Day 1, Saturday - Paddling from Cricklade to Lechlade

'Every giant oak tree from a tiny acorn grows', and every great river from a narrow stream flows (the last bit is a Bycroftism, but you may have noticed that).

I've got two huge blisters, one on the ball of each foot, they're about the size of 50p pieces but it's not too bad beacuase I felt them burst during the last two or three miles into Cricklade, I can now just feel the skin sliding about on the bottom of my foot as we walk to the launch point - ouch!

The 11 miles or so to Lechlade was amazing, it was more like paddling through the Amazonian rain forrest, at times there was basrely enough space between the reeds to fit our paddles and it was twisting and turning all over, it was difficult to navigate. Our first swimmer of the trip was Gordon who lost it when he hit a submerged log, closely followed by Liz who got caught up in a tree and lost it.

We've seen lots of moorehen chicks and swans with signets, some of them not very happy as we approach.

We didn't get to the camp site until after 8pm and had a surprise when Andy Nash, our canoe instructor for teh last 7 weeks arrived, it was great to see him. It was 9:30 before we were ready to eat and the only place still serving foodwas an indian, six very tired people hobbled back to the campsite and collapsed.

Here's Motion Based:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/accept.mb?senderPk.pkValue=6772&unitSystemPkValue=2&episodePk.pkValue=993767
you can go to Google Earth from the Digest.