A summer of kayaking and climbing is waiting...

This morning was really warm and the bike ride in to work was lovely. The birds were singing, the smell of Spring was in the air and I just wanted to turn away from work and keep cycling. Lucky for me that’s pretty much what I’ll be doing when I leave tonight. You see, tonight I start a four month travel adventure in Europe. There’ll be plenty of time for kayaking and climbing and visiting old friends. Maybe I’ll even find time to squeeze in a castle and a museum now and again.

The trip will start by flying to London to buy a van. From there it’s off to Italy to compete in the Teva Extreme Outdoorgames. Then the time will be right for paddling and climbing in the Italian and French Alps. And that’s just the beginning as over the following month there is still much that I would like to explore in Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland.

June will see me returning to UK for a wedding and then I’ll be off again to discover Norway. I’ve already beeen to Norway several times but it’s such a spectacular country I just can’t keep away. This trip there should be plenty of time available to visit the fjords and admire the scenery as well as do some hard core paddling and big wall climbing. With the midnight sun I’ll be able to play quite literally until I drop!

If all goes well there’s a final adventure to top it all off and that is Tajakistan. While it’s still in the pipeline, the plan is to meet up with some old tramping club buddies from CUTC and complete our own climbing expedition on the over 6000 meters peaks. The culture experience of visiting this country which sees very few westerners is going to be just as exciting as the climbing.

So it’s an exciting summer ahead for me, and maybe you can be a part of this adventure too. I’m looking for some more paddling buddies, so if you’re going to be in the same place as me then send me an email and perhaps we can hook up. The other thing I’m looking for is some help with gear in exchange for sponsorship on my site. If you can help me out don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can always find me at clareATekando.com.

Finally, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of exciting things happening over the next months too so I invite you to join my email list. If you want to be notified when I write something new, just type your email in the box on the right side of the page. That way you’ll never have to miss another adventure.

Catch you again soon.