May expedition
It has been quite a bit of paddling in May - at last! Weather's been fair and even the rainy days are GREAT for paddling the local waters. Today my 12 year old daughter suggested a paddle trip to the medieval church on the shores of lake Fiskum. It's a 5 km. paddle from our home, so we loaded the double baidarka and ventured out.
At first, it was quite windy. The first 2 kilometers are on the river. I wish the smell of the bird cherry flowers could be expressed in this photo. It doesn't, but it really adds to the feeling of early summer. I enjoy this a lot.
Sissel is the expedition photographer and front hatch paddler. She did great doing both jobs.
I'm the rear paddler AND captain of the ship. So I think, at least...
We're getting closer to the church. It's not always easy to find the mouth of the little river that takes us closer to the church.
This church was build around year 1250. Same time as the characteristic Norwegian stave churches. It lies all by it self close to the water.
These are very hard to read...
And very beautiful...
I'm very impressed with the performance of this two-hatch baidarka. I built it quite a few years ago and haven't used it a lot. It's 6,5 m. long and 65 cm. wide. It's pretty hard to paddle alone in wind, but today with Sissel's help we easily paddled a 10 km. distance at an average speed of 6 km/hour. That's good speed for such a great wet surface... in a strong breeze. On the way home, we got a little help from wind, current and waves and managed 11 km/hour.
We haven't seen beavers for a while, but today we learned that they have found a new home :).
