Fell walking Trip - Wales - January 2004

The plan was to meet at 7:00pm on Friday 30 th January at the Centre for Sport and loaded our luxury minibus. In reality Al and Rob turned up at 6pm to pick up the minibus and Adric turned up at 6pm as well to get a couple of pints in before starting off, taking the total at that point to 5 pints of Strongbow. Unfortunately the departure was delayed as Al had some kind of problem at the petrol station. When we finally got off there were 9 of us, Al (Club President), Maddy (Women's Officer), Rob (ex-fell walker), Adric, Phil, Rupie (the bag fairy), Helen, Rachel and a little bitch called Mocha (who was a right dog). Dan the Vice President wasn't coming on this trip as he had a job interview.

We had a pleasant trip to Wales and found our destination without any problems, well, actually there was 1 very slight problem, the horse box which we were due to sleep in wasn't there, the house was locked, and our mobiles had no signal. We decided to go to the local phone box and ring Robs friend whose horse box it was, but this proved to be unsuccessful as they were in bed. On returning to the house, we admitted defeat and decided we'd have to find somewhere else to sleep. The decision was taken that 4 people could sleep in the minibus and 4 people would have to sleep in an old barn, with no door, big holes in the roof and a room mate in the shape of a horse. Al , Maddy, Rupie and Helen took the challenge of the barn. Al though we had the luxury of the minibus, we did have our own problems, we were parked on a slight hill so all the seats were leaning forwards slightly. Al l needed was Rob to roll forwards and knock the handbrake off and we'd have a problem. I came up with a solution to stop myself rolling off the seat; it involved strapping myself in with the seat belts. The other problem on our hands was the fact that we were sleeping with Mocha the dog, who had a bit of a bad head, or a good head depending on how you look at it. O well, we all survived.

The following morning the fell walkers in the barn were awoken by Pat, the owner of the land and the horsebox, as she found what looked like tramps in her barn, thankfully she discovered that it was us before she called the police, she was very concerned that people had had to sleep in the barn though. Those of us in the minibus got woken up by Al knocking on the windows to tell us that the house was open and there was tea waiting for us in there. Due to the excellent hospitality of Pat we didn't get out fell walking very soon as she was supplying a continuous stream of tea and toast, the weather didn't really have much appeal either.

We got out on the road to Snowdon at about 11 and made it to Snowdon in just over an hour. Snowdon was to a real challenge, a battle of man vs. nature, a test of will, determination, stamina and an extreme piece of character building, roughly translated, that means that it was hard. The rain was constant, the wind was strong and the path up the mountain was now more like a river, than a path. We all approached this challenge with great determination to beat the weather and conquer the mountain, we even had a bit of comedy provided by the bag fairy (Rupie), who had taken to wearing bin bags as he had no waterproof trousers. We made our way up the mountain at a good pace and found a nice building to have dinner in, this was just after a small, but fast flowing stream that the dog had had to be thrown over. It was quite funny, seeing someone throwing the dog one 1 side of the stream for Phil to catch on the other. The building was not that luxury really, it only had half its walls still standing, it had no roof and it was next to what looked like a graveyard, but we're not picky where we stop. On stopping for dinner everyone found a fairly dry place to sit and pulled out their sandwiches and water, I on the other hand pulled out a dry stool, my sandwiches and a flask of hot tea, just to make people jealous.

From here on up the wind was stronger making the ascent more dangerous, but this wasn't enough for us to let Mother Nature win the battle, we carried on. Unfortunately we never made it to the top. About 20 minutes hike from the top the disastrous happened, sensibleness entered our heads and we decided that we should turn back for safety reasons, plus the dog was getting tired. The journey down was interesting with the wind nearly blowing us off several times. We'd gone down about a third of the way when the dogs tiredness really showed, when she needed carrying. This job was done very kindly by Phil, though while he had the dog on his shoulder he was using it as a windbreak and keeping his ear warm. We down to the car park just before dark and with enough time for me and Maddy to have a race from the toilets to the minibus, of course Maddy lost.

On arriving back at Pats house we were relieved to see the horsebox sat in the drive, it's not much, but it would be better than the barn and the minibus. Pat was ready with plenty of tea and a willingness to turn her kitchen into a drying room as most of us were soaked to the skin. Tea that night was vegetarian curry, and tasted great. After that it was time to follow that great fell walking tradition and head down to the local pub, local being used here in its broadest sense. The pub wasn't bad, but it did have a serious problem, the only cider they sold was Blackthorn, which as any hardcore cider drinker knows isn't as good as most. We managed to get a couple of pints in before heading back to our horse box.

Sleeping in the horse box that night was quite an experience. For a start we had Helen staggering in drunk saying rather loudly "I'm so drunk, I'm so drunk, I'm like an English girl". Then soon after Rob it sounded like the engine on the horse box had started, this was just Robs snoring and it carried on all night. Then early the following morning Al found his sleeping bag soaked, and it was only his sleeping bag that was soaked, he won't admit to anything but we all have our suspicions as to what happened. Al then popped out and apparently slept in the minibus, though me and Maddy have other suspicions as later that morning when we went to find the healthy green sign to fill the minibus up he knew exactly where to find some stray sheep. Anyway me and Maddy got up about 8 or 9 ish and found Al in the minibus, we had a bit of a chat and a drink, and then decided to go on a road trip to find the healthy green sign and fill the minibus up. On returning to the horsebox the others still weren't up, so we went in the house and started on the tea and toast. We had considered doing an Italian job stunt and parking the minibus in the back of the horsebox, but then we decided that we'd eat instead. The others rose gradually and we were ready to start walking by about 1 ish. We just walked up a hill near the house and had a look a Rob's blacksmiths and land on route. After that there was just time for some more tea.

We then followed our natural homing instinct, but for some reason it lead us to the pub instead of home, anyone would think we lived in a bar. Unfortunately the bar didn't sell food at that time so we had to find another bar. After an hour of searching we found a bar that was serving food. The Sunday lunch was great and the drinks were really cheap to us ( Al doesn't want anyone to tell Dan about the drinks though). Just before starting the rest of the journey home we time to do a bit of planting, by that I mean I planted a flower in the minibus bumper. The journey home went really quick, but not quite quick enough as the bars had shut when we arrived back at the sports centre. Al l there was left to do was take kit back, II had the idea of putting all my kit in my survival bag to carry, which apparently made it look like I was carrying a dead body, it didn't help that Al who was helping me carry it was telling people it was a body, but not to worry as we were gonna eat it by candle light with silver cutlery, I'm still getting strange looks from some the students in Morrell Hall because of that.

Al l in all a good trip, just a shame about the weather. We will conquer Snowdon next time, even if we have to use fell walking funds to pay for the train up. The hosts were great and its well worth staying at their bed and breakfast that their setting up.

Adric Warth