On Sunday 8th of July Peter Scott led 10 Nomads on a trip new to the club, but not Peter, to the river Cherwell in Oxford – an excellent turn out.
This beautiful day was looking to be very hot. We started off on the Thames at 10:40am right next to the Falcon Canoe Club house then paddled a short distance avoiding the rowing boats shooting along to find the River Cherwell, which narrowed considerably from the Thames. We soon came across the first of the beautiful buildings of Oxford University, Christ Church – In the past I’ve called this trip the Hogwarts Trip, due to much of Harry Potter having being filmed here.
The day continued to hint at being extremely hot, but the beauty of the Cherwell is the shade coming from the trees adorning the banks. Soon we started coming across the punting public criss-crossing the river to give us fun slalom courses to manoeuvre around. The river changed character many times from being narrow, shallow and meandering to going back to normal with trees with overhanging branches making it fun to guess the direction to take.
Our intention was to paddle a distance and then turn around and come back, but the team were enjoying themselves so much we decided to keep on paddling, encouraged by the knowledge the Vicky Arms pub was not too far away. We ended up stopping there for a drink and sandwiches before returning to Falcon Canoe club and our cars, getting back at 3pm. An excellent day was had by all.
Peter, trip leader
Thanks Peter for leading the trip and the report and Steve Gordon for the photos.