Unofficial 'torch' relay across the Lake District (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Unofficial 'torch' relay across the Lake District
1:52pm Wednesday 18th July 2012 in News
Sports clubs in Cumbria took part in an alternative Olympic Torch relay over the weekend.
Athletes carried a hand crafted deer horn fashioned into a torch to some of the more iconic places in the county that the ‘official’ Olympic torch could not reach.
And they did not not simply take the torch on foot as it was carried by canoe, mountain bike and horseback in a ‘Dawn to Dusk Challenge’, organised by Les Barker, of Cyclewise Academy.
The deer horn was canoed across Crummock Water, jogged up Scafell Pike by fell runners and taken through Eskdale by endurance horse riders. It set off from Whinlatter Forest, near Keswick, at 4.36am accompanied by a group from the Cyclewise Academy and returned some 17 hours and four minutes later – beating the sunset by 44 minutes.
