During our recent visit to Cambridge, Scudamore’s, the city’s oldest and largest punting operator very kindly invited us to three hours of self-punting (£90). Punts are little gondolas steered and propelled with a stick (a so-called punting pole). Initially they were used to transport goods like food from A to B on the river Cam. Nowadays it’s one of the best outdoor activities in Cambridge and hugely popular with visitors to this small university town (125,000 residents). I had been doing some punting in Oxford 7 years ago and felt relatively confident I could pull it off again. Little did I know how busy it was going to be on the tiny stream.    We were joined by two friends from London on our six-seater (the self-hire punts are half the size of the twelve-seater chauffeured ones). While I had already taken my position as chauffeur and the rest of […]