My brother Neil and myself this year had the unique chance to do the Frostbite Tour on the Dee with two very experienced paddlers from the Eskimo Team: Jason Smith of Whitewater The Canoe Centre and John Smith, BCU Paddle Sport Rep. They invited us to join them on the river and of course we gladly accepted this special offer and opted out of the Club Frostbite Trip for 1999.

As a result, we were thrown out of bed at some uncanny time on Sunday morning for the long journey into the Welsh lands, to meet Jason and John at the tour access point at Horseshoe Falls. All of a sudden, it didn't seem such a brilliant idea anymore when we had to climb into our wet gear in the cold, purchase our tickets and get ready to brave the Welsh water which was stated as -3° Celsius that day! We jumped into our boats and onto the river, only to jump straight out again because it was just too cold (know now why this is called the Frostbite Tour!!!). But then, we had not come all that way to bail out here - so we gave ourselves a kick-in-the-bum and got on for good, to be rewarded with a first-class run: We got to play spots we didn't even know existed until then…

At the Mill, our little group was greeted with large cups of tea to defrost us from the inside out - what bliss, but admittedly it made it even harder to get back onto the water to be deep-frozen again within minutes.

We paddled faster than usual for the remaining stretch of the journey to keep warm. The turns and twists of the river whizzed by and suddenly we were confronted with "Town Falls", that part of the Dee that is feared by all and only really braved "to look good", the part that has a 1 in 10 chance of injury when swimming. But the line was set and followed and it was over in a blink. Everything worked out fine for us.

Much too soon, it was parting from our great paddle-pals and we were left with changing back into dry and warm clothes (yeah) and having a snack at Café & Books where we met some of the ACC Tour Team (it’s a small world for canoeists, isn’t it?!?). All in all, it was an enjoyable day and a most important experience for my brother and me.

by Carl Leahy, January 1999