Silly Jumping Photos are Mandatory

So once again many months have past since my last blog post and i apologise to my 4 readers. Ive been on a few walks since my last posts, and today I’m going to tell you all about Sheffield Pike.

Now Sheffield pike (675m) is a rarely walked mountain that is overshadowed by its big neighbour Helvellyn (950m) which is the mountain that we turned up to climb in June this year. The whole point to climbing Helvellyn is to walk along a rather scary ridge called striding edge, but on the day of our walk the weather was miserable, cloudy and damp which means we wouldn’t get to enjoy the views and the insanity of walking along striding edge so we abandoned the plan and decided to have a go at Sheffield pike instead….

Map reading with mint cake!

We started the day in the best way possible, falling out of our tent in the campsite at Glenridding which myself Lou and Jamie had driven to the night before, and I cooked up bacon & eggs and enjoyed a hot cup of tea with Claire and her brother Mike. soon we where ready to head of on our walk and up Sheffield Pike.

As our route up the mountain started to get steep we stopped for our usual photo of us jumping in the air and then began to tackle the tough climb up the mountain side, the track was clearly not walked often and it was easy to meander off in the wrong direction, but after an hour of up hill walking and scrambling we made it to the plateau on top of Sheffield pike. By This time our visibility has reduced to about 2 meters as we walked through clouds trying to find the trig point, the highest spot on the Sheffield pike.

Top of the.... hill

After was seemed like an age of walking along the muddy track on top of Sheffield pike we found the trig point, got ourselves a group photo and hunkered down in a small stone shelter built by walkers to hide from the wind where we tucked into our sandwich’s and pasties. After a job well done we heading down the other side of the mountain, crossing a river and back to camp. the walk down was quite relaxed although Jamie nearly lost he shoe in some Rather squelchy bog-land.

We rounded the day off with a hearty meal in the local pub and a few well deserved pints, it was a good trip up to the lake district, even if we didn’t get to climb Helvellyn.

Big Thanks to Jamie for driving and Claire for organising the walk

River Crossing

Me & Jamie looking wet

Pretty View

Bacon & Eggs

So, last weekend we finally went to the Lake District to climb Scafell Pike; that’s right the highest mountain in England. This isn’t the first time we planned to do this, but this time we actually went! Myself , Lou, Jamie, Josh & Peter drove up from Stratford-upon-Avon and met up with Claire, Sim, Dan and Ros to camp at the Wasdale Head campsite in the shadow of Scafell itself.

We arrived late on friday night after a 5 hour drive (thanks for driving Jamie) fueled up on KFC and Burger King to find that Peter and Claire had put up my tent for me what was awesome! (they arrived much earlier) and we then spent what was left of the evening nattering.

The next day we woke early (some earlier than others) and I cooked up some bacon and eggs on my New Bulin T4 Stove (available from www.dingoesgoods.co.uk ) and packed for the day ahead.

Kendal Mint Cake Break

The sky was a crisp blue and the sun was beaming… now you would be forgiven for thinking that was a good thing but hillwalking in the hot sun is a nightmare and we where all suffering very early on in the walk due to the early morning heat. Thankfully a few hours later the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up making the day much cooler. Dipping of our heads in the cold mountain waterfalls also helped.

As the weather was so nice and the paths quite clear we had been quite relaxed about the navigation and safety of the team…. this was the big mistake of the day. Around 400m there was a fork in the path (in a area we had noted as a potential ‘getting lost’ point) and we made a right turn, but 2 of our team where taking photos and did not notice we had gone this way, with another large group of strangers turning the other way, Jamie and Josh finished snapping away and turned to see what looked like us on the left track an walked after the wrong group.

Craig & Claire on a mountain

2 minutes later, over a small crest, we had stopped, concerned they where not in sight behind us, we sent Peter back to look for them but alas they where nowhere in sight (even after his shouting). After half an hour we decided they must of carried on the other path (which did go to Scafell summit… eventually) and so we moved on (incidentally they did come back but we where long gone by then… bad us).

We took lunch perched on some rocks overlooking Great Gable and the valley below and then headed to the top of Scafell Pike. We reached the top quite soon after lunch, almost by surprise and to be honest I think we were all a bit underwhelmed with it all. A mass of boulders covers the top and and a mass of people stood upon them, all yapping away on there phones. Many of the surrounding peaks look much more inviting, but hey, we wanted to bag the highest mountain so I guess this is what you have to live with.

The highest point in England

The walk down was quite fun, we enjoyed watching the rock climbers scaling the cliffs of Broad Stand and then scrambled down the treacherous path down to the green valley we were camped in. It was at this point that we met up with Josh and Jamie who had been about half an hour behind us for much of the day.

We reached our tents 7 hours after we had left and feeling very tired. A pub dinner was our reward and we soon went to bed, exhausted after the days walking. It was a great walking trip and I’m looking forward to our next visit to the Lake District.

Love on the mountains

Back at the camp site

Scafell Walking Route

View Dingoes Mountains in a larger map

The Hamill Birthday Walkers

Back in February I visited the Peak District with a group of friends for the week (for my wonderful fiancee’s birthday) and we took to exploring this lovely national park on foot. Our first walk started at the village of Ipstone and took us on a 5 mile circular route through woodlands, along rivers & streams and along a nice stretch of the local canal.

The walk started of pleasantly, barring a few navigational errors brought about by my compass which had become faulty and was pointing south instead of north. The walk through the forest was fun and we squeezed all 10 of us on a little wooden bridge for a group photo before descending to the canal.

OH NO! The path is closed

While walking along the canal we where disappointed to come across a closure sign indicating we could proceed no further due to a ‘Dangerous Chimney’ and after a short discussion we decided ‘to hell with it’ and proceeded regardless; and with quite a bit of excitement regarding the danger we where to face.

The chimney was not the standard garden variety by any means’;, it was a huge industrial chimney which had once been part of a vast factory that had long been demolished, leaving this unstable towering brick monster. We quickly took a few photos and marched away to safety before anyone noticed us there and found ourselves back at our cars (and the pub) and headed home for some tasty food.

The scary chimney

we managed two more walks later that week which ill talk about in parts 2 and 3

Map of the walk

A mossy wall

Its been a fair few weeks since i did a section of the Cotswold way due to a variety of reasons, not leased that both peter and myself have spent some time on holiday but we finally got round to continuing our walk. The third section of our walk takes us from our last stop in winchcombe onwards to the outskirts of Cheltenham and a small reservoir at a place called Dowdeswell. we arrived at ‘the reservoir pub’ to leave a car and move back to winchcombe to start our journey and i must say winchcombe despite my first impressions is a very nice village indeed and i enjoyed the stroll through the quiet Sunday morning village center at the start of our walk. Today’s walk is the longest we have done so far at just shy of 12miles, and i was concerned that i would not enjoy much of it due to a very tiring week before but i was pleasantly surprised at home much i was enjoying the day, it was a brisk temperature not reaching above 6∘c but the sun did make it out in the afternoon.

Craig Crawling out of Belas Knap

The first interesting landmark we came across was a place called Belas Knap, which is a “neolithic long barrow” or a big stone mound with burial Chambers in it, we had a good laugh exploring the little recesses, 1 of witch was barely big enough to climb into as you can see from the picture. we soon pushed on from here as we had a long way still to go. the country side was very pleasant along the walk with some lovely woods to meander through, we soon found ourselves soon taking lunch on the banks of a disused quarry which is now mostly a golf course and as we made our way round the golf course we where treated to a magnificent view across the county, we could see for miles and miles across the plains of gloucestershire as far as the malvern hills and probably allot further on a clear day. walking along a golf course was a bit odd, the lovely views and easy paths where very welcome, but this ‘tidy countryside’ felt very fake and it was nice to move on to more traditional walking ground.

Lou & peter walking down to the reservoir

Our peaceful walk was abruptly interrupted when we came across a dirt bike field in the middle of our path and we had to walk amongst the scallys, chaves and neds racing around us, but they didn’t cause any issues. Soon after peter found a nice horse for us to touch, we always say ‘its not a proper walk unless you touch a random animal’ and before long we had reached the reservoir and set off home.

Finally i just wanted to make a quick mention of my new ‘platypus’ drinking kit, its a big water bag that you can drink from while you walk via a pipe. i was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to use and how much i liked it. i will defiantly be using it in the future

Craig looking at a sheep

After completing the first leg of the Cotswold way, the following weekend came upon us very quickly and we pushed ourselves into the second leg of this walk, fortunately the second section only demanded a 8 mile walk but with me nursing a mild cold even this would seem like a long way.

First thing on Sunday we where of to our start point of Stanton via our end point of Winchcombe, a place neither of us had visited before. To be honest Winchcombe was a bit shabby in comparison to the

lovely villages we had passed so far but still had some Cotswold charm. Back in Stanton we parked up, dawned our walking boots and headed out, we where still amazed with how beautiful Stanton was, all the village charm of Broadway without the tourists.

Stone Viewing Seat

For once we were not greeted with a hill to climb right from, the start, instead a gentle walk across the farmers fields slowly rising above the countryside with beautiful views across the plains, the Warwickshire and Worcestershire steam railway could be seen in the distance and the sound of the steam engine’s could be heard chutteing through the landscape.

On the journey we stumbled across a few interesting sights, peter continued his quest of trying to touch random animals, this time he got is hands on some pigs in a barn we passed, and we found a large stone pillar which seemed to be a single seat to admire the views, it was very odd sat out on its own on top of the hill side. we also stopped at Hailes Abbey, a 13th century Cistercian abbey. The abbey grounds are closed during the winter but a easy hop over the gate allowed us to walk around and enjoy our lunch in the ruins.

The whole walk seemed to pass very quickly this week, and without to much strain, i can only hope the future ones are as easy as this, we soon finished back in whinchcombe and head back to Stratford-upon-avon for a well earned curry.

The pig that peter touched

Stanton - Winchcombe

This, like most of my ideas is not the most thought out plan i could have, but as always all i need is a silly idea and I’m off (much like my canoeing aspirations) and the first step toward this goal is to improve my fitness and stamina for both long distance walking and carrying heavy weights. currently my exercise is fairly limited, 1hour of badminton a week, a 1-2 hour walk on a Sunday, and the exercise i pick up walking round work all day long.

The first step was to start longer walks on Sundays, so together with my girlfriend Lou and our walking buddy Peter, we set about looking for more serious walks to undertake, Peter, a welth of local knowledge immediately suggesting we undertake ‘the Cotswold’s way’ and before id even had chance to ask what this was it seemed we had decided to to do this and we where to meat in chipping Camden at 10am the next day.

The Cotswold’s Way is a 100mile walk from a small pretty Gloucestershire village called Chipping Camden to the roman city of Bath. and today we where attempting the first leg of this journey, to Stanton, this is only around 10 miles but as its the first day we didn’t want to push our selves to much.

The weather for the day was a crisp 1 degrees C and overcast but the weatherman had promised a dry day so after doing a little car shuttling we started off from chipping Camden at around 10.30am. the first 15 minutes of the walk involved a steep uphill climb which quickly had me gasping for air and over heating in my winter walking gear, a sharp awakening of how unfit i have really become, but we where quickly rewarded with fantastic views over the Warwickshire plains, and from this point the gradient leveled out for for the next few miles.

the first few miles where fairly uneventful although very enjoyable non the less until we arrived the Broadway tower, 18th century folly that stand out on the hills above the village of Broadway. Its a fantastic view point as well and somewhere we have been before, this arrival brings a spring in our step as we know its only a mile stumble down hill to Broadway and our stop for lunch.

Broadway is a lovely Cotswold village with plenty of quirky shops to visit, but we are on a tight schedule with it short days and cold nights we stop briefly for our packed lunch and move on in hope that next 4 miles of our walk move swiftly and we can get home be for the cold sets in. Just as with the morning start we immediately hit another hill climb, another stark reminder of our fitness levels and after we reach the peak of the hills i start for feel my energy take a turn for thr worse, there is still 2 miles to go and i start to question the wisdom on my silly challenges, but i plod along, draining my shiny new sigg of all its water and finally the path descends into a Valley, over a stream or two and we emerge into the village of Stanton and the car we had left for ourselves many hours before.

i must say the walk was very enjoyable and I’m really looking forward to the next leg of the journey, but i think I’m gonna need more than a few long walks to improve my outdoor stamina before i go off to Scotland

First stop... The TOP!

So i went walking in peak district back in september, it wasn’t my first visit to the Peaks, as i stayed there in the spring but on this trip we were heading to the roaches. The roaches are the only real ‘Peak’ in the peak district as the rest of the national park is mostly valleys and dales. We set out early on Saturday morning and arrived to meet our friends from north Wales and Manchester at 10.30. the weather was quite good in late September but we all packed our waterproofs for the inevitable rain that was due later in the day.

The walk we took was about 8 miles, and for the most part we stayed on the tracks, reaching the highest point of 505 meters quite soon and enjoying the views across the surrounding area. There are lots of rocky outcrops along here which are very popular with climbers, in fact there where people climbing everywhere, naturally this meant we had to as well and we stopped quite often to do some bouldering.

Lud's Church

After we reached the end of the roaches and took lunch and headed back along a more wooded walk, this passed through a place called Lud’s Church. Not actually a church as we found out but a fantastic deep chasm penetrating the Millstone Grit bedrock. This place was very cool and well worth the long walk here to walk through the chasm, a very spooky but exciting place to see.

On our return journey we took a unexpected detour off the well trodden path due to a map reading error and an overwhelming sense of adventure which took us down a very steep bank, over a rather perilous river (well not that perilous but we made a big deal about whether it could be crossed until i made a fantastic leap over to the other side) and then up an perilous hillside animal track.

After the steep assent from the valley floor we found ourselves back on much easier ground and the girls and boys split, we had seen a large bouldering rock perched on the hillside and couldn’t resist the challenge, the girls being less interested in the climbing decided to take a break and watch from afar.The rock in question was an excellent bouldering challenge and my friend Mark excelled us all by scaling both the back and much more difficult front side, with myself and Parker settling with lower back climb and standing with Triumph on our conquered rock.

The 'Not so' impassable river

The rest of the walk was much less eventful, and quite a bit more miserable as the promised rain made its appearance. We marched on back to the cars and headed off to our chosen campsite, setting up our mahoosive new tent went smoothly even in the wind and rain and off to the local pub we went for well deserved tea and plenty of cider

Mark on a tricky assent

Geocache Logo

Most weekends i go walking with my girlfriend and my friend Peter, we usually amble around the fields of south Warwickshire and the Cots-wolds, but last weekend we did something different… we went Geocaching!

So what is Geocashing?.. well i found out about Geocaching a few weeks back, don’t ask me how, i cant remember but i did and its basically a global treasure hunt where people have hidden boxes and tubs all over the place and posted the coordinates up on the geocache website so people with GPS devices can co and find them. inside the box’s is usually a logbook so you can write down when you found it and often some small treasure in the form of a keyring or a small kids toy. you can take anything you want from the box as long as you add something else of a similar value.

so i took a look on the website and discovered there a loads of these caches.. and mean thousands, I’m surrounded by them here in Stratford-Upon-Avon. but as we wanted a walk as well as a treasure hunt i found a trail somebody had made near Wellesbourne, by Charlecote park. the train involved 16 Geocache’s and there where another 2 odd ones along the way. So i downloaded the coordinates into to my Gamin Vista GPS (which to my surprise has a dedicated Geocache function) and made a note of the hints and off we went.

The walk was about 6 miles and took us around 3 hours with the stops to find the Geocache’s you can view the route we took.

wellesbourne geocache route

The first cache i could not find and was a bit gutted about but the second one was much easier and i spotted it before the others. i was jumping with joy at my first find and we gained a keyring of the globe and left behind an amusing badge for the next person. we carried on through the 18 caches on our route finding all but 3, and we all managed to spot them, despite my Peter stealing all the clues to try and find the goods first.

I’ve just logged into the website to comment on the caches i found and it was pleasing to see that some of the ones i did not find other have still managed to locate.

It was a very enjoyable day our and a nice change from our usual walks, tho it did take us longer to get around and took away from just enjoying the views and fresh air.

I think ill be doing lots more Geocaching in the future but still find time for simple relaxing walks as well.

so a few weeks ago i got the idea from my sister to buy a canoe… i have been thinking about getting out on the water for a while now and my girlfriend has always enjoyed kayaking so i felt i should try some water based sporty thing

i decided to get a canoe, it seems like a cool thing to do, i figured i could squeeze a tent in the back and maybe go on some kind of canoe weekend or something, anyway i had i an idea and that’s all i need to buy something silly!

i decided quite quickly that i could only really get an inflatable canoe, i don’t have much space to keep a canoe or a car to move it around (i have only got little Micra) so an inflatable canoe seemed best, i can keep it in my cellar and easily put in the boot to take out with me. after some searching on the Internet i first came across the Sevylor Canyon near the bottom of the price range and could provided a quick cheap start to my canoeing hobby, but after some research i found that it was prone to leaks! not a good sign so this was out of the running for me. After further searching and reviews i finally came to settle on the Sevylor Colorado, a more expensive but much better quality boat. ill be writing a full review on it soon, but for now you can read my review on the Review Center. I found the boat at a reduced price from gwdoling where i managed to purchase the Boat, a set of Sevylor collapsible awes/paddle and a foot pump.

My canoe arrived 2 days later and and i couldn’t be more excited, that weekend i took it down the river Avon (a 3 minute walk from my house) with my girlfriend Louise and our friend Peter. we pumped it up and quickly jumped in for a play. we had a good just paddling around the weir, trying it with 1 person kayak style or with two of us paddling. it was allot of fun even though we were not going anywhere.

To have a boat on the Avon river you need to have a licence from the Avon Navigation Trust which for a canoe is £2 a day or £20 for the year, but they wont give you one without having 3rd party insurance for your boat (its madness that i need insurance for an inflatable). i soon found out however that by joining the British Canoe Union for £30 a year i get both insurance for my boat and a licence that covers me for all British Waterways canals and navigation’s as well as many rivers including the Avon. this seems like a much better deal so i signed up and have my licence to canoe!

Ill be taking the Canoe on a longer stretch of the canal soon and let you know how i get on.

Happy Paddling