Miles)
Put in Bycross campsite OS 148 SO373 435	0	0
Monnington Falls	0.25	0.25
Byford	1.9	1.65
Bridge Sollers	3.2	1.3
Cannon Bridge	5.4	2.2
New Weir	5.8	0.4
Lower Eaton (Island)	7.9	2.1
Lower Breinton (Church and NT)	9.8	1.9
Hereford (Take out OS 148 SO396 509)	12.2	2.4

Getting started

The Bycross campsite was busy! Although the orchard was busy with lots of hire canoes going out we didn’t see many travelling downstream. Quite a lot of people hire them for a ‘play’ without going far from the campsite. That tells you something about the flow just there…. We dropped the canoe near the ‘canoe slide’, and parked in the seasonal car park just 100 yards East of the canoe hire entrance. Check in the café – we were charged just £4 for launch and car parking.

Paddling on….

Monnington Falls comes up very soon. As a fairly new and nervous paddler I’d read about it online, looked in books and then asked the lovely man from Hereford Canoes what it was like on the day. In higher water, the river passes both sides of an island, but in the low water conditions that we saw this July the bedrock was dry on the right. There are lots of trees that grow into the channel (many have been cut back), but it was easy to see how they could create a serious difficulty and in higher conditions it would be important to check. We’d been at Symonds Yat the day before and this was an easier rapid, just a fun run down a bit of faster water, coming shortly to a wide pool. The ‘Wye Canoe’ publication has a good description and clear map of inspection points.

The trip calmed after this and we were reminded that large rivers can use quite a bit of paddling energy. Still, it was a great opportunity for me to learn (thank you Christopher, nothing like having your own personal canoe coach!) and practice my strokes. It’s hard when you need to re-learn or adjust how you do things, even if you know it will be more effective in the long run. Our three and a half hour trip gave me plenty of time to try and get it right.

After Monnington, the river meanders left into some weedy shallows coming up to Bridge Sollers (road bridge). In the Spring this just looks like flowing weed but in July we were treated to amazing blankets of delicate white flowers. The Wye is a JNCC Special Area of Conservation (see link below) and has some rare fauna and Flora including ‘River Water Crowfoot’ which grows in mats and, provides a sedimentary filter, a haven for invertebrates and fish and will modify the flow of water. Certainly the ducks that we saw sitting in lines on it, were eating heartily.

The beautiful river continues with well vegetated banks (Himalayan Balsam not in flower quite yet), but there were many other plants adding splashes of colour. At ‘Field’s Place’ (just one house) there are wooded banks and a small brook coming in from the right (we heard it rather than saw it!) There is no bridge at ‘Canon Bridge’, just some houses on the right.

There are plenty of places where it would be possible to rest for a picnic but a dearth of pubs and villages on this section of the river, so remember to take some food and a drink. The next notable point is the National Trust property at New Weir, (It’s OK, there isn’t a weir!) The gardens are high above the river, but the well-tended walled garden and walkway are easily seen. The manicured grass and varied trees add a completely different texture to the greens of our native deciduous trees. I could imagine that artists would make much of this wonderful variety in their paintings, but it’s not a talent that I have. The river meanders round to Sugwas from here and we are back to the local greenery.

There are houses on the right at Lower Eaton (Breinton) just before an Island that has a channel to the left, and a little further on is a Church and National Trust gardens at Lower Breinton.

It’s a longish paddle from here with minimal flow, but great if you want to lie out on a canoe and drift in gentle Summer sun (like the guy we saw just having a laze in the river). At this point the river gives up its meandering as though it suddenly thinks it needs to get to Hereford, so the bridges are visible from about 20 minutes away.

The first bridge is a pedestrian one just before you pass Hereford rowing club (left bank). Go under the road bridge and past the first set of steps and to a grassy bank on the right which goes up to the public park – hopefully right by the car park where your pick up vehicle awaits!

It’s quite a steep haul out, but not difficult if you have a longline.

Wildlife

The fauna and flora were wonderful, the only thing we thought we might see (but didn’t), was a swimming snake. (We saw one last year, but it was, apparently a rare sighting as both adders and grass snakes are in decline in the area).

There were lots of Mute swans, Canada geese, Mallards, Goosander, Dippers (flying low to the water then lining up on rocks), heron and…..not one, not two but THREE kingfishers. So excited to see them and actually all quite close to Hereford.

We saw HUGE salmon jumping, but the fishermen (to whom we gave loads of space) weren’t catching salmon though one reported catching a 5lb Barbel.

Also amazing were the dancing dragonflies, in particular the fabulous, dark blue ‘Banded Demoiselles’.