Words & photos - John Lymer

What a gem this location is! Pant Yr Onnen Caravan and Camping Site is right on the shore of the lake, at Llangower, about 3.5 miles from the town of Bala. A pleasant distance to cycle. Pay £8 for a hook-up and your pitch is about 30 metres from the lake. Forego electric and you'll be right on the shoreline. Or you can book a Shepherd's hut. The views are fabulous and the light quite special when the sun penetrated gaps in the cloud. Looking down the lake, I could see up to 7 layers of distant hill.

Six members plus family made the late September weekend trip. Maybe more won't commit without the guarantee of wind. You do realise that will never come though? I admit, the forecast for our trip didn't bode that well. The direction was North Easterly, so blowing down the lake - so far, so good. Xcweather and the Met Office had both forecast 10mph gusting to 20ish. As it happened, that seemed quite accurate, though a few whitecaps maybe indicates a bit more than 10mph. Perfect 6.5m windfoiling (7.5m+ windsurfing) on Friday afternoon. It seemed easier than usual, or I've got better. The wind was very clean with none of the huge gusts that we're so used to and that does make a difference. Saturday saw a bit more wind around lunchtime, enough for windsurfing with 6.5m sails. Sometimes bigger would have been better, or swapping fin for foil, but we got out and we got planing, so that's a success! The conditions were also well suited to paddleboarding, kayaking and other boating activities that are popular here. Our members covered windsurfing, windfoiling, wingsurfing and paddleboarding. What a diverse bunch we are!

Here's a video edited from drone footage kindly supplied by a fellow camper.

And here are some stills showing the action ...

Click on a picture to see larger images then use the arrows or swipe to scroll through them

We need help from members! Please watch the shoutbox and/or Club Facebook group for dates and try and come when you can. 

Trees block Northerly/North Westerly/Westerly winds, so those of us doing wind powered sports are keen to manage them. The local bird watching group want more sight lines to the reservoir too, so happily we both want the same thing! We're working hard to combat where trees are encroaching onto the headland in the Nature Reserve area to the West of the clubhouse and have agreed with UU and the bird watchers what we can and can't do and when. The reservoir level is low now - in fact, much lower than we'd like it to be! The only good thing about that is it gives us a few weeks to pull up saplings and cut branches off larger trees in this area. We then cut these up and stack them above high water level (so they don't float away), ideally in a 'dead hedge'. The rotting wood is good for insects and birds then feed off these. And the whole lot shrinks in size massively over time.

Fred is leading the work. He's been going several times each week, sometimes with a few volunteers, and has achieved a lot! But it's a big job, so he/we would like help please.

We're using:

• tree popper tools borrowed from the bird watching group - these grip small trees/roots and lever them out of the ground
• mattocks (like a pick axe, but with a  wider, flatter blade) to clear around the base of the tree and sometimes to lever roots
• rechargeable reciprocating saw and loppers to cut branches
• brush cutter to cut saplings to about 30cm above ground, so the tree poppers can get to some tree stems

Then we have to gather everything and carry or drag it on a tarpaulin before stacking it near to the fence.

So, there's something everyone can have a go at, whether you like using power tools, hand tools, or prefer just to tidy all the debris away!

Here's Fred in his natural environment ...!

Here's some of the area after trees have been cut to 30cm above ground

And here's a pile of stumps pulled up in 3 hours by 1 person