Our first Broadener! Ever since we came up with the concept of Broadeners, this one was always going to be high up on the list. We’ve both owned the same Bivvy Bag (Alpkit Hunka) since before we were together but neither of us had actually managed to use them.
The idea was pretty simple: go for a hike into the depths of the peak district, lay out our bivvy bags, sleep under the stars, and hike back in the morning. In fact, the beauty of this Microadventure (have a gander at Al Humphrey’s microadventure page here, it’s awesome) is that it really was that simple. We were in the Peak District already and we’d been for a trail run up and over Kinder Scout the day before. So after our run we had a big brunch in the lovely Three Roofs Cafe in Castleton and got our OS map out over the table to plot our route. We planned to park Nellie near LadyBower Reservoir and hike up North past the end of the reservoir and into the wilderness.
We set off hiking with a lot of excitement. Then about 1km down the road Fern stopped, had a panic and we turned around and headed back to the van. One of the great things about this part of the Peak District is there’s no mobile signal, it’s beautifully disconnected. Beautiful, that is, if you don’t have to send out a rota for all the Doctors in a London hospital’s Radiology Department before the next morning. So after returning to Nellie and driving for a while until Fern got enough signal to send out her carefully prepared rota, we parked up the van and started again.
This time we were much more successful. It was a hot and sunny evening but as it was a Sunday night the trails were relatively quiet. By the time we reached the area we’d identified as our place to aim for, we hadn’t seen anyone else for an hour or so. We climbed down a slope to a stream and after a hot and sweaty hike the water was so refreshing we couldn’t resist a skinny dip.
After we’d dried off we set out our bivvy bags and started to eat the sandwiches we’d packed for dinner. At this point we were descended upon by midges. Thousands of them! Luckily I’d anticipated this might happen and had brought a single person mosquito net which we shared by draping over our heads. It undoubtedly looked totally ridiculous, but there was no one out here to see us, and we didn’t care anyway: we were having fun and it was keeping the midges at bay!
We lay down and watched the sunset before drifting off to sleep. In the morning both of us were surprised at how well we slept. The sunrise was beautiful and I enjoyed it before going back to sleep for another few hours. Feeling rested and refreshed we packed up our bivvy bags and started the hike towards Nellie. On the way back we reached Slippery Stones, a well known wild swimming spot that Fern had been to before. Even though the sun hadn’t yet gained it’s full strength we were both keen to cool off. I managed to keep a sufficient poker face about the temperature of the water to convince Fern to try a front-flip in. She’d recently learnt to front-flip on a trampoline at a trampoline park in London and was keen to try it out into water. You’ll have to watch the video on our Instagram to the end to see how it turned out but she wasn’t thrilled to discover the water was pretty cold!
After drying off and hiking for 20mins or so we decided to run the remaining 6km back to Nellie. It was a nice trail to run, very smooth, wide and slightly down-hill the whole way. When we reached the café at the Fairholmes Visitor Centre we both bought a #MyPeakCup. These are reusable coffee cups made out of bamboo and they’re totally sustainable and recyclable but durable for as long as they’re looked after. We both love them and have used them loads since. We then jumped into Nellie and drove to a pub for some brunch feeling very pleased with ourselves (have you noticed we love brunch…).
It was a great adventure and a perfect first Broadener. We both experienced something we hadn’t done before and had tonnes of fun in the process! We shared the experience of broadening our horizons together and that’s what this is all about. I’m sure we could’ve done bits better (how do YOU deal with midges?!) and that’s awesome too, it means next time we head out bivvying it’ll be even better!
What do you think of our first Broadener? Do you have any ideas for our future ones? Please leave us comments below!
Lots of horizon-broadening love,
Hannis and Fern
I think this sounds magical
That’s so cool. If you ever feel in the mood for a third wheel tagalong I am so there.