It's only just begun.......
Hi
Let me introduce myself, I'm 'The Nutter'!! Well that's just what Dave calls me which is unfair really as this whole escapade was his idea, now who's the nutter!!
I'm Adam and a colleague of Dave's, we spent quite a bit of time together earlier this year as I spent 12 weeks on one of his most excellent courses, as such we became mates and I signed up to his fund raiser for 2008, kayaking from London to Sheffield.
As Dave has explained, the route has changed a bit from the first plan, initially it was London to Paris (but we needed far too many euros for this) and now we are on to London to Sheffield. Currently we'll be going via the sea and then onto canals and rivers. Now unlike Dave 'Let's go play with the great whites' Stannard, I'm more Ratty from the Wind in the Willows than Steve Irwin and would much rather we took a tranquil paddle up a canal then test our steel (must be a Sheffield thing) on the ocean, however I'm going to give it a go and see what happens. I'm sure happy days will abound as we cruise through the North Sea littered with it's small brown floaters that definitely shouldn't be mistaken for buoys.
As you can see from Dave's blog entry we have tested a number of different vessels, we wanted a pedalo initially but this was just not to be, even the titanics engine room didn't have to work as hard as our little pins did, and then there were the hydro bikes, fantastic fun and an ideal choice for the trip but again, money stood between us and them. And so it's kayaks. Now I've done a bit of Kayaking in the past and loved it, what better way to travel indeed, however I was a few stone lighter then and a good few feet shorter and so it was a shocker as to how cramped these little vessels now feel! Numb feet and legs look like they might both be passengers on this voyage!
As I live in Leicester and Dave in Sheffield we are both having to train apart however we do meet up when we can to get in the water, only the other weekend we were at Rother Valley resembling a pair of Whirling Dervishes as the wind kept spinning the boats around. So at present my main training base is Barrow Upon Soar not far from my home in Anstey, if any readers fancy a good laugh of a Sunday morning you can come take a look!
Between you and me, Dave is taking his training very seriously, he's signed up for Kayak lessons, has loaned two 'How to Kayak' books from the local library and can even tell you how a dented boat will affect your performance, he's starting to make me feel a tad guilty, surely it's just a case of sitting in some moulded plastic, paddling and praying? And so I'll leave the science to him, I'm going to be doing plenty of paddling to build my arm strength up and will start to worry about dents when they are being caused by my head or worse still those floating brown buoys I mentioned earlier.
I have tasked myself with the navigation of the journey, working out routes and distances, places to camp at night etc, Google Earth and myself have become very well acquainted! It's going to be a long long way that much I can say, but I'll be in good company and it's for a great cause.
Before I sign off my first blog I would just like to thank a few people, firstly Cath (Dave's good lady wife) for setting up this site, the just giving site and for all the emails she has sent to canoe outlets championing our cause and trying to get us some good deals on the kit we need, like boats and stuff. Also thanks to all of the said outlets who have responded to Cath with really generous offers, we're really grateful, who says all business is heartless. And finally to my good lady Katie, we don't get a great deal of time together and when we do I'm buggering off paddling, nice one Adam! But I'm so grateful that she's shown great patience so far and long may it continue!
If you're reading this, thanks for stopping by, but don't just stop there, pass this site on to all your mates and keep coming back to see how we are doing, we'd like that very much!
Adam
Let me introduce myself, I'm 'The Nutter'!! Well that's just what Dave calls me which is unfair really as this whole escapade was his idea, now who's the nutter!!
I'm Adam and a colleague of Dave's, we spent quite a bit of time together earlier this year as I spent 12 weeks on one of his most excellent courses, as such we became mates and I signed up to his fund raiser for 2008, kayaking from London to Sheffield.
As Dave has explained, the route has changed a bit from the first plan, initially it was London to Paris (but we needed far too many euros for this) and now we are on to London to Sheffield. Currently we'll be going via the sea and then onto canals and rivers. Now unlike Dave 'Let's go play with the great whites' Stannard, I'm more Ratty from the Wind in the Willows than Steve Irwin and would much rather we took a tranquil paddle up a canal then test our steel (must be a Sheffield thing) on the ocean, however I'm going to give it a go and see what happens. I'm sure happy days will abound as we cruise through the North Sea littered with it's small brown floaters that definitely shouldn't be mistaken for buoys.
As you can see from Dave's blog entry we have tested a number of different vessels, we wanted a pedalo initially but this was just not to be, even the titanics engine room didn't have to work as hard as our little pins did, and then there were the hydro bikes, fantastic fun and an ideal choice for the trip but again, money stood between us and them. And so it's kayaks. Now I've done a bit of Kayaking in the past and loved it, what better way to travel indeed, however I was a few stone lighter then and a good few feet shorter and so it was a shocker as to how cramped these little vessels now feel! Numb feet and legs look like they might both be passengers on this voyage!
As I live in Leicester and Dave in Sheffield we are both having to train apart however we do meet up when we can to get in the water, only the other weekend we were at Rother Valley resembling a pair of Whirling Dervishes as the wind kept spinning the boats around. So at present my main training base is Barrow Upon Soar not far from my home in Anstey, if any readers fancy a good laugh of a Sunday morning you can come take a look!
Between you and me, Dave is taking his training very seriously, he's signed up for Kayak lessons, has loaned two 'How to Kayak' books from the local library and can even tell you how a dented boat will affect your performance, he's starting to make me feel a tad guilty, surely it's just a case of sitting in some moulded plastic, paddling and praying? And so I'll leave the science to him, I'm going to be doing plenty of paddling to build my arm strength up and will start to worry about dents when they are being caused by my head or worse still those floating brown buoys I mentioned earlier.
I have tasked myself with the navigation of the journey, working out routes and distances, places to camp at night etc, Google Earth and myself have become very well acquainted! It's going to be a long long way that much I can say, but I'll be in good company and it's for a great cause.
Before I sign off my first blog I would just like to thank a few people, firstly Cath (Dave's good lady wife) for setting up this site, the just giving site and for all the emails she has sent to canoe outlets championing our cause and trying to get us some good deals on the kit we need, like boats and stuff. Also thanks to all of the said outlets who have responded to Cath with really generous offers, we're really grateful, who says all business is heartless. And finally to my good lady Katie, we don't get a great deal of time together and when we do I'm buggering off paddling, nice one Adam! But I'm so grateful that she's shown great patience so far and long may it continue!
If you're reading this, thanks for stopping by, but don't just stop there, pass this site on to all your mates and keep coming back to see how we are doing, we'd like that very much!
Adam
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on Tuesday 14 August 2007 at 08:58.
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