East Lothian Walking & Outdoor Festival 2009? October 6, 2008
Posted by Bill in : Outdoor Learning , trackback
Recently I spotted adverts for other Scottish regions hosting Outdoor Festivals e.g. Arran.
It got me thinking that we could in addition to the East Lothian Walking Festival an East Lothian Walking and Outdoor Festival could offer many of the categories shown on the Arran festival i.e
This could be done with a range of public,voluntary, local clubs and private providers and could even co-incide with the other already existing festivals e,g. East Lothian food and Drink, Dunbar Folk Festival. Outdoor learning activities in addition to walking could include;
- Coasteering - Fantastic East Lothian Coastline
- Sea Kayaking- Access to some stunning trips
- Climbing- Traprain Law
- Sailing - Take your pick
- Surfing - Belhaven Bay
- Cycling - Anywhere!
Those of us living in East Lothian appreciate it has a lot to offer and this sort of joint festival could boost tourism and put east Lothian on the map along with other Outdoor festivals in Scotland.
Comments»
Sounds like an interesting idea…
Brilliant idea - there are loads of folk doing loads of stuff in the area and this would be a great way of getting them all together, building up links and persuading folk to come and see what East Lothian has to offer.
Other ideas:- hill runs, wind sports (blokarts, power kites etc), inland canoeing on local rivers/ lakes, adventure races etc.
I’m sure there are plenty of participants around who’d want to be part of it all.
Alastair I agree there are many more activities that could be run during such a festival. The spin-off’s from such a promotional events could also inspire commercial providers to diversify their services in the East Lothian area and help sustain and generate more tourism
Hi Bill
Haven’t been in touch for a while but this post caught my eye. About a month ago Fife hosted its own Outdoor Access Festival. There were 43 events over 3 days including long walks, short walks, cycling, horse riding. At Lochore Meadows we organised a Fun Family challenge which included open canoes and water rockets, mountain bikes and a survival game.
The whole Festival didn’t all go smoothly but with lessons learned we are looking forward to next year. I like your ideas of including some more adventurous activities.
Ali
Great to hear that it happened. 43 events is I guess a lot to co-ordinate. Would love to hear more about it and perhaps about the learning for next year?