Pat's hill climbing abilities

All righty - I think Marea promised you all that I would start contributing to this blog in about November last year!!!!! Well I'm sorry everyone - but better late than never aye??

Easter weekend saw our first overnight trip out into the countryside in the van - the destination - somewhere in the peak districts!!! (not even we really knew when we left home:-)

Anyway - first stop was Marea's workmate Neil's place, who so kindly loaned his jigsaw for all our woodworking needs. Thank you very much Neil. Then we ventured towards the peaks (well rolling hills by NZ standards) and towards Castleton.

After catching up with friends and enjoying a pub meal, it was time to give Pat his first real test and take on a rather steep (but very picturesque) hill. Our friends had driven on in-front of us, so at least there were only strangers to laugh at us. We gave the van a good run up and started the climb!! It wasn't long before we had to drop down to second and the number of cars built up behind us. Poor old Pat, he really wasn't that keen on taking things quickly - so trusty old first gear had to come into play. Finally, we made it to the top much to the delight of everyone crawling up behind us, INCLUDING our friends who'd happened to have taken a wrong turn!!! Never mind.

Thank you for your very smart text Kerryn!!

The difference between us

Walking up to Shining Tor today our conversation went like this...

M: ''If we are going to be doing lots of walking, perhaps we should get some walking poles''
D: ''Nah, its more of a workout without them.''
M: ''I think I read that you actually work out more using poles, cause you work the upper body too.''
D: ''Well i'm not here for the workout, i'm here for the view.''
M: I'm not, i'm here for the workout and the view.''

The Test Run

For Pat's test run, we ventured not far from Nottingham, into the peaks' district. This was departure from our original plans to visit Scotland to catch the end of the ski season. However, I am recovering from laser eye surgery(20/20 vision now:-) and friends of ours were planning a girls weekend there, so we headed back to the peaks.
This district has many many happy memories, from our explorations when we first bought our car, walks with the local ramblers club, our visits with all our 'out of town' visitors, to an 'almost proposal' from Daniel (something about me throwing snowballs, blah blah, haha). The stone walls, animals and narrow country lanes, feel like the quintessential English countryside should. And the people, though there be too many of them, are mostly well behaved.
This time have visited the Goyt valley, an area we have not been to before. There are a number of peaks with 636m being the highest. In England, at 526m Shining Tor is a veritable mountain and I look forward to climbing it today.

Freshies

Wahohoo! It was 0630 and I was awaken to Daniel’s appreciation for the blanket of snow that had fallen silently overnight.
We had parked Pat next to the Errwood reservoir in the Goyt valley. It wasn't until Daniel went for his morning walkabout (as he is apt to do) that we found the 'no overnight parking' sign. Shrug. We'd cooked our first meal in our van last night and made a toast to Pat with a glass of chardonnay, and of course, because it is Easter, polished our meal off with some chocolate.
Under failing light (I think we need a new leisure battery), Daniel taught me how to play 500. Who will be the tour champion? The challenge has begun.
This morning after grilling hot cross buns for breakfast we walked around the Fernilee reservoir. There was no-one else around and it was bliss to be out early because although ~6cm of snow had fallen overnight and was still crisp underfoot, it was threatening to melt rapidly. This is a good thing as we are in a steep valley and not confident of Pat's ability to get us out of here under more adverse conditions.