Kayaking Sessions in the Lake District. Thursday 13th March 2014.

Colin Brooke came out with us for the first time exactly two weeks ago when he booked a half day Kayaking Session in The Lake District with Iain.

Colin has a forthcoming adventure race in Ireland in a few months time and, as it was some considerable time since he had last been in a kayak, he contacted us for some Kayaking Skills Training. On that particular day, Iain took him to Rydal Water.

Photo one from this post sees Colin preparing to go out on the water with us again, but this time Iain chose Windermere as the venue and this first photo was taken at Waterhead.

After Colin's previous flat water Kayaking Session on Rydal Water, Iain thought it would be good to go to a different venue and here there was the opportunity to look at more moving water skills on the Rivers Brathay & Rothay - or, as Colin has a long Kayaking journey ahead of him, go for a paddle on Windermere covering as much distance as time would allow in four hours.

Colin's preferred option was the Kayaking Journey on Windermere , conditions today were flat calm on the lake with a blanket of fog obscuring the otherwise magnificent views of the area.

We set out from Waterhead and west towards the mouth of the main river, then on via Pull Wyke Bay, Low Wray Campsite and High Wray Bay to Red Nab Car Park - one of the areas few remaining free car parks. Here, we got out of our kayaks for a few minutes to stretch our legs and get the blood flowing again.

As we continued onwards from here towards Bowness on Windermere, the fog started to burn off and the sun put in an appearance. In photo three Colin unpacks his lunch at our halfway point near Rayrigg Hall. In the distance one can see Belle Isle - Windermere's biggest island.

As we set off back towards Waterhead via Windermere's eastern shoreline, visibility continued to improve and it started to get quite warm. Iain took this photo of Colin about 3/4 of the way back and he looks happy and relaxed; although he was starting to get quite warm in the wet suit he was wearing underneath the spray deck, cagoule & buoyancy aid!

All in all, we covered approximately 13km or pretty much exactly eight miles - half of the distance Colin has to cover on his adventure race.

This was done in around three & a half hours - not including the two stops we made. Great effort Colin!

For Colin's 5 hour session with Iain he paid £100 and this included being collected and dropped off again in Kendal and then around 4 hours Kayaking on Windermere accompanied one on one with a Kayaking Coach who provided him with a kayak and everything else you see him wearing (apart from the wet suit that is!) Whilst we do not usually offer clients transport on some occasions it just make sense - particularly as we were both travelling from the same side of town.

A typical half day beginners Kayaking Session in The Lake District with us starts at just £45 for a minimum of two persons (or one person at the two person rate) and it gets cheaper as your group size increases. A half day session is typically four hours - starting at 9am or 1pm. You can specify different start or finish times to these if you wish to as we aim to be as flexible, accommodating and as helpful as we can whenever possible.

We want you to enjoy your visit to The Lake District and our motto is "Giving you what you want", book an Activity Session in The Lake District with us and we will do our best to make sure you get exactly that! We look forward to working with you in 2014.