Summer’s First Micro

I did it. The first microadventure of this summer. My final exam (Physics) was on Monday morning so I decided it was time to sleep in the wild for a night.

For those of you unfamiliar with the word, a microadventure is a small that is done in a short space of time such as the 5-9 when you’re not at work, or perhaps even a whole weekend. The short timescale encourages you to seek adventure in places close to home.

My adventure began when I arrived home from work around 8pm, I had been forming a loose plan for the last couple of hours.Some fantastic risotto was scoffed (thanks Kate) before throwing my gear together and getting it onto the bike. I set out riding northwards into the Lake District looking for somewhere to sleep. As lanes changed to tracks and tracks were reducedto quadbike-tracks I was struggling to find somewhere appealing. Climbing a hill was not an option due to having a loaded road bike, so my accommodation had to be close to a road or footpath. This made selecting somewhere rather difficult; sleeping near a road in the Lake District is almost garuanteed to place you on private land. With nowhere suitable within my immediate range for fear of awakening by hill-sheep farmer I trundled back out of the bracken-bordered maze to the main road.

A few miles further north I found a nice car park by the western shore of Coniston. As the light began to fade I explored the car park’s surrounding area and I managed to find 4 reasonable spots away from the road. I chose the spot with be best compromise of shelter and view, a common compromise when bivvying out.

I could hear the waves lapping against the shore, the perfect way to wake up.

Worried that my beakfast wouldn’t survive the night due to the army of slugs the recent rain has summoned I ate it before bedding down, it consisted of a sticky-sweet banana and peanut butter sandwhich with 2 age-softened chocolate digestives for dessert. To reduce the likelyhood of any beasties getting into my clothes I hung them up overhead.

Slugz-b-gone, an engineered solution brought to you by TomTech

Keeping me comfortable, warm and dry was a combination of an Alpkit Hunka bivvy bag with a cheap Tesco sleeping bag with fleece liner and a skinny yet exceedingly comfortable and lightweight Gelert airbed. The bike panniers were bought at northern music festival, Solfest last August, they are made from some some kind of ex-military bags.

A very enjoyable/endurable first bivvy trip of 2012. I recommend that everyone should have a microadventure every once in a while, if only to get to know your local area more intimately.

Jubilee Beacon

Recent days have brought many exciting events for those living in the UK  and around the world. It is our Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, meaning she has reigned for 60 years. This is quite an achievement (the current record holder is Queen Victoria who was monarch for an astonishing 64 years).

We all made sure to celebrate this occasion with all manner of parties and events, such as the Scouting movements beacon lighting.

Huge fire beacons were simultaneously lit right across the UK and the world in honour of the Queen. The nearest one to me was on out local common, a hill called Birkrigg. From there we could see many other beacons from across Morecambe bay, right up into the Lake District with the fire atop Coniston Old Man clearly visible, apparently people spent the entire week carrying wood to the top for their beacon.

The beacon really roared up.

 The turnout from local towns and villages was superb with a crowd of around 450 gathered, despite there being many other events on in the area at the same time.

Once the fire (made from huge stacks of pallets and planks) had begun to die down fireworks were set off, much to the enjoyment of the onlookers, especially the younger attendees, this, combing with the hotdogs, donuts and damson gin meant that everybody had superb evening.

I missed out on photos of the fireworks, this is my substitute.

Dc on wheels

Dc cycles at the Fred whitton challenge 2012.