My first walking holiday

In 1998 I decided that for the first time I would go walking somewhere during my summer holiday and since I was already familiar with the Peak District I thought that was a good place to start. Less than a week before the holiday, however, I still hadn’t booked any of the hostels I would be staying in. I had only just joined the YHA and I didn’t realise that this would be a problem. When I finally got round to phoning the hostels I discovered to my surprise that a lot of them did not have any spaces because of school trips. I did manage to book four hostels for the first week starting on the Tuesday and two more for the week after so I began to devise my schedule around these arrangements, which is often the situation with hostels that force me to work around whatever hostels I can get into regardless of my original idea. These days I try to book the hostels as early as possible. I already have a good idea what I want to do next Easter so I want to start booking these hostels before too long, even though this is a lot earlier than I would normally book hostels – it’s normally no more than three months before.

I was also thinking of the things that I would need to take with me while walking. I knew I would need to take some sort of first-aid kit, but at first this was only some plasters and antiseptic cream which sufficed for my early walks until I went to the Lake District for the first time in 2002 when I remember having my small Lifesystems Pocket First Aid kit with me on that trip. That small pouch has been up every mountain with me ever since and has come in handy on a couple of occasions not least last year on the Isle of Skye when I cut my leg open on the Cuillin. I also thought it would be a good idea to get at least one pair of good track suit bottoms because I had been advised not to wear jeans for the Residential I went on the previous year as they can be a little restricting (although I usually bought loose jeans that were not too restricting). In the event it took me two years to get around to buying any and all my intervening walks were undertaken wearing jeans. Incidentally I still wear track-suit bottoms when walking and have still not graduated to purpose built trousers.

Onto the walks and I actually wrote reports of these first adventures having been a habitual writer of a diary so it seemed natural for me to write a report of my walks. In fact I had already got into the habit of writing a detailed report of all my summer holidays, but unfortunately this was not extended to any other outings I went on so my diary will not always be a ready source for any more of these nostalgic walks in future.

Five Dales

Tuesday 7th July 1998

I was in Ravenstor Youth Hostel after a magnificent day spent walking in the Peak District. I had set off from home first thing in the morning and drove up to Miller's Dale, although maybe not on the route I had intended, but I got there in the end. Starting from the Miller’s Dale Station car park I walked along Miller's Dale to Water-Cum-Jolly Dale, and then through Cressbrook Dale to Litton and on to Tideswell, where I had something to eat, returning via Monk's Dale back to the car. Monk's Dale was a little hard going underfoot, but I made it through and the weather was magnificent. I did the whole 10 mile walk in 4 hours.

 

When I arrived at the hostel, after booking in and at the Warden's suggestion, I took a walk before dinner and got lost! Well, not really, because if you looked at the route I took on a map you'd think it was planned. I walked past Litton Mill to Litton and across to Tideswell returning along Tideswell Dale and back to the hostel, so was a nice little walk. During dinner I sat with two ladies who were doing the "White Peak Way" and we were able to have a nice conversation about walking. They were astonished that I seemed to be starting my very first walk with ten miles around Miller’s Dale. As I pointed out to the ladies I have been walking of sorts for years. This was certainly not my first time in Miller’s Dale. During the evening I read Terry Pratchett's "Sourcerer" while trying to ignore the masses of children running around the hostel, which I feared I would probably have more of at the next hostel. This was a great walk that threw me in at the deep end on my walking career by starting in the fabulous valley of Miller’s Dale which I’d visited many times as a child (and a few times since this walk). I remember getting a little lost while trying to find my way into Cressbrook Dale, but aside from that the route was quite easy to follow.

Wolfscote and Beresford Dales

Wednesday 8th July 1998

Another day and things have taken a down-turn. The walk was fine, but I had a little difficulty finding Hartington (well it’s not possible to read a map and drive at the same time, so what can you expect?). I walked south from Hartington eventually reaching Alstonefield where I had my lunch. There I changed my plans and walked down a narrow lane into Milldale, which is the overcrowded tourist-filled northern end of Dovedale. Quickly moving away from the crowds I walked north into Wolfscote Dale. I remember a Church walk that passed through that valley a couple of years ago that went from Hartington to Wolfscote Dale through Biggin Dale. The last section of my walk now took me through Wolfscote Dale into Beresford Dale so it was a repeat of that earlier visit but it was still a glorious experience in the warm sunshine. Back in Hartington, after a rest, I went to the schools-infested Hartington Youth Hostel and I was not impressed. Ravenstor is a much more impressive hostel with better facilities. Although the room I was in had the same number of beds as in Ravenstor, it was half the size, so there’s no room to swing anything! The new "Dish of the Day" meals service, which provides a more restaurant-like service, may have given me more food, but it also gave me higher prices (and the attractive girls at the tills didn't know how to work everything yet!). During the evening I read and finished the F1 Racing and Autosport mags, except for the Silverstone supplements. My biggest source of problems however were not with the hostel: I had blisters. My feet were just not used to the treatment I was putting them through, but that’s just tough! I’m walking along Lathkill Dale tomorrow.

The second walk of my holiday was rather a mixture with some rather dull walking across fields on the first half and then much better walking beside the River Dove on the return in, as I recall warm, sunny weather. Unfortunately I also remember the problems I had with the cheap boots that I’d bought especially for this walk. These boots continued to cause me problems even after they were broken in and were soon replaced by a much better pair. More from this holiday next week.

University walks

During this summer I have not been doing any major walks, preferring instead to wait until the weather cools off later in the month before venturing out onto mountains. I have, though, still been doing some walks locally. A couple of weeks ago I repeated the Charnwood Forest Round that I had completed last Christmas, just in better weather this time. It was just as tiring as previously and even left me aching for days afterwards which rather surprised me as although it was 24 miles there were no major hills to climb (the highest being Bardon Hill, the highest in Leicestershire at 278m), so it shouldn’t have been too difficult for me. In fact most of the walks I was doing on a Saturday afternoon were around the Charnwood area. Despite the lack of mountains it’s becoming a real favourite of mine as I hunt around for the small traces of volcanic rock that in the whole of Leicestershire exist only in that area. Last Saturday I walked from the village of Woodhouse Eaves to the Outwoods (a recently discovered gem), and from there along a permissive path into the wonderful Wood Brook valley. Climbing out of the valley through more woodland I reached the top of Beacon Hill before descending back into Woodhouse Eaves. It was a wonderful walk through quite charming surroundings, but it only lasted a couple of hours so is not really worth detailing on these pages.

Over the winter I began a short-lived series about some of my earliest walking experiences. I mentioned that while I was at University I went for a walk in Edale but I didn’t go on my own or join a walking club from the University, instead I went walking with my father. Less than two months after our first successful walk we were back again to attempt the fifth walk in the pamphlet that I’d bought (8 Walks Around Edale – probably still available from Edale Information Centre). This was a seven mile walk described as “Dramatic and extensive views from this famous ridge make the climb worthwhile.” The walk climbed the hillside along the Chapel Gate track up to the Bronze Age burial mound on Lord’s Seat. The weather was really hot so once we reached the summit I took my shirt off and learnt an important lesson: Wear Sun Cream. Even though I described the walk as “brilliant” in my diary I also note that the back of my neck was “very sore” and “my arms also look a bit red as does my shoulders and chest.” Despite catching the sun I concluded by saying “I must do it again.”

A couple of weeks later I went on holiday with some friends to the seaside near Weymouth. I didn’t really enjoy the week as what my friends liked to do didn’t really interest me, so to occupy my time while they were off elsewhere I started going for walks along the beach, first in one direction and then in the other. A couple of days later I went for another walk to the local White Horse, a pile of rocks on the hillside arranged in the shape of a white horse. The rest of my time was spent reading; it’s a pity I didn’t do more walks, or maybe actually spent some time socialising with my friends! Still, this shows that even at this time with very little walking experience behind me my inclination on holiday was to go walking.

The following year I was back in Edale with my father doing the sixth walk from my pamphlet, which is described as “A fairly strenuous ridge and valley walk with panoramic views of the Edale and Hope Valleys.” This was an 8½ mile walk along the Great Ridge to Lose Hill and down into the valley returning below the southern cloughs of Kinder Scout. My diary says “It was a very nice walk, very sunny and very pleasant. I have caught the sun just under my eyes – it’s interesting what standing in the sun can do – give you skin cancer!” I remember this as being a really enjoyable walk so it remains a mystery why this was the last walk I did with my father in Edale. Instead a couple of months later we took a train to Ribblehead in the Yorkshire Dales. I remember during an earlier visit to Ribblehead walking up to a stone air-shaft from the railway tunnel through Bleamoor. It was a bit of a climb to get to the top and I was rather proud of climbing all the way up there, but it was only 1500 feet, which is astonishing now when I think about it. I have pin-pointed this earlier visit to my last ever holiday with my parents with my diary describing the walk thus: “We went on a walk around the Yorkshire Dales near the railway line to the tunnel mouth to Bleamoor Tunnel. The scene of the viaduct was awe-inspiring.” The weather on my later visit was so poor that we didn’t get any further than the viaduct before returning to the station and catching the train back to Sheffield.

In my final year at University I didn’t do any walking at all as I was revising so much for my exams (much good it did me!). Even though my exams were over by the end of May I still never went out for a walk and instead I spent most of my time on computers (no change there!). In fact I can think of no serious walking that I did for the next four years, which really astonishes me. What was wrong with me? What was I doing instead? Not much from what I recall. Then in the autumn of 1997 I went on a residential in North Wales as part of a Supervisory Management course (again that didn’t really help me). A large part of the weekend was spent in team-building exercises and one of the tasks was to be driven somewhere and be expected to find our way back to the centre. As we were given a map and directions this was easy and I found myself actually leading the team for this exercise as I had already shown good map-reading skills (where I got them from I don’t know – I was never in the Scouts!). I remember during the course of the walk gazing at the night’s sky and the brilliant North Wales scenery and thinking I was loving this. I described the evening like this in my diary:

“After a truly gruesome dinner, we split up into our teams and my team was taken to Croesor. We were given a map and directions and told to find our way back to Aberglaslyn. So with me holding the map (the leader!) we walked back. This was very enjoyable (sic) and we all had a very good time; most of the team commented that the walk was one of the highlights of the weekend, but wished it was more difficult with less road walking. I enjoyed it immensely and made me wish I did more country walking.” Why hadn’t I already been going walking? I couldn’t answer this question but I knew then what I would be doing the following the summer, and I have been doing it ever since.