River Dee tour, Wales, November 1997

As usual Affinity organised the Student Dee tour. It was held at Llangollen, North Wales over the weekend of the 15/16/17 November.

On both the Saturday and the Sunday we went off and paddled the Dee. We amazingly made it to the river in the morning (Yes that’s right even Kev got up before lunchtime!). The river had little water in it, In fact the river was over a foot lower than when we paddled it the year before. However a few great swims were still taken.

The one swim that springs to mind was the Duo which was being paddled by Jo and Mark. After much persuasion Jo decided that she wanted to paddled town falls. They made the first two drops then on the third disaster struck and the duo was upside down. Everybody watched as Jo swam out and grabbed hold of the boat making sure it stayed upside down. Mark however was still in the back desperately trying to roll the boat. Little did he know, Jo was hanging on the front for dear life preventing Mark from rolling. Finally out swam Mark!

Karen had a superb swim on Town falls on the Sunday. However there was no problem cause Jamie once more came to the rescue. As my memory recalls there was only one other swim the whole weekend, and that was by Nick on Serpents tail.

Written By Neil Hopkinson 14th December 1997