 The River Wye stretches 155 miles from its source on Plindaman in mid Wales to the 7th Estuary. For much of its length, the river forms part of the border between England and Wales and cuts through some of the most beautiful countryside the UK has to offer. Join us as we take on a three-day section of the River Wye from Hawithey to Redbrook, from its tranquil, soft-flowing water to fast-flowing rapids, through small towns and remote countryside, all the while being surrounded by a vast and varied amount of beautiful wildlife. Hello and welcome to another video. I'm here on the River Wye with Why Not It's Fern from such Instagram account as this one, foraged by a fern. And we're just about to set off on a three-day canoe trip. We've got some rapids involved and a lot of wildlife. I'm down south. This is what it is now. I've switched out mountains for flat rivers and we're about to launch. Fern's just looking at the map. It's not actually a map, it's a guidebook filled with helpful cartoon pictures. There's a native man here, consider other people no-neuter-taple. Uh-uh, that's me. Oh, there's a few little maps. There's plenty of places you can rent these canoes and it was £210 for both of us for this canoe for three days, which I think is a bargain. The excitement was palpable as we readied our boat to set off on our adventure. Fern put in one foot into the boat, expected it to sail off with ease, bottomed it on the floor and went crashing shin-first into the sea. She took it like a champ. We had a good laugh and off we went. River cow. Battenberg? Yeah, I was going to say who's got sarnies. Battenberg. Wait, look at that. Quite athletic for a cow, to be honest. Yeah, they do that when they're happier things. He's happy then. We've just had some red bull. So this is our first encounter with an aggy swan, to be honest, and I'm not for all you nature lovers being horrible, but if it did attack, I'll just wrap canoe around its head and that'll be that. Medic! I've just seen a medic in a tree that looked like, I mean, I'm going to say it's like a Monk Jack deer or something and the water must have been so high that it's died and it's got caught up there and then it's just rivers gone down and left it up there. That's all I can think and it does take a while just to sort of calm yourself down and get yourself into the way of the river, slowing yourself down. As you know, I'm into me birds and this is the place for it. There's so many. We just looked up and saw it and I think there was like, yeah, Kingfisher, got it while I was filming. You won't have seen it on air because they're so small, but over there to the left, neon blue, that's, I was just about to say we'd seen like two or three red kites and buzzards all above us. It was pretty cool and I was about to say, but the elusive Kingfisher has not been seen yet and bosh. We've had to get out because it's so, we've been bottoming it and then it gets deep here in the banks there, right at the top of the bank, all the little holes where the sand martens live. There's loads of them dotting around, catching flies up. This is picking them up. Beauty. We've stopped at what we're calling Battenburg Bay, just down from the sand marten mansion. Oh, look at that. Merdick. What is that? I can't identify it. It is a fish, but I don't know what sort it is. Biggan, decent size. It's obviously got trapped in this pool and then warmed up and medicked out of here. What have we got? We've got a tin of chilli and some bread. Bread? Chili? Or noodles, but I wanted to go foraging and put green stuff in the noodles. So maybe not those because we could. Fern wants to ruin our noodles by putting green stuff in it. So the gear, two of these big barrels when you start. They've got these clips on. So if you go overboard, they'll float and keep all your stuff dry. They have a rope attached so you can tie it onto the boat. That's pretty cool. So you can just decant your bag into these and they hold quite a lot of stuff. These, you've got everything from a 48 litre rucksack in there and more. Cook it of choice. So because I'm not hiking, I can bring me bigger. I think this is the Turks 1500 and then inside nested inside, we've got the 500 and then a small gas and a bigger gas because Fern's got her cook it as well. So if you want to get like a breakfast on and a cup of tea at the same time, we've got that option. But for now, we're going to cook some chilli and have some chilli and bread and the stove of choice for your stove nerds is me Soto Windmaster. If you want to have a look at them in closer detail, that's pissing out at Primus, let that evaporate a little bit before sparking it up because I don't want to go up in flames. Right, the Soto Windmaster as the wind picks up, it can deal with this. This needs a bit of a wash. So that's fine. What do you want me to do? Do it washing up. What's wrong with that? It's just got a bit of, I don't know, what maybe from another little bag on here. Voila. Clean. Oh, Voila. It's kind of Voila. The Soto Windmaster does it again. I love it. I swapped out. I did have a BSR, tiny little thing that I could, I could put it in, I put it in like my 550 pot and everything was self-contained in there as like one cook kit. Can't do that with the Soto, but I don't mind because it's so good. It's got a built-in ignition. You can regulate your cooking temperatures whereas the BSR just sort of focused everything in the middle of my pot and so it would burn everything in the middle and then everything around the outside wouldn't cook. What have you got? One of these babies. Wow. What is it? It's a Tox Titanium 750 milliliter. Oh, well. Yeah. A Tox Titanium 750? Yeah. You are in the know. I know. I know. What's in there? Oh, I've got two little foraging bags and then I've got this little bit that goes on top. MSR. That looks like an MSR pocket rocket too. Yes, it is. I was about to say that. So yours is a self-contained cook kit. Yeah. What else you got? Little cloth. What's that for? So everything doesn't go rusty. Brilliant. And I've got a spork, also titanium. Titanium spork super lightweight, super strong. So strong. I've lived and fought with this spork. Tinned chilli, fresh bread. Good. Thank you. My knife of choice for this trip. I did bring my SE3 just in case I ended up doing a bit more bushcrafty stuff but for everyday use it's just the spider car and today I'm going to use it for the manly activity of slicing battenberg. Yeah. Hooray. The fans cry. Got a bit squished but to all my American or people who are out from the UK who don't know, this is battenberg. It's pink and yellow sponge, some sort of jam in the middle of it and then marzipan on the outside. Don't ask me why but it's delicious. I'll tell you why because it's pink and white sponge with marzipan around it. Thank you. There's some battenberg for you. Enjoy yourself. Sorry guys, this is what it's come to again. Not again, I've never really reviewed battenberg before but I've done stuff that isn't to do with canoeing. Right. Battenberg. Well, it's not very moist, it's quite a claggy. I just thought it was going to be straight up to that attempt. It's not a bottom's battenberg cake though. It's an eight and there's nothing more exciting than after a break is pushing your butt out and feeling that weightlessness as you drift off to continue your adventure. Just like spending a night somewhere, if you're stopping where you canoe, obviously leave no trace. Do you expect me to walk through that though, yeah? And we're off to see the wizards. Uh oh, paddle then. Oh paddle. Put the paddle. Right hand down. That's it. Go, go, go. Keep doing what you're doing. All right. Look, they're big rocks and I'll just do nothing and look at them. They're big rocks, looks like if we eat them, it'll be horrible. Oh, I won't want to eat them rocks. Someone better just head out of here, I don't know who. Me, surely not. Right, it's good to know what we're up against. In Westfield and Ulfjub, all right. We're about due another Kingfisher sighting. You see this here? That is, that's a Kingfisher there but it's fat and it's sat down and he's a fat lad. Using the Flexitail Pump, you can just leave it doing what it does and it'll blow your bed up without having to worry about it. We've come through the bridge, we've had some food at the White Lion which was delicious. They've got showers and it's only a tenner a night and you can pitch anywhere along here. We're in the Southern Cross 2, the Terranover Southern Cross 2, which is a two-man tent. Fern is in her RAB Neutrino 600, this is the female version. I'm in my RAB Ascent 900, I'm in the Neoair Uberlite. Fern is in the X-Therm Extra Large, she's got the Decaflon pillow, I've just got my clothes wrapped in a dry bag and that's it for the night and Fern's freezing cold so she wants to get in now, go on then. And that's us, we're going to bed down, we're going to get up early, head off. I think it's about a two-hour paddle to the next place so we can get a coffee and some breakfast slash brunch and she's ready for snoozing, it's been a long day out river. Morning glampers, there's the digs, there's the canoe, we pulled it up here, that's where we'll launch today. This bit outside where the toilets are always open, they've got showers you can use for like 20p for five minutes of hot water or something. As I said last night, it's the bird's-shot on it, yabba. It's a four-season, it's maybe a bit excessive because it's heavy but when you canoe in, you can afford these things, you can bring a bit of luxury. Fern says she prefers the big Agnes, we can't use that one because it's getting raffled off with an electric mountain bike, it's a bit small, these two-person tents aren't really two people, it's a tight squeeze in there. I'm looking to get the three-person big Agnes tent so that me and Fern can use it on our hikes and have a bit more room so I'm raffling off the two-person with the mountain bike. If you want to be in with a chance of winning the big Agnes and the electric mountain bike, I'll leave a link below, a percent of that does go to Mental Health UK and the rest goes back into the channel and I really do appreciate it. Oh, I'm doing it, how did you sleep? A ten out of ten. No, I'm kidding, I'm out of my socks. Oh no, my shoe and now my sock, like guys, I don't think it's eight o'clock in the morning, we've not set off yet and it's already a shoe is in the soup. Yeah, short straw, I'm afraid, what can you do? Like guys, don't let me fall, girls. Oh, I have instances, you've got your shins wet. Oh, you've left your nothing. You rarely see such a high concentration of like different species all hanging out together, and you look to one side and there'll be like cows, swans, ducks, in the air there'll be buzzards and stuff. It is lovely stuff. And also for all you insect fiends out there, you can fill your boots because it's that time, you hear everything's hatching, there's plenty of lovely flies and dragonflies and stuff like that. The guy on the, he gave us our safety brief said this bit can be a bit troublesome and I found out the hard way when me and Joy D stacked it. But I'm sure that was Joe's fault. And I've got here, we've got Fern is an expert canoeist. So we go through this bridge and then we have to stick to the right but not get sucked into the trees. We've already. Babe, we're good. Oh, it was. I'm surprised we lived through that. That was mental. Oh, well, that was a adrenaline rush. So glad I phoned everyone I loved and said goodbye. I've got a GoPro in my mouth. That's another thing. And we're off. A lovely little stop there at the someone like the paddler's cafe. It's just a little bus. Lovely guy who owns it. If you if you're down this way, please do check him out. Get yourself a brew ski and a butty. So we're just going to take it leisurely. Let the river do the work. We're going backwards for some reason. That's what seeing a kingfish will do to you guys. This can bob you later. Backwards is the new forwards. We should continue backwards down the river and heckle anyone. Shall we? You guys are still 2022. Excuse me, gage. His hand. We're trying to. We've got ourselves a pet. The war is running pretty fast here. And I should really be paddling to help. But I just wanted to tell you this. We've seen that possibly. My greatest the greatest wildlife experience of my life. One of it's definitely top three. And fern caught it on film. Oh my god. He's got one. It's the best thing I've ever seen. He's killing it on the thing. He's eating it. It made me well. I got emotional. I was so invested in it. So if I bring you nothing else today, I'll bring you half a screen's worth of fern's footage of a kingfisher diving and fishing. King of fishing. We dropped our boat back off at the higher place and spent the evening in Ye Olde Ferry Inn with a beautiful view of the river. Then in the morning it was back to the canoe higher place to get a smaller boat, repack for the day and take on the rapids. I'm going to wear one of these at home. Just around the house. Just for minor falls. I feel very safe. So you're getting on the right way. Oh. You have to paddle down through the middle. As you can see the rapids are not straight. There is a bit of a curve. Yeah. Okay. So your steering needs to be on point. If you manage to cap size in the rapids, the most important thing you do is get away from the boat. Keep holding the paddle while you're back. Head upstream, feet downstream. That way if you impact something, your knees are going to bend, you're going to take the pressure away. Do not try and stand up. Don't you keep swapping. You keep swapping babe. Why are you swapping loads? I'm steering. We've done it. We've done it. It was easy. Absolute panic stations. We've just done the rapids and we conquered the rapids. They've given us a smaller boat so it's a lot more manoeuvrable as we only need one barrel for now. And the lads were brilliant. They talked us through it, took us down, had a little look at where we were supposed to be going through the rapids. And we smashed it. Fern smashed it. And now we're on this huge bit of river. It's nice and peaceful. Right, we've just stopped on this beach for dinner. We've got some sort of packet noodles and then we're going to buff them out with some foraged goods. There's plenty of greens here. Woah, beautiful. I think we're even going to make a mint tea as well. We've got some water, get it boiled up. Mugwort. There's all sorts of bits and pieces. In comparison to hiking, canoeing is just so much like it's a lot easier because obviously the river's taking you, then big barrels carry your load so you can just, you're just chilling. It's no way as demanding as a multi-day hike when you're putting in like 20 plus miles a day. I'm going to try and get a fire going. I've neglected my bushcraft. I've neglected it, which means my little tin, my fire lighting tin, is woefully understocked. I've got a flint in there. I've got some 100% cotton that I've not yet changed into char cloth. Fire steel, that's it. There's no silver birch. There's no pine resin. I don't like that. I'm just having to make do with what I've got. My fire steel, it's a bit naff. It's only the little version. It's the small version of the light my fire. You can't tell how big down it is today so I ended up with a little diddy version. Deal with it. And my SE3, my plan is to split this bit of dry, super dry wood if we can split it and then shave to the end with like big bits and then get progressively smaller and then use the 90 degree on the back to fluff up some dust. Hopefully that'll take a spark, hold it up and the rest of it will just set on fire and then into the bush box. That's the plan. We might be using gas but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. Fresh water and muscle. So bigger bits at the top, just get progressively smaller and then we'll switch to the 90 degree on the back of the blade. It's not my preferred method but any beach in a canoe and all that. There we go. Go on boy. I shouldn't lose that. It's bone dry because of like it's sunny and it's driftwood so it's pretty dry. There you go mate. I do have my uses after all look. I'm good for getting fire going. Tools at trade. Big skim. The direction was a bit wild wasn't it? My hand doesn't release when I tell it to release. So the direction was off granted. Okay you ready for this one? That's not bad. Six out of ten. Five out of ten she's gone down. Right this is boiling. That's boiling. This one comes with two packets. Boozy. Yeah I'll keep an eye on this. You want to go and get some greens? She's on it. And then bring us back the greens and you can talk through the greens. Greens. But some people are saying who needs greens when you've got this little baggy full of greens and no it's not weed. It's herbs. Food herbs. There we go. I've added the sauce and the bag of mystery dried herbs. Lemon cheese. Oh it smells good. I've got these are mustard leaves. Spicy, stimulating, delicious but they're quite fiery. So we should slice them up and just put them in the pan for the last minute. You're getting bitten by horse flies again. Right so these are spicy. Spicy mustard leaves. Then some clover leaves. Good for digestion. Good for digestion. So we can put those in as well. They don't really need to be cooked but they can be cooked. And rose petals because joy. Joyous rose petals is a garnish. Yeah I'll keep those because they don't need to be cooked. Sorry about this lads. Rough chop. In your pot. Because I'm instantly healthier. Can you garnish it? Because I can't eat this peasant food. Unless... That was an uneven garnishing. P.S. store resistance. Instagram vs reality. There is Instagram guys. What are you trying to say that you're going to take off those rose petals? As soon as that camera goes off. Yank. I don't know. You didn't take the... I thought you were going to do it. Delicious. Can you at least try the greens? No they are actually. I like rose petals. It goes well with like spice noodles. It looks wonderful. Let's get some of the fiery clobber. And it's what you want. It's fiery but the noodles are spice as well. But just that iron rich greens you feel like it's good for you and it feels like you're not eating packet noodles. I've done fern. Excellent teamwork there. I've got the fire going fern got the food. The garnish. The garnish. Naked and afraid got at us. Right noodles done. We're just going to have a bit of mint tea. I'm going to treat you to a better aesthetic because I'm with an aesthetics champion. So before you were just next to a muddy hill but no. This. This is what you deserve. Not what you always get because webs but it's what you deserve. So there you go. Mint fern. Do you have any mint? Okay. No it's okay. Delicious mint. Here we go. So that's it. Is it even mint? There's bits of all sorts in there. I'll get it. You're coming with me. These are how quick it looks. Sauce to mouth. Look some here. Grab a few of these top bits so that the plant can keep growing if you're into that sort of clobber. You don't need a lot of it. It's quite pungent. There we go. Mentha aquatica. Is it? That's got grass in it. Grassus aquaticus. I mean if you're going in, go in. If you're going in, go in. Whatever. Go out or go home. A bit of a rough chop. Here we go. Perfect. There's a catkin in there. Basically what it's doing is making the water taste nice. Like with any mint tea it's full of antioxidants and things like that. And there's well more than anything. It's just a celebration isn't it? Just from behind you. Wacking it in your pot. Getting all them flavours. It's good times. And we're going to go for a swim. This will be our warmer for when we get back out. Don't you worry we're going to find Bubbling away. Nice and stewed and that's ready. So the mentha aquatica. And I only know a mentha aquatica because it's one of the only ones that I can still remember I can take all that out. Fern did wash these mint leaves before we put them in because there's lots of like arable farming going on stuff around here. I feel like a piping hot drink on a boiling hot day next to a fire. Let's get it on. That is nice. They say that hot drinks are supposed to cool you down but I can't. I don't get that feeling of it. Also it'd be nice crushed up with a bit of tonic water, a bit of ice, a bit of lemon, maybe a splash of gin and put it in a little cocktail for you. Combine harvest is going but you can't be grudging it because make here while the sun shines and all that and that's what he's doing. Exactly what he's doing. Could be pissing it down for the next few days so my mates got to get after it. This time of year I would always recommend not having fires out in woods because I've seen too many fires get left and what they do is they can burn underground for weeks and then pop up. We saw one recently on our way to Whitby that are just the old steam train near Whitby bezed along and caught a bit of the stone under its wheel. It shot out like you would a flint and steel into the heather. It's gone underground and it's just combusted and the whole side of this bank was on fire. I've seen it happen so many times. I've spoke to firemen about it as well so I would recommend not having fires this time if you can help it and if you do keep it contained like this in a bush box there's just stones and then I can just get rid of it in water and look! The lads! Dave at the back you didn't quite stick the landing as I was finishing what I was saying. Can we go again? Dave he's in attack mode. Dave doesn't know who he's dealing with I don't think. Hey up! Wait a minute. Am I going to have to back up? Is this? He looks big man. Shit! Ow! I don't like it! Help me! I don't want to hit a swan. No one's hitting a swan around these parts unless it goes for you then it's I'll spin back elbow it to the face because that one's trying to get well this one here let's call him Dave he's trying to have his way with Susan and Susan's just not having any of it we're just caught in a love triangle. Oh okay I thought it was more about us but now I realise it's about Susan I do feel that way. Susan's just trying to not get daved. Go on Dave Go on Dave! Yeah Dave! Look Dave you're not respecting Susan's boundaries. I know she wants me to protect her and I can't. What are you going to do against Dave? Nothing I was scared of Susan. Look how big Dave is. She's coming over to be like guys help me out. Yeah there's not what we can do I'm David Attenborough and I can't You're not meant to get involved. Don't interfere in nature. Because also we might have just made up this entire Yeah I might have force fed Dave some Viagra and let him get a bit run to run. Right what was I saying before I was so rudely interrupted by swans I just want to oh yeah fire safety that was it. Susan look there are numbers you can call I aren't getting this out to take care of Dave I'm just putting it away so that I don't stand on it in my bare feet whilst heroically running away from Susan She's cornered on a beach are you glad to watch this because this is nature look Dave I'm trying to just chat about fire safety and here we go I don't want to get caught up in Dave's he looks aggy Very aggressive Dave Very aggressive posture David I'm going to try reading her a poem I feel like she's preferred that. Yeah buy her a drink at least Don't touch the fire Sue. Do they call swans because they've got an S ships Good look Sue I feel you'll need it Keep going Sue Yes good idea she's flying off Oh no Oh God he's relentless Where was I So we can just empty it out into the water The beauty The beauty of the bush box don't lose your trivets I'll say that And then we can even just dunk her in As long as you dry her out properly Which I will do I'll probably forget actually Tune into my next bushcraft video And this will be a brown Dirt step on stones that are boiling out Either that's another top tip No trace left Sue looks like she's Got rid of Dave full time And she's happy all is good with the world We finished That's it opposite the pub We've finished But I can't do a sign off now Because I'm sitting but we're waiting to get picked up I might do in fact Thanks for watching goodbye And there we have it Three days on the river Y There are plenty of canoe higher places on the Y And lots of different sections you can do Whether it's a multi day adventure Or just a few hours paddling about with your friends and family I was trying to put this into words myself But I think I'll leave you with this quote From the gaffer Mr. Raymond Mears The canoe is the most magical way to see the wild To get close to wildlife You really are communing with nature When you travel in a canoe I really enjoy it It's also a great panacea for the world we live in today When you paddle a canoe You learn to move at the pace of the water And the sooner you accept that fact Life becomes much easier And simpler Thanks for watching Take care of yourselves And I'll see you soon