Wednesday 26 July 2017

Day 7 - to Goole 15th July

While we were very pleased to have the end in sight the morning was tinged with some sadness that our adventure was nearing its end, no more training sessions, no more being attacked by swans and no more drinking a beer or two at Andrew's house after we arrived back from training. Life would return to normal....of course, that is until we think of the next challenge that we could take on for 2018!

There is little to say about the seventh day other than the residing memory is of great long, wide and straight stretches of water - 2 miles on a dead straight waterway seems like a long way with the distant view taking forever to get any nearer. It anyone else is thinking of taking on the trail then be ready for these long passages, very much different to the winding route of the L&L.

The final stretch was the longest of all at 4 miles, we could see shapes ahead - another boater who we had seen over the past two days encouraged us by confirming that the shapes were Goole, but to us they looked like a mirage that seemed to remain miles away.


Arriving in Goole

We finally could see the Waterways Museum and the marina which we knew marked the end of our journey and then, almost before we saw them, we heard the whooping of the gathered people who had come to welcome us.


Mission accomplished with a handshake

England may have performed badly at cricket but we had played a blinder, arriving at Goole just 10 minutes behind our schedule (and achieving our fastest ever mile-time just a couple of miles before the finish, not quite sure how as we were dog-tired...it may have been the promise of a beer when we reached our Goole goal). 


Always time for a drink

As we arrived we were greeted by family and friends and also a reporter from the Goole Times who had been sent to write an article about our trip - we think they thought we were from Goole, this may explain why we have never seen the article. Perhaps when they realised that we weren't locals the story lost its interest. Anyway, we didn't care, we had finished and had finished in some style.

As Andrew said to the reporter we had paddled for seven days and never fell out - I'm not sure whether he was referring to us falling out with one another or of falling out of the boat.


We were glad that our boat wasn't this big

164 miles was our total distance (not quite sure why we had done 2 miles more than the trail's length of 162 miles), with about 55 hours of total length over the seven days. According to the app that we were using we had burned 35,000 calories.


The welcoming party and pleased we were to see them

If you are looking for an adventure we can recommend the Trail but it is not to be taken lightly; without the training that we had put in it would very likely have been too much of a challenge. As it was we had completed it and allowing for donations and pledges we had amassed somewhere in the order of £8,500 for Cancer Support Yorkshire. More about this in my final blog.

It had become apparent that I don't readily smile and that I seem to look happier without my glasses, so, in librarian style, I posed with our celebratory balloons trying my best to give a broad beam.

The blogger plus balloons

The Waterways Museum at Goole marks the end of the Trail so our final pic along the way had the Team posing at the Museum sign - we had to pose outside the grounds as the museum closes at 4.00pm, just a word of warning to any future intrepid kayakers who might fancy a repeat of our journey.


The end of the line at the Goole Waterways Museum

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