Start your evening paddling the Thames in a kayak and end with a dram of whisky in an unusual urban experience with Secret Adventures
Many of us have left the office late in the evening in Canary Wharf and tried to work out the best way to get to a favourite riverside pub… DLR, black cab, Uber or on foot? One company is offering an unusual alternative… how about climbing into a kayak in Limehouse Basin and paddling through the former docks and down the Thames to the Cutty Sark pub in Greenwich?
This is one of the off-the-grid urban expeditions Secret Adventures specialises in, located in London and beyond. Other trips include exploring the canal at King’s Cross by boat, and canoeing and camping across Scotland’s famous lochs.
The night kayak to Greenwich, which takes place after dark on dates between July and September, is part of a series of trips created in partnership with Talisker whisky. (A longer kayak from Battersea to Greenwich, under many of the Thames’s great bridges, past the Houses of Parliament, Festival Hall, the Tower of London, HMS Belfast and more, is fully booked for this summer – but enquire about 2019 events.) The trip concludes at the bar, where (included in the £59 price), you are rewarded for your efforts with either a dram of the smoky single malt from the Isle of Skye (Talisker Storm to be precise), or one of a selection of cocktails from Talisker’s Wilderness Menu – a whisky twist on the dark ’n’ stormy (with Talisker 10) or a warming whisky mac (Talisker Skye, ginger wine, orange bitters).
If you get a taste for life on the water in a tiny boat after two hours, you might consider a rather more substantial journey – 3,000 miles of ocean rowing from the Canary Islands to Antigua in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, which can take as long as four months (although the record is 29 days 15 hours). Entries are still being accepted for the 2018 edition of this epic event but, since it begins in December and planning is paramount, perhaps the 2019 or 2020 races are more realistic. At the end of that adventure, you’ll be entitled to more than one shot of whisky!
