Springtime green

We're having lots of spring-like sunny weather this week, and when I went to swim in the Dart with Yaara on Monday afternoon we were astounded by the zingy-green clarity of the water.  The river doesn't often look like this, and from memory, it seems to be like this only at this time of the year.   Sometimes it's like lime soda, today it was more of a minty green.   As we plunged in, with the sun sparkling through the water, we felt completely alive. Gingerly, we put our faces in and the view below was equally invigorating:  an underwater landscape of green and grey rocks, seemingly scrubbed clean of any dirt.  I remembered Sharrah Pool looking like this once, and looking back at my photos I see that this was in February 2014,   Perhaps all the rain washes the riverbed clean towards the end of winter,  and then when the sun comes out in Spring it lights it up in all its new freshness.

Sharrah, Feb 2014

Storms at Sharrah

It was a beautiful sunny day, the birds were singing and it felt springlike, which always makes we want to return to Sharrah Pool on the Dart for what I think of as my annual baptism: making friends with the river again after winter.  As we started our trudge along the bank though, grey clouds started to gather which got progressively darker, before dumping down what seemed like sackloads of hailstones. At the pool, we huddled under a holly bush for a bit and then I decided to take the plunge.  The river was in spate, with multiple trails of white foam curling around each other; quite beautiful.  I slid in and was surprised to find it didn't feel cold.  The river gently pulled me into its embrace and sucked me in; I let myself be swept along before turning around and swimming back against the flow which was hard work. The cold hit me a little later than usual and when I got out everything felt numb. 

Goodbye summer

It was the last day of the Indian summer and I walked to Sharrah Pool through dappled woods that glowed in their greenness. I was alone and didn't see anyone. As I approached the pool I noticed holly berries, already red and fat. There is something about Sharrah that stills your soul. You are enclosed by the trees but float under an expansively open sky. The water was its usual self; soft and kind in the wide pool and boiling and furious under the cascade.

Swimming with sea trout - and a nudist

Sharrah Pool, between Dartmeet and Newbridge, must be the most spectacular of the Dart pools. It is fed by a cascade, from where the water thunders through a granite channel and out into a fifty metre long pool. There are stark green and white striations on the bottom as well as many other beautiful underground rock formations. I saw a shoal of at least thirty large sea trout darting around excitably like grey ghosts underneath me; the sheer number and size of them was unnerving. An older couple then appeared on the other bank and I gave them a wave. The next thing I knew, he was starkers and leaping in. Fair enough, we've all done it. Next thing, he's out and standing on a rock, master of all he surveys, where he stands for about ten minutes. Please....just put it away! (luckily my son obviously has a budding career as a paparrazo and managed to get this shot of him - see if you can spot him!!)