Adult Sea Kayak Expeditions
Following several sucessful years of running sea kayak expeditions, the 2008 programme looks bigger and better than ever. With both weekend and week expeditions in the UK and Europe, North Yorkshire Outdoor Education Service is proud of the standards it sets in expedition quality and location. Our most recent expedition ran in Norway in the summer of 2006. For further information, please see the report below!
For more information please click Here for Weekend based expeditions or Here for Week long Trips.
Sea Kayaking in Norway - A Viking Invasion in Reverse!
The summer of 2006 saw a first for the Outdoor Education Service, an overseas sea kayak expedition. Over the past ten years the staff from East Barnby Outdoor Education Centre have led many trips for adult members of the public to the off-shore islands of Scotland. Sort of abroad yes and it is definitely overseas to get to Mull, Raasay and the Garvellachs, but not in quite the same league as Norway.
This year’s inaugural trip started with a Friday morning mini-bus journey from East Barnby to Newcastle to catch the overnight ferry to Bergen via Stavanger, an exciting enough trip in itself.
Once docked the full team convened, collecting those that had travelled independently by plane or own vehicle and we headed north. Three hours driving and one short ferry hop got us to the north shore of Sognefjord, the longest fjord in the world and the launch point for the first half of our weeks sea kayaking. Our plan was to try to experience two very contrasting faces of sea kayaking in Norway within our six days paddling, starting with the North Sea coast line proper.
Solund is a small group of islands at the mouth of Sognefjord; a tiny fragment of the archepellgo of thousands of islands that fringe the Norweigian coast-line, and our aim was to circumnavigate at least part of it. And so it was that a very disparate group of people left the mainland beach on Sunday 29 July. Ten of us in all including three married couples, two school teachers, a fireman, an IT consultant, a Canadian …. some experienced and some who had never sat in a sea boat before!
What followed was a fantastic three days self sufficient paddling and wild camping, blessed equally by glorious weather, warm seas and Ang’s magnificent camp cooking. We did manage to complete a circuit of Sula island covering a tide and wind assisted 43 miles in three and a half days and caught at least some of the food we ate!
Wednesday was travel day and east was the direction. Our second kayaking venue was the world heritage site of Naeroyfjorden (literally ‘Narrow Fjord) 50 miles inland at the head of Sognefjord. This is true picture book fjord territory with enormous vertical walls of rock dropping straight into the deep clear water and ice-cold waterfalls tumbling from the snow fields above directly into the sea. I say ‘sea’ but so far from the true open ocean, the tide has minimal effect and the water is almost fresh, on the surface at least. Two full days were spent paddling from Laerdal village, down Aurlandsfjorden fjord, round the awesome cliffs of Kamben and up Naeroyfjorden to the village of Gudvangen. With regular cruise liners passing our campsites this certainly was not the wilderness experience of Sula but the magnificent scenery more than made up for it …Oh, and porpoises surfing on bow waves and white tailed eagles soaring over the shore-line firs helped.
Final land-fall was made on Gudvangen beach on the second Saturday of the trip; the crew begrudgingly packed up, loaded the trailer and re-traced their journey to Bergen for the ferry.
The sail home was a time to reflect on a fantastic week; sunny weather, calm seas, spectacular scenery, exotic wildlife, fine camp food, no capsizes or injuries and, most of all, wonderful company.
We will be back in Summer 2007 … contact East Barnby OEC for details.
