There is nothing like the great outdoors, we're talking Marlboro country.....rugged landscapes. OK we're not in cowboy territory but the Roaches in the Peak District is a close substitute for us city slickers.
Packing in a trek of the Roaches (a rare rock formation rises steeply to 1,657ft) and camping in the peak district sounded like a fantastic adventure, and so it unfolded.
Friday afternoon and rushing up the M40 in a Peugeot 207 SW rental car which had a very bad odour fuming from the carpets was not the most pleasant of journeys. Initially I blamed one of the passengers (Q) as the smell was very cheese & onion sweaty socks type, but this was quickly denied and we realised that the carpet in the rear had been soiled by the previous occupiers.
Arriving at the Farmhouse camp site at 9pm left us with a frantic rush to set up the tent as dusk was creeping upon us, fortunately teamwork was the order of the day and we successfully managed to set up camp and even cook some snacks.
We learnt our first lesson, it gets very cold outdoors! the temperature started to drop considerably overnight and if it wasn't the cold that kept us awake it was the noise of the traffic rumbling along the Buxton Road. In the middle of the night the silence would be broken on a regular interval by trucks, cars and even motorbikes travelling along this stretch of road. At times it felt like we had set up camp on a busy roundabout !
If the traffic was a challenge to our sleep, then a radio blaring from another tent and Q farting the night away was simply torture. Having slept for only a couple of hours, we were pleasantly woken by the beautiful sunrise creeping over the green hilly pastures. This was the perfect time to knock up some breakfast and start marching.
The trek to the Roaches started off gently but once Fiaz saw a steep vertical climb there was no stopping him. This chap has a very sharp radar which misses out nothing at all, and the 1,600 ft climb was well on its way.
Despite the bitter coldness and persistent rain we continued our trek along the Roaches heading towards Luds Church - a deep millstone grit chasm created by a massive landslip. This amazing landslips looked like something out of the set of an Indiana Jones film...... quite possibly "Indian Jones and the search for the crystal fruit bowl".
So a good walk, some fantastic bird watching despite the persistent rain and cold conditions and lack of sleep. When we returned to our tent we could not face another nights sleeping under the axles of lorries & trucks so headed to Birmingham to enjoy a nice curry and refuel our bodies.
