An unexpected adventure.

Despite what has been a mixed bag of weather, we have just had a little surge in visitor numbers over the half-term week.  We have also had a little flurry of mountain rescue call-outs including a few lower leg injuries (these make up a big proportion of our calls) and some mountain biking incidents.

No pictures of a rescue in the dark but these show a choppy Derwentwater and islands.

 A rather unusual call came from a father, his son and a friend who planned a canoe and camping trip on Derwentwater but ended up marooned on two different islands in the lake.  Their story shows just how easily plans can go awry. 

Their adventure began when they travelled from Liverpool to Penrith by train and then a bus from Penrith to Keswick and a second bus along the lake to Calf Close Bay.  They inflated two canoes and father and friend paddled across to St Herberts Island taking the camping equipment over.  Father returned with both canoes to collect his son.  By then the light was fading fast; it was cold and windy and the water was choppy.  On the return journey, and fortunately quite close to Rampsholme Island, both father and son found themselves overboard and in the water.  They were able to reach the island but were faced with what would have rapidly become a dangerous situation - a cold, windy, wet night with no equipment.  So they did the sensible thing and, using a mobile phone that had somehow stayed dry, they called out the rescue team.  We were able to quickly bring them back to a warm, dry hostel.

It would be easy to think that they had been stupid but really they just unintentionally overstretched their boundaries.  They had shown admirable initiative travelling from a city by train and buses to have an adventure experience.   The rescue team did have to step in but, with slightly better judgement about equipment and the weather conditions, it could easily have been a successful  adventure.   The spirit and initiative behind the outing were great.  In both the Trust and the Rescue Team we want people to experience and enjoy the outdoors and that’s what they set out to do. There was nothing wilfully reckless about what they did.  There’s a limit to what can be learned without actually doing something and many of us can reflect on those occasions where we learned a lot from an experience that didn’t quite work out as we planned!  They certainly had an adventure story to tell when they arrived home.

Postscript:  The Owl Prowl I mentioned attracted 103 people who had a great evening walk in the woods followed by encounters with owls in the Trust’s barn.