Early June. The day after our Wainwright Walk with TC. This time it was our neighbours B and G who had taken some time off work, to join us for a canoeing trip.
The weather was perfect.
B is demonstrating here a paddling technique which I haven’t given enough thought to before: the no-stroke. Sit in the back, keep quiet, hope your other half doesn’t notice. It seemed to work well for him.
We only had one skeg – a small keel – between the two boats. TBH and I went without and were therefore a bit prone to going into a slow spin.
It was TBH who had suggested Thirlmere and I was very surprised to find that it was allowed. Bizarrely, you can canoe or kayak, but not paddle-board or swim. We had the reservoir almost to ourselves, perhaps because there are ‘road closed’ signs here, there and everywhere, even though the road from the north is actually open as far as the Armboth car park.
I’m not a big fan of forestry plantations, but I have to confess that they gave a great backdrop to a canoeing trip. We could almost have been back in the Adirondacks, aside from the sounds of the busy A591.
There were lots of dragonflies and damselflies about, but it was hard to photograph them from the canoe.
It was a shortish trip, shorter than our Coniston paddle had been, but very enjoyable and then we headed homeward for a BBQ in B and G’s garden. Can’t be bad.