WKCC Windermere, 2 down - 1 to go!

By Carlos S, 20 July 2025.

Jacqui, our Supreme Leader on the day, entrusted me with the task of writing the report of our Windermere paddle, the second in the Three Lakes Challenge series. I approach this task with no trepidation, and a healthy dose of irreverence.

Doing the paddle, Jacqui J, Helen B, Gareth C and I were in touring kayaks, and Claire T and Simon C were tandem in a canoe.

The group, with their supreme leader!!

Jacqui and Simon brought with them their own support teams: husband Steve in Jacqui’s corner, and Justine and mum-in-law Barbara in Simon’s. You can think of them as the Team Alcaraz and the Team Sinner of elite paddle sport. The rest of us, with a mixture of envy and admiration, were grateful for their company and for simplifying the shuttle of vehicles between the start and finish points.

Except for Gareth, who drove straight from home to the Lakes on the morning of the paddle, the rest of us, having arrived a day or two before, were all staying at different locations in or close to Ambleside. The first joint meeting (minus Gareth) was to be an evening meal on Friday at the Priest Hole in Ambleside, and I am told that it was a lovely evening, and that all technical and safety matters concerning the forthcoming paddle were covered, but I am unable to report anything in detail because I missed the whole meal! Foolishly, some would say, I decided on a walk up to Helvellyn – a bit of pre-paddle high-altitude training –, just something to do on a Friday. However, things did not pan out as expected. First, I underestimated how much the very hot weather would slow me down, and I did not make the top; second, when I made it back to Patterdale, no buses were to be seen (I later found out there had been a road accident that disrupted local buses); and third, apparently taxis are not plentiful in those parts and I could only get one to pick me up at 7:30 pm (the meal was at 6 pm!). Interestingly, the taxi driver was a Swede: was he an émigré with permanent residence in the Lakes, or had he just been flown in from Sweden for the job?

Anyway, back to the paddle. On Saturday, we were starting from Fell Foot Park at the southern end of Windermere, where we all assembled at around 9 am to unload our boats. As usual, someone had to forget something, and this time it was Helen and I leaving our water bottles, carefully filled up the previous evening, at the house. Given that Saturday was forecast to be even hotter than the previous day, this was a serious deficiency. Luckily, Claire intervened: she knew a man who dealt in mineral water. Next thing, Simon appeared and presented us with four two-litre bottles of water. Thank you, Simon, nobody can accuse you of doing half measures. With the vehicle shuttles done and the boats readied, we were on the water at around 10:45 to start our journey to Ambleside at the northern end of the lake. We had a blue sky, the sun was already shining brightly, and it was forecast to remain like this, with temperatures close to or reaching 30 degrees centigrade later on, and no wind other than an occasional gentle southerly breeze.

The route, from south to north.

Helen and I, with our watery payload, had our kayaks seating in the water a little lower than usual. This was lengthening the waterline, and I had read somewhere that the longer the waterline, the faster the kayak. Oh, goody, we might not need to paddle too hard today!

We started gently, but it soon became clear that Gareth, as the young and strong athlete that he is, was faster than the rest of us. Essentially, he was the pace setter, and in an understated and subtle manner, he was tempting us to try harder and to stretch ourselves. However, the rest of us recognised this as the oldest trick in the book that it was, cool heads prevailed, and we did not fall for it. So, a pattern developed: Gareth would forge ahead, and then, after establishing a certain gap, he would wait for us to catch up. However, rather than wait for us on the spot and do the crossword or some other relaxing thing, he would veer 90 degrees and do a width or two of the lake until we were back reunited with him.

We paddled like that for a little over two hours, and then found a small beach, well shaded by trees, on the western shore, for our lunch break. We were there for about 30-40 minutes, and the cool shade had a small but noticeable restorative effect on us. To this point, we had covered close to two thirds of the distance, and we knew the challenge was in the bag! In fact, Gareth was so overcome by excitement that he proceeded to capsize immediately after launching again!

Lunch in the shade, a welcome break from the sun!!

By this stage, Simon had begun to believe that the touring kayaks might be more efficient to paddle than the canoe he and Claire were sharing. I think he formed the impression that the kayaks were going like the clappers as well as keeping a straight line, with the paddlers not even breaking into a sweat. Simon, truth be told, throughout the paddle, I kept wiping the sweat off my forehead whenever nobody was looking.

Once all back on the water, we turned towards Ambleside and arrived there a little after 3 pm. We had an easy landing on a small flat sandy beach, very close to the Waterhead carpark in town where our vehicles were. I went for a dip in the water to cool down. Simon got into my kayak to try it; he seemed to like it, and I saw him furtively looking at the hatches, perhaps calculating how many bottles of water could be loaded in them. Claire sat down in the shade under a tree, and remained there motionless, cooling down for 5 or 10 minutes; she looked much better after that, and could even talk. The others did their own thing too. Then, we all gathered for a group photo that Steve took, and we all congratulated each other on the achievement.

Group Photo of the Windermere Paddlers

The paddle covered the full length of Lake Windermere a distance of about 18 kilometres. The whole event was perfectly organised by Jacqui, who had already organised the successful paddle at Bala Lake in Wales earlier in April as part of the Three Lakes Challenge (Paddle UK). Nobody can fault her commitment to this project; barely days after completing this second paddle, she is already thinking about the third and last paddle at Loch Awe in Scotland. Jacqui, thank you for your hard and effective work, it is much appreciated.