For all the enjoyment of local walking, one of the things I’ve always found the most enjoyable and exciting about the group has been the trips away to walk in other parts of the country. These are a great opportunity both to walk in different landscapes, and to really get to know people – that’s certainly what I found with the 2018 Lake District trip, a few months after I joined.
Covid unfortunately brought an unwelcome halt to our programme events, with the trips away being curtailed for rather longer than our local walks. However, after resuming with last autumn’s trip to the Shropshire Hills, it’s been great to see the group returning to a full programme of trips this year, similar to what we had in previous years, with three contrasting trips from different organisers – although Covid continued to rear its ugly head, with all of them having last-minute cancellations as infections struck.
Kicking things off in early May, we had Tom’s 4-night trip to Arundel in the South Downs, featuring downland, riverside and coastal scenery along with a visit to the impressive Arundel Castle on the Sunday. Many of the group stayed either in B&Bs or self-catering properties in Arundel itself, with another contingent camping a few miles away, and we met up most evenings for meals out and drinks (and for some, an impromptu pub/brewery crawl after one of the walks…)
Next up was Graham’s long weekend trip to Cheddar and the Mendip Hills in July, a little steeper but with some spectacular scenery in spite of one rather wet day, although this was made up for by sunshine the next! Accommodation for most of us was in a set of holiday lodges, which were both comfortable and reasonably priced. Evenings were a combination of cooking in (or takeaways) with our lodge-mates, and a meal out all together as a large group on one evening.
Rounding off the year was a 5-night trip to Snowdonia organised by Shannon and myself. Inevitably, the weather was mixed, but we still made it up to mountain summits (including Snowdon itself) on three of the days, along with a number of lower-level walks and sightseeing activities. Accommodation here was at a fairly isolated youth hostel, in a combination of shared and private rooms and the attached campsite, with meals cooked as a group most evenings and at a pub in the nearest town on one night.
Of particular note is the fact that most of the organisers (apart from myself, as I led my first last year in Shropshire) were doing this for the first time, which is fantastic to see. So if you’re interested in leading a trip next year, don’t be afraid to do so – have a chat to previous trip organisers, myself, or any of the committee. As you can see, there isn’t one model of how a trip should work, there’s quite a bit of flexibility. We already have one on the programme for next year, to the Peak District over Easter, but we hope to get more on there soon!
— Zak, Walks Coordinator