DofE Silver practise expedition: The Peak District Day 2

It's a bit foggy!

So day 1 was completed... and now it was time to conquer day 2! We had to conquer 17.5km of walking that day!  I have to admit I slept well that night, considering I had a headache, all I could remember was Miss coming into our tent to give us our check point cards. I didn't even turn around to see her, I just stayed where I was and listened to Hannah, Lucy and Miss talking about day 2. When we woke it was foggy and it was slightly chilly. I hoped the sun would come out just to lift the fog so we could actually see where we were going, however the first bit of the walk we managed to do it the fog. We were off earlier than the other groups, we plodded along and met a man out on his early morning walk. He had a cocker spaniel which made me think of my dog and how he would of loved to come on DofE with me. Anyway we said a cheerful "morning" and he replied with a "morning" too but he also said there were cows in the field we were approaching and that there was a bull near the top. I looked at Hannah and thought you better come up with something to distract them if we get attacked again. We literally ran up the field away from the cows and then into another field. I was ahead at this point, I managed to get through the thick mud into the next field. It was still foggy but the sun was trying to get through. We carried on along the edge of the field and in the distance we could just make out a shape standing right in the middle of our tracks. The one shape was actually two shapes and it was more cows. Great... more cows. Somehow we had to go round them without them noticing us. Eventually we got to the other side of the field, with the sun trying to come out even more. You could see the fog moving it looked like it was raining. We stopped so we could look at the map and so everyone could sort themselves out before heading off again. We got to a gate that was pad locked so the only way was to go over it. One by one we climbed over the gate, trying not to slip (like I did) as we attempted to get over.

Lucy getting over the gate!

Time went by. We crossed a train track and then we were in more fields again. We were nearly at Castleton which was our first check point and we were doing well for time. The thing about the group we didn't stop if we wanted a drink or a snack we just walked and then asked someone to grab it for us. So there I was, getting Lucy her pancake out her rucksack as we were waiting for everyone to get through the gaps in the walls before our go. I got it for her and she took one bite out of it and then dropped it. 7 second rule I was thinking but I realised she dropped it in some cow pat! Way to go Lucy... Bless her she was really looking forward to that pancake as well. We made it to Castleton and left our route card on a stone wall. And the dream team were off again...

Hannah and Lucy on the train line! 

The landscape: The fog is slowly going!

The hills we were surrounded by for sometime!

We walked through a bit of Castleton and turned off up this footpath. Well it was again like a mini stream: It was rocky and water was running down it. This part of the walked took a while. We were surrounded by hills and we couldn't see what was in front of us because we were in the middle of them. I gathered that this part of the walk was popular with other walkers and locals because we saw quite a lot of people. On my DofE bronze expedition post , you might remember Hannah who made friends a cat friend, well we stopped and Felicity made a sheep friend that she named Baaarbara. She wasn't the only one to make a friend. When we headed off again a dog called Sky seemed to like my company. It was like a grey and white sheep dog with one eye blue and one eye brown. To be fair it was a nice dog. We made it to the top and a man came up to me, Lucy and Hannah. He was wondering what school we were from and what we were doing. So we told him, Arthur Terry and DofE. In the end the conversation was about some guy called Shane, who later we discovered was actually Mr Walsh (one of our maths teachers) and the man and him were friends. After a conversation with him, we started walking and then stopped again to talk to the owners of the dog who liked me. Then finally after talking to the couple we were off again.

Me and my little friend!

The group resting! (I don't know what Hannah, far left, is doing
but she looks comfy enough!)

The motor bike and me!

After a while it was just the group. We were walking up a track of mainly puddles. Me and Hannah were slightly behind the group as we decided to entertain ourselves by walking through the puddles not around them. Such fun it was! When the others saw the teachers walking we were still behind walking through the puddles. We caught up with the group said a quick hello and goodbye to the teachers and carried on. It was between 1 and half 1 so we decided to stop for what I call Lunch! Everyone got out their lunch and happily sat there eating. Everyone sat on the grass and I sat on the edge of the track. We could see a road from where we were but I could hear, what sounded like, a motorbike. And it was! It was a mountain motorbike thingy which came whizzing past me. I mean I wasn't slap bang in the middle of the track, I was on the edge but the guy on the bike decided to drive as close as me as possible. So there I was thinking "Excuse me, Mr mountain motor biker you're what I call nightmare!" And then about 6 other bikers came past me. I thought one of them was going to run me over! After that scary situation with the bikes me and Nata did some yoga. It was a perfect place to do yoga and it was nice to stretch out too.

The dream team at lunch time!

Nata, Kirsty and Fliss having a little nap! 

We had lunch and started walking again. We went through more fields, we saw more sheep and we saw llamas... Yes llamas in the peak district! I'm not a big fan on llamas but they didn't do any harm. We were a bit lost after lunch, I think we might of took a wrong turn somewhere but a lady at this house helped us out. We carried on until we got to another house where this other lady filled up everyone's drinks. So we carried on up a country lane and then over a road. We found the another groups route card and it was the gold groups so then we knew we were in the right place. The rest of the walk was down hill and all we had to do was to follow the path which we did. We got to the end/bottom of the hill and we were close to our second camp-site. Everyone sat down on a bench bar from me and Lucy who walked up this drive to see if we could see the camp-site. We shouted everyone to come up and we where there. We saw a girl by the toilets (toilets meaning two little shed like things with no sink!) she said to carry on, across the bridge, take a left and you're there. We did that and we were there. A few of the other groups were there but there were no teachers.

This cow looked friendly and cute so I took a
pic of it!

The camp-site was somewhere down  the hill in the valley!

Some of the teachers arrived and told us to start getting set up. The thing about this "camp-site" was it was literally a hill/field, it was by a train line with loud fast trains going by, it was by a river which made us need the loo but the "toilets" were what seemed like a mile away and it was cold that night because we were on a hill. We set up our tent and had our food and got settled. Me and Lucy made one trip to the toilet and took our washing up to this little tap at the bottom of the hill. It was getting dark and some groups weren't back yet. Two boy groups typical. We saw the mini bus finally pull up with the groups in them. I felt sorry for the groups that had to pitch up their tent and have tea in the dark. It was certainly colder that night. Nata and Lucy were shivering as we waited by the mini bus to do our check point cards for the last day. It was time for me to give out my hugs! To be honest my hugs are pretty amazing. Lucy slept in the middle that night because her sleeping bag was the thinnest so it was only fair to put her in the middle. I slept without my roll mat that night because the weather had said it was going to rain the next day and I thought I don't want to be messing around deflating my roll mat in the rain. Me, Lucy and Hannah were settled in our tent, all relaxed and chilled. We heard Kirsty giggling/shouting our names from her and Felicity's tent. All she wanted us to do was to listen to Felicity's turkey/chicken noise she made which was actually really good. I had to contain my laughter after a while which didn't work because Lucy and Hannah joined in with other animal noises. It was a highlight of the day for me, all I was thinking was this time tomorrow I would be in a nice warm bed with a hot cup of tea and I only had one day left to complete!

The dream team!