Lakes Weekend 2006 - Claire
I had been looking forward to the Lakes Weekend for absolutely ages as I didn’t get to experience the infamous Tyne tour and I wasn’t to be disappointed. We were only 30 mins late leaving the chapel with minimum faffage which is pretty good by canoe club standards! Drinking on the bus commenced pretty much immediately as everyone was pretty hyper due to it being the last day of exams. Scarily, Gilly was even more hyper than usual, but this may have had something to do with the bright yellow hoody she was sporting which came in handy later on in the trip because we could tell she was coming from a mile away. After a few stalls and subsequent spillage resulting in a socking wet Gilly(sam’s fault), getting lost (my fault) and other delays (lets blame Gilly for these) we eventually arrived at the hut after 3.5 hours. It took us all of 5 minutes to get in the pub after we had arrived and we pretty much stayed there all night. Some of us that were too tired to carry on drinking retired to our sleeping bags at about 2am but the hard core ones carried on downstairs.
The wake-up call the next morning came far too quickly for most people’s liking but after a bacon sarnie (sp) we were ready to go. After sorting out kit and being one of the unfortunate people to be stuck with a left handed paddles (for the first 20 mins anyway) we all got on the lake for a quick paddle around and so the captain could split us into groups. I ended up in the middle group and was feeling calm as the first little section was easy. That was until we hit the first rapid that went around to the right. My heart was pounding in my chest and I was convinced I was going to swim but luckily not even going backwards or the very fast water managed to capsize me this time. So we carried on down the river, dodging trees and gates and struggled to find eddies that were actually eddies and where we could all fit in. After half was down I was naively thinking that this would be my first river without a swim but this was soon to be squashed. So after being attacked by a large tree and the last- but-one rapid I had had a total of two swims and we were approaching the final rapid. Once again my heart was pounding but I was determined not to let this one get me. So after lots of jokes about grade 6 death traps (it was a grade 3), I got into my angry paddling mode and made it to the bottom fine which was very pleasing.
After getting changed, a quick nap and lots of interesting A-Z games, we were heading back to the pub for more drinking and pie which wasn’t bad at all. It wasn’t long after the food had been consumed that the drinking games began where a lot of mixing took place. ¼ pint of beer, ¼ Malibu and coke, and half a glass of wine was the concoction I had to consume in the end, but was very proud not to chunder all night. Once again we were not the last to bed that night but we all had to get up once again the next morning for the next river. I was not paddling today as it was the other half of the group and I could feel the bruises starting to appear. Instead we enjoyed a very nice and relaxing 3.5 hours in the pub. Unfortunately that meant the end of the weekend, so after loading up the vans we headed home but it was definitely a weekend to remember.
By Claire Booth