The Peak District: 25th - 27th January 2008 by Vince
We set off a little later than normal as had to wait for a few people, but once on our way we made good progress on our short trip down to the Peak District. The high winds made for some interesting driving, especially when we got moved by the wind from one lane to another!! We arrived at the bunkhouse eventually, after following a rather bizarre route, thanks tom-tom!! We all settled down at the bunkhouse and much drinking followed!
Saturday - Easy/Medium/Hard Walk
We decided only to have one walk as the group was quite small. So we set off from the bunkhouse under the leadership of Lynne and Steesh. Only a few minutes later we found out we had taken a wrong turn (only 5 minutes into the walk!). So we did a bit of back navigation and had a nice little word with a farmer, who allowed us to cut across his land. We eventually made it up onto the correct path and were soon up onto the surrounding moorland, where we hit the wind!!
We trekked over some rather wet and muddy moorland and dropped down into the valley bottom. We decided to make the walk a little longer as we had covered a 1/3 of the walk in an hour! So we headed off around a large reservoir and through several woods. We stopped for lunch at the head of the reservoir. After lunch Steesh tried to convince us we had gone the wrong way but we soon saw straight through it and we began an ascent up onto the moorland again. We once again met the very strong wind! But due to this we could see for miles and the fantastic landscapes that lay before us! We reached the summit of the peak which we had been climbing up and with the delight of many saw our final destination, the pub!!
We trotted off, with much enthusiasm and soon reached the pub, which was filled with lots of bikers. A small group decided to head straight back to the bunkhouse and pick the vans up. We all made it back to the bunkhouse in one piece but all rather shattered from a good days walking. Everyone tucked into their dinner, which had been fanatically been prepared by James Paul and his team (thanks guys!). After dinner Ben had a special treat for us: Robin Hood! So those interested watched this on the huge projector screen and ate lots of popcorn. Those not so interested decided to have a rather noisy game of monopoly and later watched dumbo!! Much drinking followed and some stayed up till the early hours!
Sunday
Medium Walk
Only a small few decided to come on the medium walk on the Sunday, mainly due to the heavy drinking the night before. But off we set from the bunkhouse, into the wind again. We were soon trekking through some nice boggy moorland and up onto the tops! As there was only a small few we made the walk up as we went along really. But this made for a very enjoyable and interesting walk, led by Lynne (thanks again!).
We soon dropped down into the valley and crossed across much farmland, until we reached an extreme steep (an slippy!) decent down to the river. We stopped for lunch on a very sweet looking bridge, where we encountered several guys who had been trail biking! After a short paddle in the river we set off following the valley and through some very muddy terrain! We crossed over another small bridge and had a very unsuccessful game of poo sticks (since when did sticks float up-stream or sink??!). We followed a farm track up back onto the moorland and were soon insight of the bunkhouse. We packed all our things into the vans and set off back to Leeds, without a map! Some interested driving followed, but eventually made it back to Leeds.
Only a small handful made it to the post trip curry, but it was a very enjoyable evening. A small problem occurred in that we had taken Leeds Uni walking club’s table, but we got there first so after many evil eyes from the Leeds Uni lot, we soon tucked into our curries, leaving them to wait an hour for another table. Such is life!
If anyone from the hard walk would like to tell us about their blustery trip up Kinder Scout, please send your story in! |
