Two Falls and a Submission

A wrestling analogy seems appropriate to describe how many of us have battled our way through 2016 - but for us "two falls and a submission" is particularly apt.  As a kid I remember watching Dickie Davies on World of Sport on Saturday afternoons at my grandparents, with Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks going several rounds with each other. They'd take it in turns to leap off the ropes in what I am sure were carefully choreographed manoevers, to pin each other to the floor -banging out the count with their hands.  2016 has been a lot like, but without all the rehearsals and giant spandex wrestling suits.

The two falls were mine - in May I knocked myself senseless when I tripped running through Bowness for a ferry.  The docs told me it would take 12 - 18 months to recover, but I persevered and was making good progress, so celebrated by hurling myself off a footpath along the Eden Valley in October - a smaller concussion this time, but with 3 staples added to the mix.

Steve, on the other hand, is resisting being beaten into submission by a persistent, but as yet un-diagnosed, knee condition, which has resulted in him being on crutches since late August.  Not that this has stopped him completing all the photography for two books, planning the pics for a third and hiking up Loughrigg on a frozen November morning.  Or break-dancing on Grange prom...

You may think that grounding the two people behind a hiking a travel blog would slow things down somewhat, but it's going to take more than that to stop us - plus we still managed to do a whole bunch of cool stuff in 2016.  We've both chosen out top 5 stand out moments of the year to revisit and inspire us to keep battling on - you know, just in case 2017 is getting any ideas or anything...

Beth's Top 5 for 2016

1.  High Cup Nick

We'd been meaning to do this walk for a couple of years but I finally got around to it in September and it easily went straight into my top 10 fabulous walks list.  Mainly because it's a cracking hike, but also because my background is in geology and the rocks are superb.  Of course it didn't hurt that I also discovered some of the finest sloes in Cumbria on the walk which  were swiftly turned into several litres of sloe gin to keep us warm during the long cold winter months.  Where is this amazing crop?  It's...erm...well...it's...sorry - could you repeat the question?

2.  Cream tea on Harter Fell

We had SUCH a lot of fun with this one!  I absolutely love Harter Fell and the views along Haweswater so the idea of having a full cream tea on the top of a fell really appealed.  It's not something I'd try on a trickier fell in unpredictable weather but it was a perfect spring day and we had a ball.  We got a few odd/ envious looks, but I wasn't sharing my clotted cream with anyone!

3.  Craigievar Castle

This was love at first sight. No - this was love before first sight.  I'd seen the photos in the National Trust for Scotland booklet and knew I had to see it for real.  It's not easy to get to, even if you happen to be lurking around the Aberdeen area, but it's well worth the effort.  The only access to the inside is by guided tour, but this was utterly fascinating and the views of the castle, and from the castle, were absolutely breathtaking.

4.  Cheltenham Literary Festival

I'm addicted to both the outdoors and reading so a book festival with an outdoors theme was always going to be a winner.  I saw some great speakers but none of them more "outdoors" than Major Tom himself, Commander Chris Hadfield.  The way he speaks about seeing the planet from space and the need to care for it is truly inspirational and I was absolutely honoured to have the chance to meet him afterwards.  He also inspired my favourite blog of the year, all about why we need to send poets into space...

5.  Bum Cloud over Walney Island

Yes it's silly, but memories should make you smile - and this photo always does that.  We spent the first 6 months of the year producing a series of walks for Cumbria Wildlife Trust and, on this particular day, had had a wonderful time exploring Walney Island.  This photo was taken towards the end of the day when a giant bum shaped cloud appeared perfectly reflected in a small lake, causing us both to dissolve into a fit of giggles.  As the title of the Good Life Christmas Special says (essential viewing this time of year) "Silly, but it's fun"

Steve's Top 5 for 2016

1.  Wetherlam in the snow

One of the best things about being 6ft 4ins is that I don't sink quite as deep into the snow as Beth does - plus she generally tries to tear off ahead so she makes a useful depth gauge. This was a long and challenging walk and the snow was pretty deep in places, but Wetherlam isn't too tricky a fell and we both got home in one piece - Beth's bum was colder than mine though...

2. Zipworld Caverns Blaenau Ffestiniog

We'd done plenty of zipwires and high ropes courses in the past but nothing had quite prepared us for this - clambering around in a cavern deep underground.  Although we knew everything *must* be pretty tightly screwed into the walls, when you're dangling 100ft or so above the cave floor you do feel the need to double check.  Of course, I wasn't scared at all and didn't scream like a girl at any point.  Not even once. Honest...

3.  Snowdon

Technically this was my second time on the top of Snowdon but, as my first ascent was at the age of 4 months in a pram on the train, I'm not going to count it.  This time I went up on foot via the Rhyd Ddu route and despite it being early May, it was another snowy extravaganza.  Along the summit ridge the paths were solid ice, but that didn't stop several hundred other people also attempting the route.  Has to be the busiest summit we've ever been on, but a really interesting mountain.

4.  Kendal Mountain Festival - Ullswater Screening

Throughout the year there are Kendal Mountain Festival events and this summer we spent a lovely afternoon and evening on the banks of Ullswater watching a series of excellent films.  The whole evening was very civilised with picnic hampers and Prosecco as far as the eye could see.  As well as the great films we were also introduced to the songs that became the soundtack to the rest of the year, especially during our extended tour of Scotland - Christine & the Queens and First Aid Kit.  Just humming a few bars and I'm back there again now...

5.  High jinks in a Hilux

I really didn't expect this to be quite as much fun as it was.  I also planned to share more of the driving with Beth but that didn't really happen either.  When Vantage Motors asked us if we'd like to play with it for the weekend I'm not sure they expected it to come back with quite as many miles on the clock as it did - we even managed another cream tea, this time in the back of the Hilux on Walna Scar car park.  It persuaded  us to trade our battered old Freelander in for a rather nice (used) Toyota Rav 4 which will no doubt be popping up in blogs throughout 2017...

We're both now hoping that 2017 will turn out to be a little less painful than 2016 but, whatever happens, we'll still be out there finding fun things to do.

We sincerely hope you all have a very Merry Christmas full of family fun an adventurous New Year full of exciting new challenges!

Grown up is overrated

Zipworld Treetop Nets are the perfect antidote to being an adult.  A blissful escape from the world of bills, responsibilities and deadlines - an opportunity to go back to being a kid again and having a spot of pure, un-ADULT-erated fun!

We're no strangers to the Zipworld experiences and although the blurb makes this sound like a bit of a scary adventure - "more than 60 foot above the forest floor" - it's actually enormous fun.

There are no harnesses or hard hats and no shimmying up big ladders to get to the adventure.  There's a full safety briefing before you head off and the trampoline walkway begins on the forest floor leading you gently up and along to the first platforms.

We were in a mixed group with ages (based on pure guesswork) ranging from around 5 to over 60 and we all had an enormous amount of fun.  There's a separate smaller net reserved for kids under 7 but the rest of the nets are open to all.  Within 2 minutes of being up there any notion of being reserved and sensible had gone out of the window and we were bouncing up and down and shouting and laughing louder than the kids.

Obviously the kids had way more energy, but we grown ups soon had it sussed - if we sat down on the nets the bouncing kids gave us a free ride, propelling us up and down as they tore around.

Groups are identified by coloured wristbands and each groups gets 1 hour on the nets - which is more than enough for my aching adult body, though my inner child could have stayed up there a LOT longer.

Preparing to release my inner child

As this was the launch evening there was entertainment laid on in the form of Mike Peters who, as well as fronting the ever popular band The Alarm, has also been battling cancer for many years.  He co-founded the charity the Love Hope Strength Foundation which promotes innovative, music related, outreach and awareness programmes for leukemia and cancer suffers, survivors and their families.  

Reining my inner child in temporarily I chatted to a number of local B&B owners about the impact of the Zipworld attractions on their businesses and they were all 100% positive.  There are three Zipworld sites across North Wales (Bethesda, Blaenau Ffestiniog and Betws-y-Coed) each of them offering a different range of activities - some family friendly and some designed to scare the bejeebers out of you, so there's pretty much something for everyone (even if you just want to sit down with a cup of coffee and a cake while the others go off tearing around!)

Every year these attractions draw in large numbers of visitors - visitors who need somewhere to stay, something to eat and other things to do while they're there, all of which add valuable money to the local economy and living in Cumbria we completely understand how vital visitors are to our local economy.

Anyway, enough of all this grown up talk - I'll leave you with a selection of photos and videos that go some way to showing what a fantastic experience the Treetop Nets are.  Time to step away from the spreadsheet and let your inner child out for a breath of fresh air.

Wild in Wales Part 2 - Zippy & Bungle

We are no strangers to zipwire/ high ropes adventures.  We've scared ourselves witless at Calvert Trust in Kielder on their high ropes course, we've tackled the 7 huge zipwires of Go Ape in Grizedale and we've zoomed high across the Eden Project in Cornwall - so I'll admit I was a little blase about scrambling through a few caverns and whizzing across a the zipwires that Zipworld had to offer at their Cavern Adventure in Blaenau Ffestiniog.  That'll teach me.  I can honestly say I haven't had such a brilliantly fun and, at the same time, utterly terrifying adventure for a long time.  "Do something that scares you at least once each day" they say - well I'm good for a week or more now.  (For the record, based on today's performance, Steve's Zippy and I'm most definitely Bungle...)

Criccieth Beach & Castle

We're still camped at the lovely Camping and Caravanning Club Site at Llanystumdwy - it's a small site alongside the A497 near Criccieth with excellent facilities and is the perfect base for exploring the Lleyn Peninsula and Snowdonia.

Zipworld have a number of adventures to choose from, there's the terrifying Velocity zipwire in Bethesda - the longest zipwire in Europe & the fastest in the world (suitable for adrenaline junkies) and the Treetop Nets adventure (suitable for all the family) amongst many others.  Given that the weather was somewhat changeable we opted for the Caverns Adventure - an all weather adventure deep below the ground - what could possibly go wrong?

As instructed we arrived 30 mins before our launch time to sign the obligatory disclaimer and get fitted out with the usual harness etc.  I first became concerned when they said there was a 1 hour training session before we were allowed out on the course - 1 hour?  How scary is this exactly?  I soon found out....

The photo above is of the cavern where the adventure begins.  No photos would do it justice.  Once your comprehensive training is done you're let loose on the course which involves creeping across walls 50 feet plus above the floor of the cavern, zooming along zipwires that zig zag along the length of the cavern, wobbling over rope bridges that would make Indiana Jones think twice and slithering your way over nets suspended hidden so high in the roof of the caverns that I didn't dare look down so can't actually tell you how high they really were.

Oh - and there's crawling through narrow tunnels too - did I mention that?

This is HUGE compared to the tunnels
we crawled through

We've only splashed out on one "tourist experience" during our hols and I'm so glad it was this - it was a superb adventure and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend it.  My only criticism is that at the "rest spot" half way around the course there were no G&Ts on offer - and I could really have used a little Dutch Courage.  (Trust me - take a look at their website and give them a go!)

Once we were done with all the scary stuff we headed back to the site, the sun was out, the skies were blue and the cafe in Criccieth was serving the most amazing hot cherry pancakes.  I'm pretty sure that pure terror burns a lot of calories so I reckon the treat was calorie free, plus the cherries are being counted as one of my "five-a-day".

Tomorrow we're off up Snowdon - a walk in the park after today's adventure surely? (Famous last words!)