Leamington Spa Outing....
Greetings readers!
As I mentioned in my previous post, we have been contacting a few kayak outlets recently to see if any would help us out with some of the kit we need for our crazy voyage next year. One of the outlets who has been very helpful is The Leam Boat Centre at Leamington Spa. They offered us the loan of a boat for the trip and also discounts on any other kit we'll need (huge thanks to Matt at the centre for this massive generosity!)
And so us two Krazy Kayakers decided to take a trip down there today to have a look at the boats they have. I met Dave at Leicester Station and once I'd buckled him up in the car and given him his bag of boiled sweets we set off into the sunset towards Leamington on a little jolly boys outing.
The centre at Leamington is top class with a good selection of boats both for sale and for hire and has excellent facilities. There was also a host of friendly staff on hand to help everyone out, in particular the clueless and so in no time at all we were surrounded! We got to meet Matt who told us that the boat we were going to loan had now been sold, d'oh! However he is going to try to source another boat for us which is really grand of him. He also gave us loads of advice on what sorts of boats we'd need and also the timescales needed for our trip, he reckoned that we should be able to do it in 10 days. He also mentioned that we'd probably be in a fair bit of pain at the end of those 10 days, don't you just wish that people would just lie to you sometimes?
We took a couple of kayaks out for an hour and really enjoyed a trip down The Leam and back, the sun was out, the paddling was nice and easy and the scenery was lovely. Our boats were good quality too and fitted with skegs (small rudders) although we didn't find this out til we got back! It's a great way to relax just paddling down a river, I love it, although I think Captain Waverider is really looking forward to tackling some heavy white water, apparently 300 miles of canoeing is not really enough of a challenge!! (Don't worry I'll remind him of that when we're swollowing salt water and floaters!) Dave got to show off some of the moves he's been learning at his kayak classes and talked me through some of the rescue procedures he's been taught, I think you must need to be a contortionist to do one of them and as I'm not one of them I'm sticking to my plan of 'I'll not be going for swim on this journey'!! It's worked so far!
We have both come to the conclusion today that what we really need now is a couple of boats of our own so that we can practice more and also get used to a regular boat. Every time we hire a boat at the moment it costs us about a tenner each which soon adds up. That said, to buy a boat and the kit needed will probably be about £500-£600 each (we can't get the loan boat til at least October) and thats on top of the £80 to buy the roof rack kit to go on the car. So I think I'm going to have to start doing some overtime and saving the pennies as well as scouring Ebay for a bargain. If you're reading this and know someone with a half decent kayak that they no longer require, please get in touch!
Thats about all for now folks, Dave took a couple of photos at Leamington which he'll post later, and if you're ever in the Leamington area, don't just look at the river, paddle down it!
Adam
As I mentioned in my previous post, we have been contacting a few kayak outlets recently to see if any would help us out with some of the kit we need for our crazy voyage next year. One of the outlets who has been very helpful is The Leam Boat Centre at Leamington Spa. They offered us the loan of a boat for the trip and also discounts on any other kit we'll need (huge thanks to Matt at the centre for this massive generosity!)
And so us two Krazy Kayakers decided to take a trip down there today to have a look at the boats they have. I met Dave at Leicester Station and once I'd buckled him up in the car and given him his bag of boiled sweets we set off into the sunset towards Leamington on a little jolly boys outing.
The centre at Leamington is top class with a good selection of boats both for sale and for hire and has excellent facilities. There was also a host of friendly staff on hand to help everyone out, in particular the clueless and so in no time at all we were surrounded! We got to meet Matt who told us that the boat we were going to loan had now been sold, d'oh! However he is going to try to source another boat for us which is really grand of him. He also gave us loads of advice on what sorts of boats we'd need and also the timescales needed for our trip, he reckoned that we should be able to do it in 10 days. He also mentioned that we'd probably be in a fair bit of pain at the end of those 10 days, don't you just wish that people would just lie to you sometimes?
We took a couple of kayaks out for an hour and really enjoyed a trip down The Leam and back, the sun was out, the paddling was nice and easy and the scenery was lovely. Our boats were good quality too and fitted with skegs (small rudders) although we didn't find this out til we got back! It's a great way to relax just paddling down a river, I love it, although I think Captain Waverider is really looking forward to tackling some heavy white water, apparently 300 miles of canoeing is not really enough of a challenge!! (Don't worry I'll remind him of that when we're swollowing salt water and floaters!) Dave got to show off some of the moves he's been learning at his kayak classes and talked me through some of the rescue procedures he's been taught, I think you must need to be a contortionist to do one of them and as I'm not one of them I'm sticking to my plan of 'I'll not be going for swim on this journey'!! It's worked so far!
We have both come to the conclusion today that what we really need now is a couple of boats of our own so that we can practice more and also get used to a regular boat. Every time we hire a boat at the moment it costs us about a tenner each which soon adds up. That said, to buy a boat and the kit needed will probably be about £500-£600 each (we can't get the loan boat til at least October) and thats on top of the £80 to buy the roof rack kit to go on the car. So I think I'm going to have to start doing some overtime and saving the pennies as well as scouring Ebay for a bargain. If you're reading this and know someone with a half decent kayak that they no longer require, please get in touch!
Thats about all for now folks, Dave took a couple of photos at Leamington which he'll post later, and if you're ever in the Leamington area, don't just look at the river, paddle down it!
Adam
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on Thursday 23 August 2007 at 10:04.
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