Northern Rambler

 It was supposed to be the big cycling expedition. But alas, my schedule didn't allow me to get the proper training in beforehand. A few days before the trip was set to happen, I needed to face the hard fact that I just wasn't ready. Not only that, but in the two evenings prior to the trip, my schedule was packed. The cycling trip was meant to be on the friday. I was at work both wednesday and thursday, and my evenings were took up with a gym instructor course on the wednesday and donating platelets on thursday. I just wasn't going to get the chance to do the last minute work on my bike before going out.  The campsites had already been booked though, so rather than scrap the whole thing, I decided to go ahead with camping, but I'd hike instead of bike. But this meant some last minute route planning. In the end, this came fairly easy. I had been wanting to walk the Kentmere horseshoe for some time. I had set off to do it last year but the road leading up to Kentmere vill

I had a decent sleep the previous night. I was starving when I got back from the pub and knocked myself up a couple of burgers. I made short work of my beers and watched some nostalgia films on my i Phone as the snooker finished early. I watched the 1976 remake of King Kong starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. It's by no means a classic but I used to love it when I was younger. Back in 1998, when I was five, my Mam taped BBC's Monster Night special. It was a strange old affair. The show was presented by the comedian Bill Bailey, who was joined by Chris Moyles, Phil Jupitus and Paul Ross. In between their bits they showed films including the aforementioned King Kong and the 1991 Japanese film Godzilla vs King Ghidora. There were some strange segments like 90s comedy duo Lee and Herring's Reasonably Scary Monsters, a Goggle-box-esk programme within a programme. Lee and Herring watch Carol Vorderman present a programme in which she counts down the world's 9 scariest m

I've been looking forward to May for ages. This was the first of my two camping expeditions of the month. The second will be my cycle trip to the Lakes and the Yorkshire Dales. I haven't mentioned this much on this blog but I am a huge snooker fan. The pinnacle of the sport is the World Championships played over the course of two weeks from late April into early May, always finishing on the bank holiday Monday. The world's best players descend onto the city of Sheffield for a tournament held in the sport's spiritual home, the Crucible Theatre. With Sheffield being situated close to the Peak District, I thought this would be a great opportunity to combine my two passions and tick off some fells prior to going to the snooker.  I booked onto North Lees camp site, just over a mile from Hathersage. Prior to this trip, I'd only visited the Peak District the once. This was in 2020, the summer of Covid. I stayed in the quant old town of Bakewell. I didn't get much walki

The bike tour is now in the Calendar for late May. Training has been underway over the course of the last month or so. The longest day of the bike tour will be day 1 and will see me travel from my home in Langho to Kendal in Cumbria. The route was laid out in a previous post, though there will be some minor alterations to it. After some flip flopping, I ended up deciding on avoiding the Lake District National Park on day 1 and go straight to Kendal, which sits just to the east of the park boundary. The plan was then to cross the boundary on day 2 and head for Windermere. But I quite like the idea of travelling from home to the Lake District in a single ride. I will probably still camp at Kendal, but I will veer just over the park boundary on route. On day 1 I will be riding between 70 and 75 miles.  I've never ridden that distance before. The most I have done is around the 50 mark. The first time I did this was the summer of 2020 when the country was in lockdown and the bike provid

It's been a while since I last set out for a wild camp. Around six months ago, my friend Alex and I made our way to Buttermere for a wild camp on top of Grassmoor. This time round, our plan was to select a location which would allow us to tick off some Wainwrights on route. But we are also partial to a tarn camp. Alex asked me if there are any worth visiting that we hadn't already done. We have previously visited most of the major ones, like Red Tarn, Scales Tarn and Stickle Tarn. I did initially suggest Bowscale Tarn, but this wasn't ideal for Wainwright bagging. Alex then suggested that if we couldn't think of one, we could always do a trusty favourite like Red Tarn on Helvellyn. I looked at Red Tarn on the OS map, then glanced south, casting my eye on Grisedale Tarn, just south of Dollywagon Pike. Its location would allow us to tick off three new peaks, Nethermost Pike, Dollywagon and Seat Sandal. After looking up some images of the general surroundings, we settled o

It's been in the pipeline for some time now, but the 2024 cycle tour is on. The plan: a three day cycling trip taking in two national parks, two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and three counties. I'm starting from my home in Langho, a small village in the Ribble Valley. Day 1 will see me heading over the Cumbrian boarder up to Kendal. Day 2 will make a detour into the Lake District National Park to visit Windermere. Then I will head eastward into the Yorkshire Dales before setting up camp in Ingleton. On the third day, I make my way south through the Forest of Bowland AONB on route home. Below I have sketched my route out. It may change at some point, but not drastically. It is not easy reading. It wasn't written with aesthetic reasons in mind but purely for the practical purpose of formulating a decent cycle route; but it took me a while to plan so I thought I'd share it here.  Day 1: From Langho to Kendal Counties: Lancashire, Cumbria AONBs: Forest of Bowland, Ar