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'This has been a wonderful day!' said the Mole, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. 'Do you know, I've never been in a boat before in all my life.'
'What?' cried the Rat, open-mouthed: 'Never been in a — you never — well I — what have you been doing, then?'
From The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
Not so long ago, that was me. Mole, I mean. Not that I had never been on a ferry boat, a river barge, even a speedboat. I remember as a kid being taken out in a rowboat, too.
No, I'm not talking about any of those. I'm talking about being on the water in sole control of (in my case) a kayak, which some call canoes, though there are differences.
It was only recently I had the chance to go kayaking for the first time. We went to Loch Lomond, which is a nice spot. I spent most of the day learning, and playing around. Now I'm a confirmed addict.
Most of us spend hours every day travelling from a to b, mostly by car or bus, although some few take the train the whole way.
What can we say about this that is good? Ok, it gets us to the place we want to go, but in the process, we are under stress the whole time, and our clothes and ourselves pick up road dirt. Altogether, not the nicest part of one's life. Like the old saying goes: It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it - well, to be truthful, almost everyone in the Western world.
In contrast, the freedom of paddling your own kayak is similar in many ways to the experience of the 'open road' that motorists used to go on about. It's a quieter, more meditative sort of freedom, of course, and instead of getting coated in a thick layer of dust and dirt, you might get splashed a bit, or you might even get a dunking.
And there's always some danger when you put yourself at the mercy of Mother Nature. Make sure you have all the equipment you need with you. The Dustless Road is not without risk, but it is without lorries, and that goes a long way with me.
So what about you? Do you love messing about in boats? Is sailing a yacht, paddling a kayak or water-skiing a dream come true? Do you ride the wild surf at the slightest opportunity? We have hundreds of links to suppliers of boats, navigation equipment, wetsuits, surfboards, jet-skis and boating accessories. Have fun surfing online, when you can't surf - or sail - or ski - for real.
