As has become somewhat of a theme recently, I struggled to get out the door for this.
I had slightly grander plans initially, of camping for three nights, from Thursday until Sunday. The original plan was to get back from a work event, pick up my bag of camping stuff and head back out to meet some people for a group walk on Thursday night. Then camp & do some walking between then and a second group walk on Sunday.
The forecast looked pretty rubbish in the week before, which didn’t do much for my enthusiasm.
Rain during the work event made me even more reluctant to spend three nights out with no particular plan. So I went and did the walk in the evening, but then came back home to sleep.
In the end I camped just on Saturday night, having spent Friday catching up with housework and attending a couple of events at my daughter’s school. I had a real internal debate with myself about what to do with the rest of my weekend on Saturday morning, experiencing quite the choice paralysis.
It wasn’t until late afternoon on Saturday that I finally got out the door and headed towards a local campsite – really feeling the “doorstep mile”.
As is nearly always the case though, once I was out I wondered what all the fuss had been about. I spent the next few hours walking north, along familiar footpaths. Sad to not be going further afield, but happy to have this on my doorstep.
I sheltered at Ightham Mote cafe for a while as some heavy rain blew through, setting off again once the worst of it had passed. I stayed mostly dry until about 10 minutes out from the campsite, when the rain really started to fall and rivers formed out of nowhere around me.
My bottom half was soaked, my trail running shoes and shorts no match for the rain – but then walking boots and waterproof trousers would have been overkill for the rest of the walk.
I arrived at Oldbury Hill campsite and set my tent up – I unclipped the inner so that I could dive inside and shelter from the rain without getting the inner soaking wet in the process. I in my dripping kit for a while, listening to the rain and debating if I was slightly too cold or not.
With not a lot else to do I opened a cider I’d carried with me and just sat for a while. The next few hours were mostly spent sat in the shelter of my tent, the rain was on and off for the rest of the evening. Dinner was a classic mix of microwave rice and tinned fish – particularly on short, local, trips I avoid “backpacking” meals in favour of actual food.
I shuffled around inside the tent to hook the inner back in and got set up to sleep – this was the first test of a new sleeping bag from Thermarest and it proved to be very good. Most of the insulation is in the top of the bag, which makes sense, but did make for noticeable cold spots if the bag rotated during the night, which it did, several times. Overall though the bag packs down impressively well given its warmth and I’m glad to have it as part of my kit.
The sun was already above the trees, shining down amid a welcome blue sky. I got packed up and started walking east, to meet the group for the second group walk of the week.
I arrived at the meeting point early, and stood, soaking up the early morning sun while I waited for the rest of the group to arrive. Which, soon enough, they did and we were off.
Our walk took us through Knole Park, a place I’ve been many times before, and continue to find new areas even now. We looped through the park and back out to our start point over the course of a couple of hours.
I split off from the group at a viewpoint at One Tree Hill and headed back in the direction of home. A tap at Ightham mote provided water for a late coffee, and a picnic bench to sit and eat a random assortment of snacks for ‘lunch’.
Tired legs carried me home, a total of around 40km over Saturday and Sunday combined to make me ready for a nice sit down.
Despite the sofa calling me, I foraged some random food for second lunch and eat quickly before hefting a kayak onto the roof of my car and heading down to the river for a relaxed paddle on the basis that my legs were tired, but my arms weren’t.
I enjoyed making the most of the evening sun just paddling up & down the river for a while. I didn’t bother portaging across the lock and just did the section between the town lock and the upper extent of the navigable river up stream from town – I don’t know what the distance is, nor do I know how long I was out. That wasn’t the point – some people meditate, some people go to the gym, I go for a bike ride, a paddle or a walk.