Where has this year gone?  It only seems like last month that I was sending the notifications about this year’s camping trips to the Lakes and after last week’s trip to Ullswater, that’s them all finished for another year.

It’s been a good year and we had 3 trips to the Lakes, Coniston in June, Windemere in July and Ullswater in August.  Due to holidays I could only attend the Coniston and Ullswater trips but these both went very well and I’ve been told that the Windemere trip was also a success. We had a mix of weather on all of the trips, which allowed some of the new paddlers to experience paddling in quite heavy rain and wind.

All of the trips had a mix of experienced and novice paddlers attending which is great for transferring knowledge and skills but even more so for making it a more sociable and enjoyable trip.  I’d like to thank everyone who supported the trips, I had a right giggle on the two trips I attended, both on the water and sat round the camp fires enjoying a couple of beers.

I would like to thank Tony and Geoff for providing the Coach cover on the trips, without this cover we wouldn’t be able to run the trips so a big thank you to you both.

It was on the Ullswater trip where we were joined by Charlotte and 4 new club members Kath, Catherine, Trish and Julie.  At the end of the trip, as we were sat in the sun enjoying a brew, the girls were discussing how much they’d enjoyed the trip and that on the way up they hadn’t been quite sure what to expect. 

It was at this point that the girls jointly volunteered (that is, the girls jointly volunteered Julie in her absence) to provide an account of the trip from a new comer’s perspective for the web site.  Julie’s account is shown below and hopefully it will encourage other club members to come along on the trips or to encourage visitors to the site to come along and try out Pendle Paddlers.

It won’t be long before I’ll be sending out the email informing all club members about the next lot of trips, so when it lands in your in-box, instead of making a mental note of the dates, get them in your diary, send me an email saying that you’ll be coming along and then do it!!

Andy M

Ullswater Trip - August 2010

I seem to have been nominated to write about the Ullswater trip as I was the only member of the group who was absent when there was a discussion about who should do the write-up!  I also apparently said something about lack of info on the website for anyone thinking of joining Pendle Paddlers (me and my big mouth).

This was our first venture on a Club Camping weekend and weren’t sure what to expect.   Anyway, me, Trish, Catherine and Kath arrived at the campsite on the Friday night just in time to get the tents up before it went dark and then join the others round the campfire for a drink or two.  Also had some rather nice home-made parkin to celebrate Jessica’s birthday.  It was a good evening for stargazing and seeing shooting stars.  However it did get a bit competitive between Geoff and Andy M about whose phone had the best application about astronomy (yawn). 

Saturday morning we were all on the water by 9.30am and headed along the lake to Aira Force for a much needed lunch stop after 4 miles of paddling.  It was hard work with the wind and choppy water but even us novices managed it.  Charlotte reckoned it was a good way of tackling the Bingo Wings (not that she actually has any!).

We caused some amusement in the café when we discussed Kath’s ‘skirt’ and some blokes on the adjoining table were obviously trying to work out the rubberwear with the uneven hem she was wearing (a spray deck in case you hadn‘t guessed).

After lunch Geoff told us that we would sail back.  I didn’t know that canoes could have sails attached (I did say I was a novice) let alone that 3 canoes could be tied together and then sail.  It was rather worrying when Geoff said that if we didn’t tie them together right they would close up like a clam!!! but we decided to trust his knotting skills.  We ended up with 2 rafts of 3 Canoes, one with a double small sail and ours with a large single sail attached to poles.  I ended up being Right Sheet (had to have it explained that sheet actually meant rope). I also ended up being Right Pole.  That’s a new nautical term for when someone (i.e. Andy M) didn’t tie the pole tightly enough so it had to be held down to stop it smacking me in the face.

After a few false starts and some paddling we caught the wind and had a great trip back playing I Spy along the way.  We didn’t quite catch up with the other group but it was close, they seemed to forget that they had a good 10 minutes head start on us……… but there’s always next time.

There was some discussion about an evening paddle to the pub but felt we might lose one or two on the way back, paddling in the dark after a few pints.  There was therefore no choice but another campfire accompanied by bottles of beer and wine and bars of chocolate (mainly eaten by the other Andy R -  although he tried to blame us women).  The rain started up around 10.30pm and sent us all off to our tents, which was probably a good idea with another early start ahead.

Sunday morning was sunny and clear and we were packed up and off the campsite by 9.30am and down to Glenridding.  We went across the lake to a river inlet and had to test out the steering skills getting up-river against the flow.  The more adventurous went further upstream when it got shallow by poleing.  The rest of us relaxed in the sun having elevenses and watching a great dive out of the boat from Ian!

After that it was off to an island for lunch with great views along the lake.  A short paddle brought us back to Glenridding and a cup of tea - which is where I got roped into writing this.

It was a great trip and the 4 of us all wished we’d found out about Pendle Paddlers earlier in the year as this was the last camping trip until next Spring.  Look forward to the ones next year.

Julie