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:
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:
Then the Queen was enthroned before she opened the proceedings:
A variety of wonderful outfits were judged in the fancy dress parade. Here are the over 5s:
There were plenty of free activities for the children to do. Both my children spent ages honing their 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!):
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:
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:
There were also some beautiful Herdwick ewes that were there for a shearing demonstration and sheep racing:
There were 3 highly competitive fell races including a short one for under 8s and a longer one for the under 12s:
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:
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:
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:
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:
Meanwhile my daughter decided to avail herself of a free face paint session:
There were also a couple of eco shows from 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:
I have combined more still photos of the day plus video into this 5 minute You Tube video please have a look:
thank you
ReplyDelete