En route to TGOC2014

The forecast today was for much rain and horribleness.

It ended up being cool but very pleasant with only a bit of mizzle this evening. 

Blogger problems

My blog seems to have thrown a wobbler. It was hacked into a while back but I’m fairly sure this is another issue.

Being a simple sort of chap I used Blogger’s ‘Simple’ layout. all went swimmingly well until this evening: the layout has changed.

‘About me’, ‘Followers’, ‘My blog list’ and ‘Labels’ all used to appear to the right of ‘Blog Posts’.

Not no more, they appear at the bottom of ‘Blog Posts’ and try as I might I just can’t move them back to where they should by.

I’ve faffed around with other templates but without success.

I’m off for a few days on the SWCP tomorrow so it’s likely to have to wait until I get back.

Any suggestions are very welcome.

Pre-TGO Challenge Gear Test & Backpack

An unfortunate appointment clash involving my hairdresser means that I won't be able to Daunder this year. This is a bit of a bugger as I really needed to get out into the hills for a couple of days to check out some new kit prior to heading off to the Challenge. Daundering is good fun, not only does it involve some wild camping stuff but it's done in the excellent company of fellow Challengers.

A solution appeared in my Inbox (I really must clean that mess up) by way of a message from the NE Headquarters of Pie Eaters Anonymous (PEA) that invited me along to a short backpacking trip in the Monadhliaths. Also invited were Challengers Alan R (who eats any kind of pie) and Judith (who only eats Macaroni Cheese Pies – but she's vegetarian).

Not a Macaroni Cheese Pie

The kit I needed to check out consisted of my new Osprey Exos 58 litre pack, a SatMap GPS, and a PHD down-filled sleeveless thingummy wotsit. I also needed to check out my repaired Hilleberg Akto – a new groundsheet had been sewn-in last year but I've not used the tent since. I also wanted to sample a couple of new (to me) recipes.

 

                    Osprey Exos 58                                           SatMap 10 GPS

The weather on our trip wasn't brilliant but it provided a good testing ground for my gear.

Alan and I took the train to Aviemore (it was very heavy) where we met up with Mike and Judith. We squoze into Mike's car and drove off to somewhere not a million miles from Mazeran Lodge. Mike parked his car out of the way and off we went – sort of West-ish.....which the observant amongst you will note is NOT East.

The route, devised by Mike, was sort of circularish but I'm still not entirely sure of where we went as I hadn't switched the SatMap on. Tsk. Up through Glen Mazeran, following the new roads that had appeared since last year. We were in search of a half-decent spot to plant our tents. There was quite a lot of slushy stuff around, not particularly nice to camp on but good to test out my new Akto ground-sheet.

First night in the Monadhliath, if you look carefully you’ll spot the new road. 

As it happened, we came upon a half decent spot to pitch – flat (sort of) and dry-ish. The ground was really only a bit wet, but certainly wet enough to test the new ground-sheet. I know the Akto isn't the latest or lightest tent in the world, but it justifiably has a very loyal following. An Akto will stand up in conditions where lesser tents will simply fail. Aktos are very good…..mind you it doesn’t take an idiot to know that.

The next item to be put to the test was a home-made and dehydrated meal, beef hash – as opposed to corned beef hash. This was made up of good quality minced beef (that way I know that Gayle won't nick any.....but Mick might), carrots, onions, beanz, and an Oxo cube. That lot was cooked up, divided into portions and then dehydrated. Each portion was packed with a pinch of salt and black pepper plus about ¼ of an Oxo cube.When rehydrating I bring it back to a gloopy soup consistency before adding 40gms of dried mashed potato. Another success: it tastes delicious, is easy to make, dehydrate and rehydrate, and is very light.

I didn’t photograph my tea, flavours don’t come across too well in pictures. It was very nice though.

We had a fairly early night, we were all a bit pooped from the travelling, and it was getting quite cold. I used my Alpkit PipeDream 400 sleeping bag with a silk liner, and slept on my new-ish M.E. Helium sleeping mat. Not lightweight, but around 40mm thick and self inflating. And warm. I wore my PHD sleeveless downfilled wotsit and spent a very cosy night, hurling abuse at the mystery snorer.....who for the purposes of this blog we shall call Mike.

Next morning three bleary-eyed campers emerged from their snow-covered tents to plan revenge on our mystery snorer....but too late, he emerged from his tent, looking very well rested indeed. Hmmm.

Mike had a plan which was to involve heather-bashing and no small amount of clever navigational stuff. I switched on the SatMap to ascertain our position, but to be honest, the new roads and signage that's appeared over the Monadhliaths have made navigation an absolute doddle. The multitude of new roads are there to serve the new windfarms that have sprouted up over the last year. The area certainly looks different to a year ago. The very good surfaces of these roads really make easy-going of the normally boggy ground, miles are easily covered.

Mike, Alan and Judith ready for the off, Day 2

 Maps are just not needed to cross the Monadhliath anymore

Having said that navigation was easy, I was rather pleased to have my SatMap with me because the landscape just bore no resemblance to anything I remembered from last year. Without the GPS and it’s pre-loaded maps I’d have struggled to locate myself on the paper map. I gather there will be a new map issued in the next few years that will have all the new roads marked.

Whilst consulting maps & GPS we were approached by a curious lot who seemed very keen to ‘help us’ get to where we were going. As I didn’t have a clue where we were going (I suppose Mike did) I found this mildly amusing, Slightly less amusing was the almost aggressive interrogation we were subjected too. This lot were clearly Eastern European although they denied it. I should have photographed them I suppose but I felt more than a little intimidated by their behaviour.

 Approaching yet another Monadhliath Wind Farm 

There were loads of really helpful bright red marker posts to ensure we stayed on the new Rights of Way and didn’t stray to anywhere we shouldn’t have been.

Right, I’m off to bed – it’s well past my bed time, I’ll write a bit more in the next day or so. My gear is strewn around the house, dripping gently. A good job I’m home alone – I suspect a lodger / wife / girlfriend / live-in house maid (the ones that dress up in that black lacy stuff) may whinge.

My fellow backpacking bloggers may well post reports on their blogs in the fullness of time:

Alan R

Judith

Mike

Saturday 22nd March 2014, A Hayfield Hobble

Tally-Ho!

Around 20 runners gathered at the Lantern Pike Inn in Little Hayfield on the western side of the Peak District on Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours of running. Their plan was to follow a trail of clumps of sawdust that had been carefully placed around an imaginative 8 mile running route that encompassed hills, cow fields and other cow things.

There was weather on Saturday, lots of weather. Especially around Little Hayfield. Some of this weather was wet, some of it was windy – some was even white and fluffy. All of it was cold.
Packs of runners set out from the pub at times suited to their running speed. Although the club calendar features a couple of races throughout the season it is not a competitive club and one-upmanship is discouraged.

The sawdust trail plunged down to a stream which ensured we all got wet feet within a minute of setting out. Oh well. We boys like playing in water.

5 minutes after setting out from the pub the wind strengthened and it started to rain. On a positive point, rain is good for washing mud off your otherwise pristine legs. But it was also cold. It didn’t rain ALL afternoon. Not quite.

When it wasn’t raining there were some good views:


The trail followed lots of up and downery, south across Birch Vale, up t’other side (just for the hell of it) then, this time heading north, back down to Thornsett. Through mud. Good job we boys like playing with mud.



Then there were tractors, loads of the buggers. Alan should have been there really:



I was hoping to catch the pack of runners that had set out before me but they were on form and their 50 minute advantage was too much for me to make up. On the other hand, the faster boys who had set out after me took well over an hour to catch me up. And then overtake me. Nowt new there then.

Billy

Here they come:

Eastwood, Blackshaw and Wells, all looking remarkably unmuddy. It wasn’t to last.

There they go:

 Hon Prez Park looking worryingly cheerful. And mud free.

Lantern Pike was the last substantial climb of the day, at around 1000ft ASL it offered pleasant views over Hayfield:

It pays to be one of the earlier finishers of a Tally-Ho! trail run, later finishers end up bathing in less than clean water:

 

It had been a cracking afternoon out in excellent company. The good food at the pub was the icing on the cake. Although there was no cake. Or icing.

This was the last proper trail of a good season. Oh well. Anyway, this is where we went:

 

8 miles which took me 2hrs 5mins of gentle trottery. And I didn’t lose trail once.

More pics here.

18th March 2014, TGO Challenge food

Wanna play chicken??

The Challenge isn’t too far off and it came as something of a rude awakening when I realised that my dehydrated meals stock was down to zero – time for some action.

I dehydrate my own meals, it’s only a bit of a faff but you know what goes into the meals unlike some of the branded stuff.

Chicken is a meat that I’m fond of and although it dehydrates quite well, re-hydration is a problem – the stuff tends to come back as chewy, hard and, well, inedible.

A bit of research on t’interweb resulted in the discovery of Backpackingchef.com and in particular the article on dealing with chicken. They found that canned chicken worked and rehydrated well. A trip into Altrincham this morning and I soon had some tins of the stuff, two tins made two different curries and the contents of the other tin are all chopped up and drying nicely on the dehydrator.

Fortunately I’m in on my own.

The smell in the house is heavenly.

Well I think it’s heavenly!

The contents of a tin of Tesco Chicken Breast, smells of not a lot really

Chicken & Veg Curry, smells wonderful!

Chicken Madras, smells even wonderfuller!

Other meals that are on the cards: beef hash, beef bolognese, vegetarian bolognese, boring old meat and three veg, loads of puddings…..I like puddings.

I’ll report back with results of the chicken dehydrating / rehydrating.

In the meantime I think I’ll go out for a run, this kitchen smells.

The Ides of March

A run into Manchester

I needed to get into Manchester to pick up a tube of specialist glue for a repair job I’m carrying out (replacing the ‘non-replaceable’ battery in a Garmin Forerunner GPS).

This little GPS is a cracking bit of kit but is spoiled by a designed-in limited life of around 4 years because of the sealed-in Lithium Ion battery. Fortunately I’m able to carry out such repairs – thus saving the not insignificant cost of a new GPS.

I also needed to get out to do some exercise so….two birds, one stone an’ all that, so I ran into Manchester. Rather than use the standard Curry Walk route along the Bridgewater Canal towpath all the way into Manchester I decided to add a significant amount of tarmac.

Manchester has some interesting sights:

 On Chester Road, Old Trafford

 Inside the remains of a demolished pub, Old Trafford

 

Dot Motorcycles, still running after all these years

St George’s, no longer a functioning church

Adjacent to Whitworth Street West

 

T’ Cut

The new, the newer and the renovated:

A Metrolink tram, Manchester Central (formerly G-Mex – but prior to that, er, Manchester Central Railway Station) and the Beetham Tower in the background.

Amazing what you see when you look up:



or when you look down:

  

River Medlock running under Oxford Road

The Lass o’ Gowrie, closed once again

Dunno

The Old Trafford Cycle Link, designed to frustrate cyclists. The gate is locked shut.

I probably covered around 12 miles altogether – 9 miles running into Manchester, the extra 3 miles were tagged on as I once again successfully got lost in Manchester.

Ho hum.

Tomorrow’s job: replace the battery in the Garmin.

All the photographs (apart from the Garmin GPS) were taken using my little Lumix DMC-SZ3.

Sunday 9th March 2014, Brooks Drive Bimble

….and a bit about the TGO Challenge Spring gathering thing.

Last night was the TGO Challenge Spring Gathering, held at the Snake Pass Inn which is situated on the A57 Snake Pass. Well it would be, wouldn’t it? It was a cracking evening and we were lucky enough to share a table with the very excellent Mick & Gayle. Much fun was had – not difficult in their company! It’s good to know that we’re using the same TGO Challenge start point of Torridon.

Lots of Challengers attended, including Judith, Alan (who organised  the affair), John M – our glorious Controller, Graham Brooks (famous for wrecking aircraft), Alistair & Lynsey, Martin & Sue, Bert & Suus…..the list just goes on. It was lovely to be able to catch up, there just wasn’t enough time to speak to everyone. The Snake Pass Inn is under new management and the new people take their food and beer quality very seriously. I’ll be back next year. and before I forget – thanks once again to Alan Hardy for being the organisator of the gathering.

Anyroadup, it had been a rather later night so I’d promised myself a late start on the Sunday morning. This wasn’t to be because (fanfare of trumpets)…. spring had arrived! Woo-hoo!

The morning air was fresh and warm, the sun was shining loudly and the birds were singing brightly. The Long Suffering Rick had an idea – we should go for a walk. A wander down Brooks Drive was the plan. I needed to be back home for around 12.30 – No1 grandson was hosting his first birthday party and it wouldn’t do for me to be late.

Rick suggested a 9.30am departure and so he arrived at JJ Towers promptly….at around 9.55am.

  Rick, Brooks Drive….and sunshine

The sun may be shining but there’s still mud around

It never ceases to amaze me that pleasant countryside is just a short walk from my front door. All these photographs were taken close to Timperley and a matter of a couple of hundred yards from busy main roads, roads that my neighbours will use on an almost daily basis – yet they will be blissfully unaware that such peace and tranquillity exists so close to their doorsteps.

A tree. In pleasant countryside, not far from my front door

Bowdon and Hale have long attracted the affluent. In order to get round restrictive planning rules and regulations they buy up older properties, often with very large gardens….and then demolish the houses.They then build a new house on the site of the old one – usually completely out of character with the neighbouring houses. Like this one:

On the return leg we had to use some tarmac through Hale where we spotted a fine example of a Vauxhall Victor – over 50 years old and still being used on the road:

Rick doesn’t hang about when he’s out for a walk – he’s a man on a mission. We were out for around 2hrs 35mins and covered 9.5 miles….so we got back in time for the birthday party. It was a dead easy (if quick!) walk and just goes to prove that you don’t have to travel miles just to go for a walk.

This is where we went: