Kayaking in Norway: A recipe

Ingredients:

1. Three adventurous women with: 

• desk jobs, desperate to spend more time outside
•  A keen sense of adventure
• A desire to push their boundaries 
• A sense of humour 

2. A load of kit (kayaks, paddles, compasses,  maritime maps, LOTS of dry bags, gas etc.)

3. A scenic location. Norway, for example 

Recipe: 

1. Concoct vague plan

This should always involve a pub and large maps spread across multiple tables, so that ordinary after-work drinkers look across at you in a vaguely confused manner 

2. Split responsibilities

Each person should play to their strengths and split the load: flights, kayak hire, food planning etc. Kit lists are always a must. 

3. Train (a little)

If undertaking something you've never done before, such as sea kayaking, it's probably not unreasonable to spend a few hours on the Thames getting a feel for it. The lovely folk at the Putney Bridge Canoe Club are extremely helpful. 

4. Talk about your adventure (a lot) 

Once your friends and family start rolling their eyes when 'Norway chat' begins, you know you're on the right track. 

5. Set off!

Pack your bags, pray to god your hold luggage is below the weight limit and that you didn't mistakenly pack your pen knife in your hand luggage. Check in, and have a beginning of adventure beer. On arrival, make all your bus connections in the nick of time, and then, with some relief, find that the man you booked your kayaking kit with does in fact exist. 

6. Adventure time... 

Spend a good hour and a half working out how to fit about a million dry bags into your kayaks, then once you've watched your two friends get in their kayaks and miraculously stay afloat, get in your own. Then paddle. 

7. Paddle some more 

Enjoy the fact there's no-one around and that you're kayaking along some of Norway's most scenic coastline. Act like you're not terrified as you glide past massive cruise ships and traverse for what seems like miles in the choppy open waters of the fjords you sometimes have to cross. 

8. Learn to fish 

It's important to have never done any kind of sea fishing before, and certainly not from a kayak or canoe. Hope for the best as you chuck the line out behind you and paddle for a bit. Become mildly hysterical when you do get a bite, and then use your paddle to thrash at the poor beast for a while until it's finally still. Pick some fresh mussels from the rocky edges of the coastline and store safely in the footwell of your kayak ready to cook along with the unknown specimen of fish when you next stop.

9. Find somewhere to sleep. 

This should only be done once you're absolutely exhausted. Try not to be disappointed when you find that what looks like a great sleeping spot from the water may in fact, on closer inspection, be a  bog, a very rocky outcrop, or even home to a few sheep. It's likely to take two or three attempts to find a decent spot. Enjoy the endless hours of daylight as you cook your catch of the day dinner and mull over the joys of the great outdoors. Try not to curse the mozzies too much.

9. Repeat

Keep going until it's home time.

10. Start planning again

Wax lyrical about the trip and immediately start planning your next adventure.