Wet Play

Since moving to the Lake District, I have done many new activities, however there is only one new activity that I have really taken too and that is canyoning.

Since a lot of the rivers have been dry over the winter period, I have resorted to instead of throwing myself off waterfalls in a boat to throwing myself off a waterfall anyway.

Me and a friend called Callum have been on a few canyon trips together now, each one strating at the bottom, scrambling up, checking the pool depths that back down and doing all the jumps and slides we could do.

Friday was the last time we had a little canyoning adventure. We planned to go canyoning in Church Beck in the South Lakes, we had been told previously that this was a great little river to go canyoning in and many groups are taken here. Below are a few photos from our little adventure.









When we were inspecting a large slide we decided that it was not a good idea to slide down it, so I scrambed up the side of the gorge and set up a hand line for us to practise moving up and down waterfalls. Then a couple came past and started to walk towards us. Thoughts were going through my mind of this guy being a ranger and telling us that we were standing on a SSSI or something and was gonna hand us a fine or something. It turned out that he was an instructor at a local centre and was seeing how we set up the hand rail, he liked our idea and he said that he was going to use that idea because they had have been having trouble with getting groups up this particular drop.

All in all we had a great day and cant wait for our next little adventure, especially because the weather is starting to improve, I will soon be in my canyon boots, shorts and bouyancy aid ... cant wait!

River Leven

After my park n' huck session on Monday, I wanted get back in my boat as soon as possible! Then chance to go paddling on Wednesday came up, I would have been stupid to pass it up!

We went to the River Leven in the South Lakes. The River Leven flows out of Windermere so it is usually quite reliable for water level. This was my first down the Leven, and wow! What a river! Was really nice and chilled, only grade 3 with some 4/5 rapids on, but some of the rapids were constant and hundreds of metres long - great!

The group consisted of me, 3 mates from uni and a canadian that I just met, crazy I know! Was a really nice river and trip. Here are a few pics from that day.


Photo by Sim Davies


Photo by Sim Davies


Photo by Sim Davies


Photo by Sim Davies

Park n' Huck

After a very dry and cold winter in the Lakes, none of the rivers were running, even the bigger ones which were fed by lakes - still too dry.

That was until we had a good dumping of rain over the weekend just gone. It was a shame really that I was in North Yorkshire when this happened and without my boat. However when I got back, the rivers were still up and I decided that I was going to have a park n' huck session on Aira Beck just around the corner.

I was the only one paddling, and armed with 5 media students and their cameras we headed off straight after lectures to the beck. The section I will be running consists of a double drop at the beginning and a final drop about 3/4 metres high. I ran these 3 drops over and over again, and time and time again the second drop on the double drop gave me trouble and I walked away with scraped knuckles, hurt wrist, scratched paddles and a dent in the nose of my boat.

All in all I had a great time, here is a picture of me on the final drop.


Photo by Rob Atkinson