We're back from a few magnificent days based in Borrowdale. Three almost totally cloudless days, two great walks and one fellwalking newbie thrown in at the deep tall end. Top stuff!
Needless to say, there'll be words and pics to follow in good time.
Hope you're enjoying St. George's Day - we are, and so are my blog-stats, which are showing the annual huge visitor-spike due to that flag post.
Walking opportunities have been limited so far this year - indeed, I haven't had a day of proper fellwalking since December last year.
No matter, that's all about to change... we're off to stay in Borrowdale for a few nights. Nothing too strenuous, though, as four of our party of eight are kids, and one of them is a complete newbie to this sort of thing.
It looks like we'll be lucky with the weather - the MWIS Planning Outlook this morning says "High pressure will dominate the weather, bringing extensive fine warm weather on the run up to and over Easter..."
So, in theory, there'll be no more of this:
For the others, packing for this outing continues apace. My stuff is ready to go, all I have to do now is sell a kidney so as to be able to afford petrol for the journey.
See you later!
Last week was half-term here. The kids were reluctant to go out, but we persisted in our efforts to drag them with us.
Beacon Hill Country Park was the venue for Thursday's walk. It's an interesting place - at 245m (802 feet) Beacon Hill is the second highest point in Leicestershire and the site of a Bronze Age hill fort. The walk up from the Lower Car Park is through pleasant wooded areas with good access, and there are many opportunities for geologising. Add in a few wonky trees, some interesting fungi and some weird moss, and it's a good day out.
As you will see from some of the pics, the kids didn't enjoy it at all...
Cones
Catkins
Through the woods
Searching for sticks
Bracket fungi
Mushrooms?
The Den
Bracket #1
Bracket #2
The Old Man
Rocks near the summit
The Old Man again
Layers
Rockhoppers
Chris at the trig point
More layers
Chris on the rocks
Anna and the little people
Dip and strike
Panorama - full view
Panorama in a scrolly-thing
Anna #1
Anna #2
Ella
Anna #3
3 of a kind
One up, two down
Bedding planes #1
Bedding planes #2
Toposcopy
The Great Unwashed... washed!
Stone Angels
On edge #1
On edge #2
Bedrock
A herd of moss
Wonky trees #1
Wonky trees #2
Wonky trees #3
Holey tree
Fungi?
Another bracket
Not a bad day out, I reckon we'll be going there again.
Note to self: next time you're out with the camera, remember to clean the lens before taking 150+ pics.
😥
Expect a report on yesterday's outing sometime after I've worn out Photoshop's clone tool. Don't hold your breath - I may be some time.
Chris took yesterday off work so we went out for a Valentine's Day walk at Bradgate Park. Despite the cool breeze and the cloudy weather it was good to get a few hours out together without the kids.
Old John and the War Memorial
Old John and the War Memorial again
Holed tree
Stags
Stream
The Bennion Memorial Plaque
Chris heading back towards the car
Gnarled
Deer
The War Memorial
Being watched
Old John
... the one with the wa-ger-ly trail?
Come on, sing along, you all know the tune...
... but what about the numbers?
The path to High Street
I've been doing some rough sums, trying to work out how much the quest to do the 214 has cost so far and how much more it'll cost me to finish them during the next 18 months (I aim to get them all done before I turn 50)...
The total so far is 192 but the actual count is 200, as some tops have been revisited.
Of these 200:
For this costing, I've made the following assumptions:
So...
Tot up that lot and it comes to £3945.88 which works out at an average of about £19.73 for each of the 200 times I've topped-out.
Mickleden and Great Langdale
So, what of the other 22 Wainwrights that I've yet to knock off the list?
I've looked at the map and I reckon that at the very least I'm looking at 4 YHA visits (a total of 9 nights), 2 wildcamping weekends and 2 mildcamping weekends. For this costing, I've made the following assumptions:
So...
Tot up that lot and it comes to £636.44 which works out at an average of about £28.93 for each of the 22 tops still to do.
OK, so it's gone up a lot, but I reckon it's not too much to pay for being in places like this:
Angle Tarn
I trust that somebody out there will check my maths 😉
