Monday 5 January 2015

High up caches

Ali was back at work on Saturday so Cybi and I headed over to Fairholmes to meet Lou and Cybi for some geocaching. I had decided we should try and bag the three highest geocaches in Yorkshire since the weather forecast was good. Meeting at 9am we stopped at the kiosk for second breakfast before heading into the hills. First geocache found it was time to head high, a bit of bog trotting took us up on the edge where the three caches are located. Up there it was windy, no chance of talking to each other and cold. At one point I decided to get my bothy bag out so we could at least hear each other, it's impressive how well it works, although getting in it was hard work! It was at this point my map got blown away!

Dropping down we were all glad to be out of the wind and we walked a slightly longer way back to the cars via a few more caches. We got back just as it got dark. In total we did nearly 16miles, Cybi was definitely tired.

Sunday 4 January 2015

New Years Eve

For Christmas Ali bought me a tent more suitable than our current one for backpacking as i want Cybi to come on our adventures and I'm not sure about bivvying with him. So obviously we had to have an adventure to try the tent out. New Years Eve being ideal, like the last time we went for a wild camp on New Year there was snow on the ground!

We all headed out with big rucksack, yes Cybi has his own and carried his warm coat and food. It's harder to pack when you don't have handlebars to strap your sleeping bag and mat to. We went via the local shop for some food where I realised I had forgotten the sporks, so back home before heading up in the hills. It felt hard with the rucksacks and the snow. Once we were up high we found a random snow free patch which wasn't boggy. We set the tent up and put some warm layers on. Ali then got the stove out and... It didn't work. Not great so we had the bread that was for our breakfast bacon rolls with bubbles. Partway through my first cup I was trying to work out what was in my mouth, it was a tiny slug like thing, yuk! After we finished the first bottle of bubbles we decided to bed down. I vaguely woke up to the fireworks at midnight but otherwise we all slept quite well.

Morning came and when we opened up the tent we were surprised to see most of the snow had gone, explains why I wasn't even cold when not fully in my sleeping bag! We packed up and headed home, via the shop for more bread so we could have bacon rolls once we got home.

Despite the few problems we all had a lovely time and I can't wait for our next adventure.