Hi, my name is Archie. I really like canoeing on the River Coquet and I wanted to do a litter pick because I saw that rubbish had been washing down the river.
The River Coquet is quite remote and beautiful; it's one of my favourite places. The water is crystal clear and you can see little fishes darting around and deer on the banks of the river. I have also seen herons and buzzards soaring overhead, bright blue kingfishers flying close to the water and squirrels scampering through the trees. Once I even saw an otter!
This is why I thought of doing a litter pick to keep the environment clean for all of the wildlife and others to enjoy.
We wrote to Northumberland Council to tell them of the plan and they said if all the litter was left on the river bank in Warkworth they would come and collect it.
My dad and I took an inflatable dinghy to put the litter in and a garden rake to reach the rubbish and towed the dinghy behind the canoe.
We had to be safe so we wore wetsuits, life jackets, cagoules and helmets, which meant at the end we could have a swim without getting cold!
During the litter pic we found everything from a tent to a drinks can, some of the other things we found were, a car tyre, plastic bottle, plastic barrel, road sign, a wellington boot, plastic chair and lots of other plastic and metal litter.
After all of the hard work I finished with a relaxing swim!
Archie McNaughton - Aged 10
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