Are you up to the challenge?

Published on 07/07/2012 09:20

The Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) is looking for people with a sense of fun and adventure to take part in the Northern Ireland Bog Snorkelling Championships 2012.

The event, which is now in its eighth year and attracts competitors from all over Ireland, will be held in Peatlands Park on Sunday 29 July as part of International Bog Day.

Colin Gates, NIEA Assistant Warden said: “This energetic sport is very popular and literally gets people into the bog. Competitors have to swim up to two lengths of a 60 yard bog drain with the aid of a snorkel, mask and flippers and without using any conventional swimming strokes. Anyone over the age of 12 can have a go. It’s free to enter and swimming in fancy dress is optional but brilliant craic!

“However, there is a serious side as bogs are now some of the richest areas of natural vegetation remaining in Ireland. International Bog Day is a great way to highlight the plight of peat bogs – 96% of which have been destroyed since 1945, and what people can do to preserve them.”

The total course length for Men’s, Women’s and Relay heats is 120 yards. The Junior and Fun Run heats consist of just one length of the drain. There will be trophies for first, second and third in each race and everyone will receive a certificate with their times and positions. There will also be prizes for the fastest bog snorkeller, the best fancy dress and even the slowest snorkeller will win a trophy.

Entry packs are available from the Visitor’s Centre at Peatlands Park or by telephoning (028) 3885 1102. The closing date for entry is Friday 29 June.

For those who don’t fancy the idea of getting down and dirty in the bog there will be lots of fun activities happening during the event to keep the whole family entertained and train rides will be free on the day.

Find out more at www.discovernorthernireland.com/International-Bog-Day-and-NI-Bog-Snorkelling-Championships-Dungannon-P26087

Lifestyle

Home and Garden

Looking for...

Featured advertisers

Jobs

Search for a job

Motors

Search for a car

Make Model Price from Price to

Property

Search for a house

Buy Rent

Bedrooms Price from Price from Price to Price to

What is a Cookie?
What is a Flash Cookie?
Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?
About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.
This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.
Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.
The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:
- Revenue Science ►
  
  A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.
- Google Ads ►
  
  Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.
- Webtrends / Google Analytics ►
  
  This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.
- Dart for Publishers ►
  
  This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.
- ComScore ►
  
  ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.
- Local Targeting ►
  
  Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.
- Grapeshot ►
  
  We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.
- Subscriptions Online ►
  
  Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.
- Add This ►
  
  Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.
- 3rd Party Cookies ►
  
  We use Advertising agencies to provide us with some of the advertising on our websites. These include (but are not limited to) Specific Media, The Rubicon Project, AdJug, AdConion, Context Web. Please click on the provider name to visit their opt-out page.

Are you up to the challenge?

Top stories

Lifestyle

Home and Garden