Midweek fun on the Dee

Tim showing everyone how it's done

After a very last minute decision, 5 intrepid adventurers decided to bumble off to the Dee for the day. We decided to paddle up the canal from Llangollen, realising half way up that we had probably put on too much kit, but deciding that the only chance we had of cooling down, binning ourselves in the canal, wasn’t the best idea.

We got on the river set off, first up was serpents. Ben and Ben paddled it first, Ben Waller staying in the middle of the two drops (are they classified as drops?) to fish anyone (me) out if (when) they fell in. I then went down, and swam after the first drop, inevitably. Tim followed me and managed to stay dry, as did Rob, both of them taking a decent line, with Rob almost getting swallowed by the hole at the bottom. I then went back for round two and with the help of Ben Mason, managed to stay the right way up. We also met up with Liam and Fred who had decided to leave their paddles at home and go down the river in home-made hand paddles.  We continued to paddle downstream, stopping at the bottom of some rapids to play and practise surfing, Tim managing to do a 180 before being pushed out of the wave. I fell in, again.

Happy paddlers

After considerably more time paddling, we came up to Tower Falls. We all agreed to try it, with Ben and Ben going down first. Unknown to us, after they had gone down the weir at the top, they decided it was maybe not such a good idea for me to paddle it due to the low water level, but blissfully ignorant, the three of us set off. Tim went first, and managed to complete the falls without getting a binned for the second time, meaning he had avoided being on the wrong side of the water for the entire day. I went second, narrowly survived the weir and then swam after the first drop. Rob also managed to stay dry.

All in all it was a very successful day, with Ben Waller managing to get in quite lot of coaching practise and Ben Mason declaring that ‘the Dee was actually worth paddling for a change’. We finished the day off nicely with a trip to the pub.

In case you were wondering what the inside of Liam's mouth looks like