Camping with the boys II

Apparently, last year's camping in the Peak District didn't quite involve enough walking up mountains, so last weekend I accompanied Will Thompson, Tim McCormick and 'Terra' Ben Duff up to the Lake District for some walking.

Not having done my homework, I presumed this would be a stroll around some lakes, popping into one of the numerous lakeside pubs every hour or so. Apparently, however, I was mistaken, and the lake district is in fact, full of mountains.

We arrived a bit late on the Friday, so the only walking we got done was on the way to the drinking house. A bottle of wine apiece was followed by some stumbling home - with all of us managing to avoid the nearby river.

On the Saturday, we left early, and I was a bit surprised to see us walking up, and up, and up. Things weren't as flat as expected - and lots of short breaks to have a sit down and audition for various musicals were in order, given my hangover.


_{I don't recall quite what we were pointing at...}

Soon enough we were at the entrance to Striding Edge. No-one had thought to mention to me that we'd be crossing a path of certain death that was a couple of feet wide, with long long drops to either side.


_{Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah}

Upon Striding Edge, I had the choice of either walking directly across the top of the rocks (like the seemingly suicidal chap below) or taking a 'path' of sorts just off to the side in places. Once my fear of heights got the better of me, I took to the path, until it crumbled away from me - fortunately I was holding onto some rocks at the time, but I was still scared out of my skin by the experience.


_{Looks impressive, until you consider that there must have been enough space to the side for a cameraman at this point}

The day before I went walking, someone fell 200ft from Striding Edge, and there were a spate of deaths for walkers scrambling over the ridge earlier this year. Fortunately no-one informed me of this in advance, or I doubt I'd have made it over the top.

Next up it was a run down the side of a slightly less steep mountain (only a 45 degree gradient) to the beautiful lake surrounded upon all sides by the mountains we'd just been walking over, followed by a long (but safe) walk home.


_{Lovely lake}

A gorgeous meal in a surprisingly good restaurant that night was followed by another day's walking on Sunday. We found an interesting looking National Trust path from an ancient guidebook, and then somehow completely lost the path - possibly because it didn't exist any more.

Instead, we climbed up a river for a while (last year, Will climbed down a river) before reaching the amusingly (yet accurately) titled 'Surprise View', and then finally walking at ground level next to a nice lake.


_Surprise!

Last year, we popped off to nearby Bakewell, and bought some Bakewell Tarts from a Bakewell Tart. This year, we headed off to Kendal to buy some Kendal Mint Cake...from Woolworths. It was local produce, but apparently was only sold in high-street chain stores - bizarre.

On the way home, we played GHOST until that got boring, at which point I invented a new game. I've now called that PRINCESS, after a logo I accidentally doodled at a customer meeting when my colleague managed to talk about databases for an hour and a half, leaving me in silence, but I'll blog about that later, when I've finished computerising it.



So, all in all, camping was good fun all around, but I'm definitely in favour of somewhere flatter next year. Any suggestions? It'll have to be near somewhere famous for its confectionary..