You know me; I like to walk. As much as I also enjoy writing, I’ve found it hard to keep you up to date with my walks of the past fortnight, because there have been three of them! This post is going to briefly summarise two of them, because you’ve (hopefully) seen much of each route before the third walk, being a new one to me, is going to require more effort and dedication before you see it published.
No, that is not a selfie!
So, starting off one day before my 29th birthday; I took a routine climb up to Crook Peak, two-months ahead of the 30-mile Mendip Challenge.
Brent Knoll Hill from the top of Crook Peak.
This walk, following a route I devised last summer, offers a reasonable workout for a Sunday morning with its regular climbs and, for all your graft, you’re rewarded with stunning views across the county Somerset.
Gazing across Wavering Down.
While I’ve been venturing out to explore new lands for the majority of this year so far, this particular walk was welcome as a fuel-saving, close-to-home comfort that wouldn’t otherwise leave me feeling guilty for ‘having not walked far enough’ on a particular Sunday.
But there was another ambition, here… Armed with a brand-new camera, I decided to make this my first “video walk” (another excuse for the lack of fresh photos). At some point, it will be uploaded to YouTube. I haven’t settled on exactly how I’m going to do it and I’ll be looking for all feedback afterwards. All I can tell you for now is that I exhausted both of my rechargeable batteries and, towards the very end of the walk, I captured one seen that, well, I’m very tempted to share with you now… But I’m so chuffed with how it came out. ;-)
I then completed a walk on the Tuesday before returning to the walk-leading experience for the first time on the Sunday just behind us.
That was the walk to Priston, which I’d already crossed on two occasions since September – see, like Crook Peak, it is an obvious favorite of mine!
Having already seen this route in late summer and then the waterlogged winter of a very early 2014, the sight of all that is bright and yellow and light in springtime inspired me to get my camera out.
New arrivals for the spring.
A band of 6 merry followers arrived on time, in spite of the darkness looming overhead. If I’m honest, I’d wanted to stay in bed that morning – although, that has as much to do with post-birthday celebrations, Asian food and a very good film from the night before!
I’ve been told I walk fast but I really wouldn’t know how to slow down.
We stopped outside a convenient pub on the halfway point, all in the name of lunch. Much to everyone’s delight I whipped out my ‘spare’ chocolate cake (a gift; not one I had secretly baked) and shared it out equally. Even though I could sight my birthday as an appropriate occasion here, there’s a risk that I may have set myself up to provide baked goods with every walk I lead from now on…
We made it to the end without anything more than a minor rain drop falling from the sky. What’s more, I think the walk was completed in about 3 hours – which, for a group of 7 people covering 6.5 miles and including a 30 minute lunch stop… To me, that’s very good going.
It was good to get my first walk of 2014 under my belt and I’m now looking forward to next month and my second lead-walk of the year. All I ask is that the weather is somewhat better than the conditions suffered during the pre-walk!!
They’re running scared! Are we bypassing the Apocowlypse?!
Thanks for reading.
