Amid nationwide ‘drought’ conditions we drove through the rain on Friday evening down through Wales and England to our destination for this ‘nearly-summer’ weekend. A whole bunch of people from canoe clubs up in the North and our friends from 1st Wet & Wild in Hull, were getting together to celebrate our friend Rod’s 60th birthday. Whilst setting our tent up in the rain Dave and I cussed the fact that we still had not got around to converting our Berlingo into a sleeping van, but soon we were in the pub having a drink and warming our cockles – whatever they are!!
Saturday came around and although it was not raining, the River Wye was in spate. Near enough 20 of us got on the water in various different craft and paddled the 10 miles from Lower Lydbrook to Monmouth. Spirits were high and a great time was had by all, but it was bloody freezing so we were glad to get off and find a tea shop at the end!
On Sunday, the weather was horrible and definitely not conducive to being in, or near a tent, so everyone made a mass exodus to their homelands . We had heard the Dee was running high so Dave and I headed home via a quick playboating session at Llangollen where the youth Freestyle event was being held. Sadly we didn’t get any good photos of that so here are some from a couple of days previously, when the water level was a bit lower!
Words by Fran Kohn
Photos by Fran Kohn and Dave Hollins