The cache.
A small tub
Background information
The Trent and Mersey Canal is a 93.5-mile long canal (150.5 km) in the East Midlands connecting the river Trent to the Mersey. Lazy little paddle is a series of 14 caches running along it on a lovely stretch heading from Weston on Trent to Swarkestone lock. I AM GOING TO LINK IT INTO A FURTHER BOAT SERIES FOR THOSE THAT WOULD LIKE A LONGER PADDLE.
The way point will give you nice easy parking right by the canal where there is a very easy launch point (this is right by a lock so its probably advisable to wait until the lock is not in use to launch or there will be a fair bit of drag as the lock fills). There are no facilities here for changing etc unfortunately. A further waypoint on the last few caches gives alternative parking at the far end of the series - if you are an inexperienced paddler I would suggest parking at Weston as you are travelling with the flow on the return leg that way and its a slightly lower bank.
This series is ideal for any paddler, it is a scenic and generally safe stretch of canal with a nice clear bank almost the whole way in case you need to leave the water in a hurry. It is however a fairly busy stretch on canal so do please keep an eye out for other water users and give the canal boats plenty of room (having watched one crash into a bridge while setting these you may wish to know that several are hire boats with inexperienced users). The lazy paddle caches have deliberately been placed so that there are no portages to make for a nice relaxing trip - I'm planning to link another set of boat caches for a longer trip for those who want them but they will have a different name to make your planning easy. I've tried to make the caches fairly easy(ish) to find and retrieve on this section. I have set them from a plastic stable kayak but they should be accessible from any low boat - canal boats may struggle to get in close enough to some as several are under overhanging branches.
A lot of the caches are tied on to try and keep them safe come the bad weather, I'd really appreciate it if people could be careful and not undo any fastenings, they should all be long enough for you to sign without too many difficulties.
There are several other caches along the route for any support crew who may want to walk the route (a good footpath runs the whole way) or for those who wish to 'go ashore' every now and then.
In theory most of these caches could be reached by swimming however its a canal - personally I don't swim in canals as water quality isn't always great and you never know whats lurking. If you do chose to swim please be aware of the risks of swimming in cold water.
A quick reminder that you should have a license to have any craft including kayaks on a canal or other waterway, these are available as day passes, week passes etc from the canal and river trust or BCU membership covers you and the boat that you are in.
The series consists of:
- Lazy little paddle getting started
- LLP - high and dry
- LLP - hiding in the shadows
- LLP - a nice easy one
- LLP - hanging on
- LLP - fallen
- LLP - bank on it
- LLP - mind your head
- LLP - or possibly not?
- LLP - no boat required
- LLP - Which one?
- LLP - H&S say hello
- LLP - watching the world float past
- LLP - a bugs life
You will also pass on the bank some quest caches, Weston waterway and Tinytom99's new tree climb paddlers lookout.
Hope you enjoy, I would love to hear about your adventures in your logs. Happy for anyone who has been there in a supportive capacity to claim the find as long as they see the cache and their name ends up on the log.