One of the above duly arrived this morning and on my way home I’m going to buy some tablets and have a trip down memory lane with the added bonus of it being ultralightweight one – the stove tickles the scales at a mere 12g.
Here’s a snap to keep all you stove pornographers happy.
The ferry journey to Santander was uneventful. We tried to avoid the entertainment for as long as we could but failing light and the fact that once you’ve done a couple of laps of the ship there isn’t any where else you can go, we retired to the piano bar for a bottle of overpriced Bordeaux and catch the pianist doodling tunes in a tux on a white grand.
We arrived in Santander in a mizzling drizzle, not a good start and once we found the bus station and checked the time the bus left for Potes we went walkabout. Typically Spanish, the place was closed from two until five, which given that we wandered off the boat at one and the bus was at five, we had several hours to kill and nothing to kill them with. At least the bus station had a cafe.
Arriving at Potes we booked into the aptly named Hostal Picos de Europa dropped off the rucksacks and wandered around the town looking for supper.
Two things I’ve learnt (and it seems I keep forgetting and having to relearn them) is that don’t go to supermarket hungry and don’t wander round a foreign town is the same state. Passing a restaurant where a woman was tucking into a huge salad with a side of tortilla it seemed the ideal solution for our needs, sadly the food when it turned up was not as we thought we’d imagined it. I’ve never ever seem fake shrimp and crab before and don’t really want to again. Needless to state I hoiked the offending items off my plate. Penny, blessed with a sense of adventure that may lead to her insides undoing, ate some of them. They sort of tasted fishy but had the texture of overcooked pasta was how she described them. The cheap local wine was very drinkable however.
On the run up to the trip food had been a major worry for me and this didn’t bode well. We found a supermercado that was going to prove itself useful the following day and offered me some hope for the days ahead.
Snapshot of the kit that I took for my recent overnighter. I wasn’t sure how warm the evening was going to be so I packed the RAB Vapour Rise top, which along with the beanie, I could have left out. The groundsheet was included because I was expecting the ground to be damp and to protect the NeoAir. As it happened we only had one downpour and because it was so warm the grass dried in a matter of minutes, helped by the fact we were camped on chalk down lands. And as the storm didn’t break, the evening air temperature didn’t plummet and it remained warm and humid.
I created a version of Jim Wood’s spreadsheet to calculate the weight and have been in the process of weighing and re-evaluating bits and pieces of my kit. What is missing from the list is wash kit, insulin pens, blood monitoring machine, spares and other medicines, and of course, fuel, water and food. It gives me the opportunity to swap in and out items, for example there were two of us in the Hut so a double groundsheet was packed. Whereas if I was on my own a lighter weight single person one would have been taken instead or left out altogether.
Continuing with my ultra lightweight experiment I dropped the usual dish of muesli for breakfast and went for a couple of cereal bars instead. The thinking behind this was that I’d save the weight of fuel used for heating the milk that I’d eat it with, and that of the milk or milk powder that I would be carrying. And there’s no washing up to be done which is an added bonus. Unfortunately I started to run out of steam with in an hour of starting the walk so some refining of this approach is required (read as need to eat three cereal bars!)
Poppies on field edge
From the campsite we dropped down to Bennett End to pick up Grange Farm Road which we followed until reaching Crowell Wood and despite still being early in the day the shelter of the wood was welcome. Over the other side of Crowell Hill we pulled off the path for a quick breather and the view from the field where we stopped across the Vale of Aylesbury was quite expansive. Dropping down the hill we picked up the Ridgeway Path and followed this north east past the Chinnor chalk pits and onto the Midshires Way at Hempton Wainhill which we followed into Bledlow.
Ridgeway waymark
A lunch stop was taken at the Lions of Bledlow where some of the party sampled the small but perfectly kept brews. Back on the Midshires Way we rejoined the Ridgeway at Thickthorne Wood, We crossed wild unkempt meadows on the way up to Lodge Hill where wild strawberries, grasses and orchid grew in abundance, whilst pairs of Marbled Whites, Blue Damsel Fly and Spotted Burnetts (seven spotted, I think) flitted across the hill. Brian and I were very much enthralled by this place and vainly tried to stalk the butterflies with our cameras. At least the orchids kept still!
Wild orchids
We left the Ridgeway and headed south over the last hill of the day to pick up the Chiltern Way back into Radnage. On the way into the village I spotted an owl on the telegraph wire but fumbling map and camera it flew off before I had a chance to take a snap.
Despite the threat of heavy weather the day passed dry and sunny. It was good to get out and meet up with Chris and Anne, and catch up with Brian and Jill again. And meet a couple of new, to me at any rate, club members.
