COMPANY PROFILE - Graythwaite Adventure
Muddy Madam and I recently received an invite to visit Graythwaite Adventure up in the Lake District, for a morning of activities of our choosing. Not having heard of them before, I did a quick Google search, and found that on the shores of Windermere, the Graythwaite Estate covers 5,000 acres of carefully managed estate land, woodland and parkland. Within the estate you can enjoy activities such as 4×4 Off Road Driving, ClayPigeon Shooting, Archery, Canoeing, Paddle Boarding, (pause for breath), Axe Throwing, Bushcraft, RIB Rides, Drive‘n’Dine Experiences, Estate Picnics and more. The answer was obviously ‘yes please’, but the difficult bit was deciding which of the varied activities that Tim and Sara offer we’d like to experience. The obvious choice would have been to spend all morning driving around on their purpose-built off-road course with one of their BORDA trained off-road instructors, but after deliberating the options with Muddy Madam, we decided to go for off-road driving, archery and axe throwing. Upon arrival we met up with James who would be our instructor for all the activities. I already knew James, not only have we been out laning together in the past, but he was the Cumbrian GLASS rep for a while, and all round good bloke. After catching up, and the obligatory safety briefing, we jumped in the Defender 110 and he drove us to the start of the off-road course a couple of hundred yards up the road. 76
THE MUD LIFE MAGAZINE
At this point, much to Muddy Madam’s shock, she was informed that it would be her who would be driving, as I wanted to take the photos. Before vacating the driver's seat, James went through some of the safety basics to be aware of while driving off the beaten track - such things as keeping your thumbs away from the inside of the steering wheel, and not ‘riding’ the clutch. With me out of the way finding decent vantage points for photos, James, in his calming yet authoritative voice, guided Muddy Madam to drive over and through a selection of fairly challenging sections.
