Sunday 29 August 2010

Canadian canoeing session in the lake District. August 23rd 2010

August here in the Lake District, has, as many of our visitors will have found out, been a relatively wet month, but even if it's wet it doesn't mean you can't find an appropriate activity session with Kendal Mountaineering Services.

We have been busy recently running ghyll (gorge) scrambling sessions, canyoning sessions and Canadian canoeing & kayaking sessions here in the Lake District - thus allowing people to have fun even in the rain.

Audrey Small from Dundee & Jennifer Birch from Cambridge - two old university chums met & and booked a half day session with Iain and had a great time despite the weather. As can be seem from the top photo here - Jenny & Audrey looked decidedly bedraggled as it was raining heavily when we started the session but it soon cleared up.


The pair had originally contacted Kendal Mountaineering Services looking for Canadian Canoe hire & it's worth noting that we do hire out canoes & kayaks for Lake District based sessions. However, we won't allow you to do this unsupervised if you haven't done it before.

With Audrey & Jenny - Jenny had canoed before many years ago but Audrey was new to the sport so Iain insisted that he went along and we think that the pair would agree that it was a good idea. As well as giving the pair a basic introduction to canoeing skills, Iain also showed them some games & challenges and in photo two the pair attempt to balance the canoe whilst sat facing each other in the middle of the boat. The idea is to both lean over backwards - synchronised style; and dip one's head in the water - and then sit up together again - without capsizing the boat. It didn't work! Audrey sat up again too quickly causing Jenny to fall backwards into the water but neither seemed bothered, in fact they spent the whole session laughing!


Unfortunately, there had been no parking at Waterhead when the team had met up to start the session so it was either pay silly money in the National Park car park or park elsewhere - fortunately Iain knew somewhere. This had actually allowed us to start off with any easy moving water skills session and finish with one too. So all in all, a fully action packed Canadion caneing session for the pair with lots of skills input and plenty of variety.

In this final shot we were just about to get off the river and Iain isn't sure what Audrey was trying to say but he is sure it was something to the effect of what a wondeful time the pair had had.

Check out our Canadian canoeing page to book your session with us.

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