Geocaching is a technology-based activity. Whilst it is possible to navigate to a geocache using a map and compass, it is easier to use a GPS device. Otherwise, if you are a bit off with your navigation and accuracy, you could be searching under many, many rocks and up many, many trees before you finally stumble across the geocache. When we started geocaching several years ago, we bought a Garmin eTrex GPS but unfortunately, on getting it out recently, we were dismayed to discover the batteries had leaked and the device no longer turned on. OK, our bad. I know you’re supposed to take batteries out of devices that you aren’t using but in our defence, when we last put the GPS away, we didn’t know it would be the last time in years! It was expensive so I am a bit irritated. After a bit of a clean and some fresh batteries, the GPS turned on briefly but then died again. So, what to do now…we have a Travel Bug to drop off but no GPS to navigate us to a geocache.
We have been considering our options… Option 1: buy a new GPS. Definitely the easiest but also the most expensive option – upwards of £100. Option 2: figure out how to use my smartphone as a GPS. I looked at a lot of free apps but the ones that direct you to a location require a postcode, not map co-ordinates (which is what you are given for the location of the geocache). Other apps tell you what map co-ordinates you are at, not how to get to one. I could pay to use the Premium features of the Geocaching app, which will surely direct us to the geocache we want, but my main concern with Option 2 is how well my phone will work in more remote locations. I’ve struggled to get a conclusive answer on whether mobile phones will give you a proper GPS signal, even if you don’t have a phone or 3G/4G connection. After all, I’m always reading that you shouldn’t rely on your mobile phone for navigation on the mountains and if they were reliable for this purpose, why would £100+ GPS devices continue to exist? And if mobiles can be used as a GPS, can mine (which is a bottom end model)? Option 3: figure out how to input the co-ordinates of a geocache into our Geonaute GPS watch, which is actually designed for runners who want to track their distance travelled, speed and other stats. You can programme in a route but we have only ever done so by plotting rough points on a map, not by inputting specific co-ordinates. We opted for Option 3 in the first instance. Option 1 is too expensive without at least trying the other options first and I am worried about discovering Option 2 doesn’t work once we’re out and it’s too late to do anything else. Unfortunately, after hours of trying, we haven’t managed to upload co-ordinates to the GPS watch. It accepts a gpx file, which we created online using OS Maps, but the file that we generated appears not to work and we can’t work out if the problem lies with its creation in OS Maps or with the GPS watch not being able to read it properly. We are new to OS Maps so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we are doing something wrong. On the other hand, the reason the GPS watch was so cheap when we bought it is that it was an end-of-line return, so perhaps it’s broken. Either way, we are not quite sure what to do and still have no solution to our need to find a geocache while we are in the Brecon Beacons. Option 4, which we might have to resort to, is to retreat back to the good old map and compass…
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One of the activities suggested on the Brecon Beacons National Park's website is geocaching. This is essentially a kind of outdoor treasure hunt: you are given co-ordinates, you track down the location using a GPS, then you search around for the hidden cache. Sometimes this is a plastic tub of little knicknacks (you take one and replace it with something else) and sometimes it is simply a small film canister with a strip of paper for you to record your find. The trickier ones are little containers designed to blend into the surroundings, like a fake rock or pine cone. I have to say, the child in me likes the caches that hold items to trade - those are like finding treasure! An interesting element of geocaching is the use of Trackables, such as a Travel Bug, which is a dog tag with a unique code. You set it a mission, leave it in a cache and hope that other geocachers collect it, move it to another cache and help it to achieve its task. Geocachers log the movements of the Travel Bug on the Geocaching website so that you can track it online.
If you'd like to track her movements, you can visit www.geocaching.com/track/ and use the reference TBKNEK.
(May is named after Simon's late grandmother, who passed away in 2015. She enjoyed birdwatching and the outdoors, and was so incredibly kind and generous towards me. She would have enjoyed hearing about this adventure, so I think it's fitting to have her play a part in it. ) From reading other blogs, Pen y Fan is not impossible to climb with young children but it is considered by some to be the most dangerous mountain in Wales because of the changeable weather - and presumably the fact that easy access lures hikers into a false sense of security. I'm a big believer in being prepared, particularly where my kids are involved, so we dug out our bothy for the first time in years.
We have a Terra Nova Bothy 4, which we bought several years ago and only ever used once (when we climbed Snowdon with Eve and needed to change her nappy under cover). The prospect of going out with it is, for me, the first clear sign of us heading out on a 'grown up adventure' and I'm excited in a way that I haven't been for a long time. Finally, an adventure with the kids, not one manufactured for them! For those that haven't come across one before, a bothy is an emergency shelter, akin to a tent with no poles. Ours is a four-man bothy and as it is relatively compact and lightweight (550g), it is easy to throw in a backpack for day's hike. An advantage of ours compared to some others on the market is it has windows so you can see what's going on outside (but if you want a lighter bothy, Terra Nova do make one without windows). We tried it out with our kids over the weekend and it got nice and warm inside quite quickly, just from our combined body heat. The only slight downside is that it is designed for four adults but being two adults and two children, we don't support the roof of the bothy quite as well as I'd like. Fortunately, our model has two "sockets" for sliding your walking poles into to help hold it up. Obviously we are hoping for good weather on our walk as it will be disappointing to reach the top of Pen y Fan and not be able to appreciate the views but the bothy should be handy for our lunchtime stop. Over the weekend, I picked up my first copy of Trail magazine in a long time. I was a happy subscriber a decade ago but then Eve came along and changed the way we spent our free time (if indeed you ever have 'free time' when you work full time and have kids!). For the first couple of years, we continued to enjoy the outdoors with baby Eve sitting in a baby carrier on Simon's back, but when she was a toddler and preferred to have her own two feet (not so firmly) on the ground, it made long hikes an impossibility. So, with an end to spending time in the hills, I also cancelled my subscription as it no longer seemed relevant to my life.
When I heard that Trail was running an article about hidey-holes in Scotland, I thought it sounded fun (perhaps something to look for during the Scottish leg of our challenge) and decided to grab a copy while I was out Christmas shopping. By some weird coincidence, this month's issue (January 2017) also includes an article about the National Parks - their importance, recent expansion and future. I was particularly interested to read about the campaign to have London declared a National Park City due to the huge range of open spaces within Greater London. A much weirder coincidence is that The M Files in this issue focusses on Pen Y Fan, which we are planning to explore shortly. I love that there is a legend of an invisible fairy island in the middle of Llyn Cwm Llwch, a lake on the north-west face of Pen y Fan. Eve is constantly on the hunt for evidence of fairies so sharing this story with her was a must. The National Trust has a challenging 5 hour walk to it and now she's petitioning for us to hike out to the lake. Given we will start our walk around 11am and the sun sets at this time of year shortly after 4pm, I have convinced her that it would be better done on May Day (when the passageway to the island was said to open, once upon a time). Not sure we'll be able to fit in a second visit until 2018 given our busy schedule - but something to look forward to! Hi I’m Simon, the silent partner in this adventure (well until now anyway), and I’m the driving force behind the astronomy element of our upcoming Brecon Beacon adventure so thought it would be fitting for me to write this segment of the blog.
I’ve always had an interest in astronomy and a few years ago bought a 4 1/2” Refractor telescope to help realise my ambitions. I’m very much an interested amateur rather than anything more, and living in a built up city we seldom get a chance to see the true splendour of the night sky. Researching the Beacons we found out that they were designated the world’s fifth International Dark Sky Reserve and Wales’ first in 2012, and this helped set our direction of travel. I now need to work out how we’re going to fit the telescope/tripod, etc into the boot of the car! So what are we going to do when we’re there? I have to be careful to enthuse the rest of the family, else they will quickly lose interest, so my intention is to focus on some of the more exciting/visual sights on offer. This is helped by the fact that Jay has recently been attending Outdoor Survival club at his school and as a part of that has been learning all about the constellations. First task then, to try to spot as many of these as we can. The density of stars visible from the Beacons should be far richer than usual and I’m worried that spying the constellations may prove trickier than I’m used to in amongst all the other stars. Having said that I would like the family to see the Milky Way, which is something we rarely see living just outside of London, so that’s objective number two. Just in case you don’t know, the Milky Way is our very own galaxy, and which we live on the edge of. When the sky is dark enough it appears like a dense belt of stars running through the night sky, truly impressive! Next up on the list has to be the planets in our Solar System. Sadly Jupiter and Saturn (the best small telescope objects) are unlikely to be visible in the evening (although we may catch a glimpse in the morning if we get up early enough). However, we should be able to spy both Mars and Venus. One of the big hopes will be to see the Aurora Borealis, and the Beacons are one of the best places to see this in the country. The Aurora Borealis is a spectacular light show that happens because electrically charged particles collide with the Earth’s atmosphere, reacting with the gasses there. It’s something I’ve never seen, and so although the chances or seeing it are remote, I have my fingers crossed. I’ll be monitoring the following website leading up to the trip to help gauge our chances: http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/alerts/. Something else I’m hoping to show the family will be the International Space Station. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait a while to see if this will be visible from our location when we’re away, however I’ll be keeping an eye on this here: http://iss.astroviewer.net/observation.php. So I think that’s the main attractions covered, and should keep us busy until the kids' bedtime. Lots of prep to do before we go, and need to work out how we’re going to keep the hot chocolate warm throughout the night. Fingers crossed for a clear night. When we travel around the UK, we tend to book into pretty simple, unfussy accommodation. For this challenge, we want to have our first experience of wild camping as a family but for the colder months we've opted to join YHA, which has hostels all over the country, in varied and characterful buildings.
There are four hostels in the Brecon Beacons and we plan to stay at the aptly named YHA Brecon Beacons which is close to and has views of Pen Y Fan. The main building is a 19th century farmhouse but we think the camping pods sound rather fun. (I'm not hardy enough for proper camping in the winter!). Simon has an interest in astronomy and we're planning to make the most of the fact the Brecon Beacons National Park is an International Dark Sky Reserve by bringing along his telescope for a spot of stargazing. Hopefully, we'll be able to set it up outside our camping pod, so the kids (and I!) can stay warm inside while Simon tracks down the celestial sights of interest. 'Our first stop will be the Brecon Beacons National Park, which is one of three national parks in Wales. It takes its name from the Brecon Beacons mountain range (aka Central Beacons), which is situated at the heart of the park. To the west of the Central Beacons lies the Fforest Fawr massif, and these two mountain ranges are sandwiched between the Black Mountain in the west and the Black Mountains in the east - confusing! And even more confusingly, the Black Mountains include a peak called the Black Mountain!
The point of this challenge is to spend more time outdoors so I have been researching what we can do here. The Brecon Beacons National Park's website claims to have some of the finest walking in Europe and I'm dying to get out on the mountains again, so planning a decent hike is my first objective. The highest point in this park (and in southern Britain) is Pen Y Fan in the Central Beacons at 886m and I'm tempted to head up to this point as the views look amazing and I'm looking forward to exploring some wild, open moorland. The National Trust owns the land and has a circular walk on well trodden footpaths from the Pont ar Daf carpark, so I think we'll head that way. Its nickname is 'The Motorway', so I don't expect it to be a solitary walk! We'll go off the beaten track for one of these trips but at present Jay is untried with this type of hike so better to play it safe. (Eve climbed Scafell Pike when she was 8 so I'm not worried about her.) Now to find somewhere to spend the night... The National Parks describe themselves as "Britain's breathing spaces" and when you see the glorious photos on National Parks UK's website, you can see why. The mountains, lakes, beaches and moors give you space to breathe, in a way that you can't if you live and work in a crowded city. They take you away from the hubbub and stress of modern day life and give you somewhere to feel free. They are places that remind you that you are just a tiny part of something bigger and more enduring, and personally I find that helps me to put life's stresses in perspective.
I have previously visited nine of the 15 but across many years of my life; it will be fascinating to explore them all within a year and be able to compare them. The National Parks each have their own unique characteristics and we hope, during our visits, to experience something that makes that place special.
Another year has whizzed by at bewildering speed but the question I'm asking myself is not, "How did that happen?" Rather, what I'm struggling to comprehend is why I'm surprised. Why on earth did I think this year would be any different to the last or the one before that or the one before that? At the end of every year I despair over how little I achieved and how I failed to do this, that and the other. What on earth did I do with my 52 weekends?
I made a resolution to lose weight in 2016 (doctor's orders), and I did, but it's hardly a completed challenge to look back on with pride. Dieting and a few miles on a rowing machine are not exactly CV material, particularly as I didn't actually need to lose that much weight. For the most part, only my scales noticed a difference. Looking back, I wish I had made a more exciting resolution; something to be quietly satisfied about. I dread the thought of reaching the end of 2017 with nothing to show for it. Disappointment in yourself can be the hardest to shake off: you can't make excuses because you know the truth. I say that I didn't do more because I was too busy with work and the kids but I know I didn't do more because I decided to stay wrapped up warm in bed followed by mooching around in my pyjamas until midday. I'll never stop treating myself to mornings like that, but I should probably avoid doing it so frequently. One of my regrets as I approach the end of 2016 is that I didn't spend enough time in the Great Outdoors. I live in Essex, a place with lots of pretty countryside; however it is also one of the flattest counties in the UK and it is really mountains and lakes that sing to me: places you feel you could get lost and have an adventure. If we are happy to drive a couple of hours out and back again, there are hills within striking distance but we rarely started our day early enough to make the journey worthwhile (see my earlier note about bed and pyjamas). Ironically, I do wake early - thanks to my 6 year old who likes to proclaim that "It's day time!" from about 6am. The problem is, I never actually get up at that time anymore - after several years of being sleep deprived, I'm tired and still catching up (or so I tell myself). I really should remind myself that on the days that we do all get up early for an outdoor adventure, I actually feel far less fatigued at the end of the day and any tiredness is of the satisfying type. So, to avoid regret and disappointment at the end of 2017, I am setting myself (and my family) a challenge. Here it is: in 2017, Simon, the kids and I will visit all 15 UK National Parks for hiking and other outdoor activities. I want to be a grown up on an adventure with my kids, not a chaperone for kiddy activites. I'm thinking proper wild camping, not den building with pre-prepared branches; hiking up mountains, not rolling down hills (although we might do some of that too). I'm not against kiddie-focussed adventures - they are a wonderful way to get children outdoors and having fun. It's just that I miss the things I did before I had kids and now that they are a little older, I want to start doing some of the 'proper' stuff again. This may not sound like much of a challenge. For me it is though, because we work full time, the kids have to go to school and we're not so fabulously wealthy that we can afford 15 holidays in a year. We want to do this whilst still meeting our other commitments and without breaking the bank. We will need to plan our activities meticulously to ensure we can fit everything in and we hope to make this a fun and memorable year. I hope you enjoy following our adventures. |
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