Lake District March 2006
From ICCC
Fri 10th Mar - Sun 12th Mar
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Trip Report
Spark Bridge Village Hall
In a minibus and some cars we drove to the rural village of Spark Bridge in the Lake District, and checked into our accomodation; the village hall! Upstairs was a big room with many chairs and matresses, but the room was almost not big enough. In the ensueing land-grab, real-estate near heaters proved to be more valuable. A few dubious threesomes and foursomes ensured economic use of the space.
Saturday - River Kent and River Leven
On the saturday we started with the river Kent. Silliness at the put-in included some of the worst seal launching ever (slide slide slide thud!) and Rory squeezing under a very low bridge to make a descent (first?) of a pathetic little ditch.
The Kent has several nice drops and pretty overhanging gorge rock formations. It finishes with big 'un. Harry steered Francine in the top-duo.
Next up we headed to the River Leven. Harry, Kirsten and Fracine sat this one out, and went for a kayaker's rest in a pub named "fisherman's rest" at Backbarrow Bridge. Simon suffered an epilepsy incident before reaching this bridge, but apart from that everyone made it down. There's a fairly sizeable rapid under the bridge which was seemed to be baring teeth, in the form of a surprise rock towards the bottom
(Also see nice slow-mo footage of this)
Matress mayhem
Back at the village hall we prepared a feast in the downstairs banquet hall. It was decided that Patrick should eat a lot of yogurt. It was then decided that he should eat various other substances therein, and that Rory should compete in a minging substances eat-a-thon. Nobody knows who decided this. It just happened. The minging substances escalated from tobascoe sauce to tea-bags. Used cooking fat from breakfast time proved too much.
As mentioned, the village hall was equipped with many matresses and chairs. What do you get when you mix matresses and chairs? A leaping-over-chairs-onto-matresses contest!
Sunday - Snow!
We woke in the morning to the sight of snow! About 20cms of the stuff, and it was still snowing heavily. It was immediately clear that this would be a snowboating day, but not before a quick snowball fight.
We lugged a few of the more battered old boats up a nearby hill. Burying the green innazone to form a ramp allowed a few poeple to get some good air, but as usual the topo-duo provided the most hilarity. Six people on at once? Oh yes! After an hour or so, the snow was getting flatted down, and the run-off was not quite long enough to prevent people crashing into the wall at the bottom!
Back at the village hall, Alexa's dad was pondering the vehicle situation. We positioned grit on the road and stood back, to witness a nifty minibus high speed sliding reversing manouvre. All the while, various snowball fights were breaking out around the building, occasionally errupting into all-out bus-shelter-ducking combat. Amidsts this war zone, the new engineering challenge of the 'snow arch' was devised. Snow was rolled, packed, piled and delicatly balanced. It was all very serious. Well snow isn't all fun and games, is it?
Fears of a major motorway blockage/delay proved unfounded, as we left the snow zone quite quickly, and made it home in good time.
Harry Wood 17:24, 13 Oct 2006 (BST)
Media
- Lake District March
- Saturday - River Kent (first river)
- Saturday - Leven (mostly Backbarrow bridge)
- Village Hall etc (including chair leaping, and banquet table chilli)
- Sunday - Snow-boating
- Sunday - Snow other (including the mighty snow arch)
There is also a Lakes March Video currently available.
