Monday 7 July 2014

#CountryKids at Langdale Gala

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

Running in the Herdwick 10 km gave me free entry into the Langdale Gala yesterday so I dragged 2 protesting children into the car for another trip up until the beautiful valley:

Langdales from Elterwater

As soon as they saw the bouncy castles etc they were much happier and threw themselves into the fun:


The event was officially opened by a parade led by the Staveley Kookaburra all stars:

Kookaburra All Stars

Then the Queen was enthroned before she opened the proceedings: 


Langdale Gala 2014 Queen and attendants

A variety of wonderful outfits were judged in the fancy dress parade. Here are the over 5s:

Langdale Gala 2014 Over 5 fancy dress

There were plenty of free activities for the children to do. Both my children spent ages honing their circus skills:

Langdale Gala 2014 circus skills

Being a farming community instead of guess the weight of the cake we had to guess the weight of this magnificent Herdwick ram (70+ kg!):

Langdale Gala 2014 Herdwick Ram

For the youngsters the flat races were one of the highlights with plenty of entrants. The sack race proved to be quite a tricky event when people got competitive:

Langdale Gala 2014 boys 5-7 sack race

It was lovely to see children of all ages taking part including many toddlers such as this young lad in the egg and spoon:


My son eventually decided he did want to take part just in time for the final sprint race. Here he is in the pale blue top powering his way to an eventual 3rd place and a 50p prize:

Langdale Gala 2014 boys 5-7 sprint

There were also some beautiful Herdwick ewes that were there for a shearing demonstration and sheep racing:

Langdale Gala 2014 Herdwick ewes

There were 3 highly competitive fell races including a short one for under 8s and a longer one for the under 12s:

Langdale Gala 2014 under 12 fell race

They had to zig zag up the side of the fell and back again:


Meanwhile we were enjoying watching the Cumberland wrestling so much my daughter decided to try it for the first time:

Langdale Gala 2014 Cumberland wrestling

With no training she was knocked out of the first category (under 12 mixed) in bout 1 and had a couple of goes in the female under 10 stone category to finish 4th. There is a video of her bouts at the end of this post.. Watching the more experience competitors was quite exciting although sometimes the random draw threw up some mismatched sizes and the bigger wrestlers were very gentle with their small opponents:

Langdale Gala 2014 Cumberland wrestling

Some walkers had got themselves a great viewing point for the main fell race:


The ascent of the senior race was basically a scramble up the fell:

Langdale Gala 2014 senior fell race

Langdale Gala 2014 senior fell race

Once they had crossed the top they came down a less steep path before running into the gala field. There were some exciting finishes such as the race between these two:

Langdale Gala 2014 senior fell race

Meanwhile my daughter decided to avail herself of a free face paint session:

Langdale Gala 2014 face paint

There were also a couple of eco shows from Windermere Reflections:

Langdale Gala 2014 Windermere Reflections

They were promoting ways to keep Windermere a healthy lake by keeping its catchment clean. A comedy show but with a serious message. My son was more interested in the end of show tug of war:

Langdale Gala 2014 tug of war

I have combined more still photos of the day plus video into this 5 minute You Tube video please have a look:




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