Last weekend I went camping, yet again. As you already know from my many camping experiences is that there is no such thing as bad weather only bad kit.
The weekend was beautiful to do water sports and I did kayaking in the morning of the first day and then some canoeing in the afternoon. When kayaking I learnt how to do a 360, paddle to the side, paddle backwards, turn around efficiently, the different ways I could get in and out of a kayak and the different types of kayaks.
My next activity was canoeing. I have never been in a canoe before so this was going to be a first time experience for me. I originally sat in the front of my canoe. My new friend, sat in the back and she controlled the direction of the canoe whilst I acted as the engine powering the canoe forwards. It took a while to get the hang of thing, we struggled to turn, go in a straight line and do some of the skills. However, when it came to swapping over positions in the canoe we were skilled at balancing in the river whilst swapping ends. I was then in control of the direction of the canoe and we paddled up stream. Once we got up stream, we created a sail boat using all 3 canoes to ‘sail’ with the current back to the bank.
For dinner, we had fish and chips and settled for an early night. Me and my friends learnt a new card game – apparently it was the proper way to play cheat. Where aces allowed you to change suit, 2s and 3s were the amount of cards the next player had to pick up, 4s meant you had to place 4 cards down with either the same suit or number, 8s missed a go and kings changed direction. This new card game took over an hour to finish and then it was time for bed.
The next morning, we ate breakfast and then were back out on the water in the kayaks again. This time instead of using the slip way, we seal launched from a mini slip way. We had to capsize our kayaks to get our stage three paddle sport badge so after a lot of fun enjoying paddling towards the wind up against the strong current. I managed to capsize my kayak safely and then warmed up before helping to pack the campsite down.
I had a great weekend – even if I was constantly worrying about whether Bat would get his revenge from Beaver camp.