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Punting

Punting is just one of the traditional English activities which you may like to try out during your time with us in Oxford.

Punting is a very traditional passtime for students and university lecturers in cities such as Oxford and Cambridge. The classic image is of a young man taking his girlfriend out for a romantic ride across the water, gliding gracefully along, surrounded by trees and river birds, bathed in warm, summer sunshine.

Punts are flat bottomed boats, designed for travelling on rivers where sometimes the waters is quite deep, but sometimes quite shallow. They are quite heavy boats, and it is very difficult to tip them over, so you are quite safe, as long as you are sensible.

The punt is pushed along the water by the punter, who stands at the back of the punt. The punter uses a very long punt pole to push against the bottom of the river. It is quite tricky to get the right angle, and you may need to trail the end of the pole in the water after each push, to correct your direction, but after a while, it is quite graceful. The objective is not to jerk and sway your passengers around, but to give them as smooth a ride as possible.

Of course, punting is not that easy at first, and some people never get the hang of it - you may prefer just to sit and watch!