Returning home from one of our road trips we drove through the Delaware Water Gap and saw lots of kayaks in the water and moored on the banks of the river and thought how much fun it would be to spend a day kayaking and take a picnic lunch. Anyway, having spent the last couple of weekends away we decided to stay closer to home and book a day long kayaking adventure.

We found a company called Water Gap Adventure who had availability on the Sunday and we rented 4 kayaks so we could do their ‘6 Mile River Trip’ which goes from Smithfield Beach and finishes at Kittatinny Point.

It was a 2 hour drive from home so we set off early as we needed to arrive at the base by 10am. We were kitted up with our life jackets and then taken by minibus to the starting point where we were given our paddles and kayaks.

We headed down the river in our kayaks, the water was so clear and still. There were a few other people kayaking (or canoeing) as well but it wasn’t particularly busy.

^{Kayaking down the river}

It wasn’t long before we had reached a part of the river where there were some little islands. Tom and Izzy wanted to stop so they could play in the water so we moored our kayaks and had a pit stop.

The kids played in the river for a while as the water was quite shallow and then we ate most of our lunch. Stu pointed out that we had 6 miles to kayak so we probably should make a move otherwise we would still be here in the afternoon!

^{Not kayaking anywhere fast!}

We kayaked along for an hour or so until we reached a point where the river split in two. We moored up again so the kids could have a play and I admired a stone tower someone had built!

We carried on a bit further where the river seemed to get a bit deeper and their were lots of weeds and slippery rocks.

^{Exploring more little islands}

At this point it was now 2.30pm so we knew we didn’t have far left to go. We passed a couple of party groups. One group had a massive raft and were fully kitted out with food, drinks and music! We kayaked under an old bridge which only had it’s towers remaining and went through a set of river rapids – although they weren’t particularly fast. Eventually we went under the I80 and could see the Kittatinny Mountains so knew we had reached the end point.

^{Approaching the end}

We got out of our kayaks and were mini-bussed back to the base so we could collect our car.