H I S T O R Y O F F A I R F I E L D C A N O E C L U B
A snap shot of the “Double Dippers”
By Rose Curtis
When:
The Double Dippers originally referred to as the Darebin Double Dippers (we dropped the Darebin part because we didn’t
get any sponsorship benefits and only three of us were from Darebin) formed in June 1996.
Where:
Over a glass (or 2) of Chardonnay at the Rutherglen winery walkabout.
Who:
The wine drinkers were Janice Lane, Carolyn Dunn and Rose Curtis. A week later Janice bumped into Louise Ray in Brunswick St,
Melbourne - and then were were four which made up the core group.
Originally we formed intending to be an all women’s team (so we could wear our favourite colours - green and purple
tie-dye) but two guys wanted to join and they were prepared to wear green and purple so we let them in.
One of the guys had a friend who also wanted to do the Murray so she joined us and then there were seven. We secured 9th
place in the Mixed TK2 relay section of the Murray Marathon 1996 and thought we were pretty good cause No ONE fell in!
The experience inflated our sense of paddling ability and we decided that our next challenge should be on white water
(cause we hadn’t fallen in) - well low grade white water that is.
In June 1997 the core four flew up North to tackle the crocs, gravel and wee rapids of the Katherine River. We came home
battered and bruised, having capsized hundreds of times - but this did not deter us from tackling the Murray again.
In 1997 we dropped the Darebin from our name, recruited three novice females and set about tie-dying a new set of
t-shirts. Our all women’s team, supported by the all male support crew (which included a masseur) managed to bring
home silver.
In 1998 the Dippers had an unexpected demise. Two weeks before Christmas, there was only three of us (Rose, Carolyn and Louise)
fit, willing and able to compete. Sadly we disbanded and individually merged into three relay teams.
We had a break in 1999 but plan to reform sometime in 2000 plus......
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