Chasing The Severn Bore
The
River Severn, Gloucestershire
March 12th/13th 2005
Page 2
The next stop on the Bore chase was Maisemore, about another 40 minutes upstream for the front of water. Maisemore's attraction is a bridge right over the river, where hundreds of people gather to watch the wall of water (and associated surfers) race underneath.
Standing on the bridge at Maisemore, and overlooking the tranquil river Severn. It wasn't tranquil for long though, as already the wall of water that was the Severn Bore, was racing upstream towards us!
Sometimes the wave breaks to give white, foaming water. Other times, such as here, the wave is simply a rolling crest, 6ft high! However, both are good for surfing, as the guys on the right of this photo demonstrate.
Things became interesting as the bore approached the bridge. Firstly, the two surfers ran out of river, and crashed into overhanging trees (as seen here). Secondly, we all wondered if the swan would escape the wave - it didn't ;-)
All that is left of the surfer was his upturned board! At the same time, the wave smashed into the side of the bank, before rebounding and nailing the swan!
Once under the bridge, the bore races further upstream as a wall of water. Just around the corner from here is a large weir - this spells the end of the bore, which cannot go any further upstream.We took some video footage of the bore here too, including all manner of surfing mishaps and swan soakings. Once again, there are two videos, a low quality (2mb) and a high quality (8mb) verion.
Best quality Maisemore video
Low quality Maisemore video
Unable to get to the weir during this bore in time, we revisited the next day to see a 3* Severn bore meet its maker at the Severn weir....
The weir in normal state, with water flowing downstream towards the sea.
The 3* bore, this time only around 3-4ft high approaches, just upstream from Maisemore bridge.
The wall of water meets the weir, in a spectacular fight of white water.
Once the foaming maelstrom has ceased, the weir has vanished beneath the high tide. The tide continues from here, but simply as a gradual increase in the surface height of the water. The bore, is ultimately, dead.
