I recently heard about the concept of “microadventures” – adventures that lead to you to discover something new, no more than one hour from your city. I love this concept since it’s what I do with so many of my weekends when I can’t travel further afield.
For me, these microadventures fill in the gaps between annual leave and are what keep me motivated and enthused; they are the antidote to spending the majority of the week at a desk behind a computer screen.
Last weekend, between rain, snow and sunshine, I headed out for a new kind of adventure: geocaching in the Yorkshire Wolds.
If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s most easily described as a high tech treasure hunt and most easily undertaken using the Geocaching app. You download the app (there’s both a paid and a free version – the free version has plenty on it to get you started), register an account, choose a team name, and begin pinpointing “caches” near you.
There are geocaches and geocaching trails all over the world but for my first adventure, I stuck relatively close to home and made the one hour journey to the East Riding of Yorkshire and Market Weighton.
Caches – or “treasure” – can come in all shapes and sizes. Once you’ve located one, you’ll find a log book for you to log your find by jotting down your team name and the date (they don’t always have a pen inside so I was glad I took one along). They will also contain anything that has been left behind by previous teams.
The idea is that teams take something and leave something for someone else to find. I took along a handful of keyrings from my childhood collection – rather than being sad at letting them go, it seemed like a fitting way to pass them on. To be honest though, we didn’t find anything remotely worth taking with us out of the caches.
Beginning in Market Weighton, there’s a circular trail along the Yorkshire Wolds Way that runs to Goodmanham and back, with five caches to find along the way. The walk follows an old railway line for much of the way, before dipping into a quarry and along a lane, onwards to the quirky Goodmanham Arms where you can take a well-deserved break – or escape the snow and warm up with some mulled wine, as we did.
I’d hate to give any more away than that but if you’re interested in having a go for yourself then National Trails have more information on geocaching in the Yorkshire Wolds and, of course, the app can show caches near to you.
In thinking about microadventures and the ability to hop on out of the urban confines of the city at a moment’s notice, I have recently solved an age-old problem – how to go hiking without hiking trousers.
I adore getting out into the great outdoors, but if there’s one thing I don’t love it’s dressing for the occasion. My boyfriend Pete and I both see hiking trousers are somewhat of a necessary evil – they make so much sense in any weather so we both wear them for hiking but find them so ugly! What do you think?
I nearly jumped for joy then when I learned there was such a thing as rain ready jeans that honestly look and feel exactly like, well, regular jeans but don’t get soaked through. Though I had my fingers and toes crossed all of last week that come weekend the weather would have picked up, part of me was at least a teeny bit pleased that we had some snow so I could test my new pair out (while a bigger part of me was still grateful for the sunshine that punctuated the day). In the end, given the weather, it was as much a relief as anything that they did work exactly as they should.
The idea of a pair of jeans that can do the same thing as hiking trousers is a real revelation…so much so, that Pete bought himself a pair of rain ready jeans pretty much as soon as I told him they existed and had worn them several times before I even got chance to wear mine!
If you’re looking for more inspiration to explore Yorkshire, I have a very exciting project coming up with some of my favorite Yorkshire bloggers – you can get a sneak preview here! You can also sign up to our Yorkshire Bloggers newsletter if you’d like to hear more.
What’s your next microadventure going to be?
Wrangler kindly sent me a pair of rain ready jeans to wear on my next adventure, all thoughts, ideas, photos, etc. are my own. Pete had to buy his own – and they’re so good that he did!
