2025 07 06 Progression to Open Canoe – River Dee by Chris I

We had lots of people book onto this trip following several sessions on a Monday at the dock. Mike A used his trailer to offer lifts for those without suitable roof racks. We had 10 boats on the water.

We ran the section from Ty Mawr Country Park to the Boat Inn and enjoyed a very good trip in ideal conditions for developing our paddling. It was the first trip away from the docks for several of our paddlers

The river was on 0.48 m rising to 0.55 m in the afternoon and proved an ideal level for this kind of trip.

We met at the docks nice and early on Sunday morning to load up the boats onto the trailer and head to the river. I took my car to our finish point, the Boat Inn, and got a lift with Ian to the start point of the trip, Ty Mawr Country Park, near the Cefn Viaduct.


Unloading the boats at the start

After meeting the great group of people taking part, we unloaded the boats and took them down to the beach on the river. As it was my first time canoeing away from the docks I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the river was quite calm to start with. The weather was a little cloudy, but no rain and light winds.

Weather conditions at the start

Around 10:45 we were all in the water and heading down the river, with a mix of solo and tandem boaters, as well as one stand up paddleboard.

For most of the morning the river gently pushed us along only taking a little ruder to steer the boat around. We quickly got to our first rapid section, which was great fun! As we progressed down the river the rapids became gradually larger and more complicated, testing our control of the boat. As the water was fairly low, most of us ended up getting briefly stuck at least on the rocks as we found our way down.

 
After an hour we stopped for lunch, and waved to a couple in inflatable kayaks going down the river. We would later find out they were doing the same section of the river as us, and had done it over 30 times!

After lunch we continued down, with the river becoming a little faster. Being a little lower in the water the tandem canoes struggled a little more with the rocks, Joyce and Marco unfortunately got stuck a couple of times, but were able to get themselves unstuck each time! The rapids grew larger with larger waves spilling over the boat at times. Going through one rapid I got stuck on a rock and the river pushed the boat sideways and started to take on water which took me by surprise, but the river was only knee deep in the rapids.

Getting more confident with the rapids, and with the larger waves was great fun!

We passed a field of cows who all decided to run to the river and watch as we struggled through out next rapid. We then took a break around 1:30 before moving on to the next section, with Marcus and Joyce trying poling up a rapid section.

After our break we continued down the river, there was a little less flow pushing us down at this point and the wind had picked up against us, this was no problem for the tandem canoes but me and the other solo canoers had a good workout to keep up!

After passing a weir across the river we paddled a few more minutes and found ourselves at the finish point.

We shuttled cars back to the finish point, loaded up the trailer and enjoyed a much-needed drink at the pub enjoying the sunny terrace overlooking the river.

Thank you to Mike and Keith for organising, and the other leaders for looking after us and guiding us through the rapid, a fantastic Sunday out with a great group of people! I’ll be booking on the next trip straight away.