Gear Review - The first of many I hope

These boots were made for walking ...........

Just back from our local Great Outdoors and Go Outdoors as I've been planning on getting a new pair of boots for a while now. 

My current pair are Berghaus Explorer Ridges and are really comfortable and lightweight but they have never been waterproof - I returned them to Berghaus after only 6 months because my feet got a soaking on a walk up the Old Man of Coniston and was told they could find nothing wrong with them at all but in the three years I've owned them they've NEVER kept my feet dry. My question was should I try another pair of Berghaus just in case I've been really unlucky, or should I go for something different. 

Well worn and well looked after Berghaus Explorer Ridge boots

Unfortunately Great Outdoors only had two pairs in my size (I take a 6 in a normal shoe but an 8 or 8½ in a mens walking boot (women's are always too narrow for my feet) - go figure!!!) and neither of them were Berghaus, so off to Go Outdoors I went.   

Northumberland's finest - Castles and Coast

Craster to Dunstanburgh Castle - 27 March 2015

If you've been watching Tales from Northumberland featuring Robson Green you might have seen him clambering down a rock face at Cullernose Point near Craster.  This is part of one of my favourite places to walk and that's where we chose to go as it was a gloriously sunny day. 

Cullernose Point

Its a great walk for anyone who doesn't want to do anything too strenuous as it is a relaxing, mood lifting place in general, and you can't help but feel in higher spirits on the return part of the walk.  

Escambray Mountains - Cuba 23 February - 3 March 2008

Having had the most brilliant time during our Breast Cancer Care charity trek in China in April 2007 we decided to carry on raising money for this fantastic charity and take part in another overseas challenge in Cuba.  Raising money for charity is often difficult but most of the time we had such fun doing it.  Over the years (spanning from 2006 to 2012) we raised around £43,000, in a number of ways such as fancy dress discos, a "Full Length and Fabulous" ball, organising our own charity walks in the Coquet Valley and along the fabulous Northumberland coast as well has having a stall at a local town fayre.   

Halloween Fancy Dress Disco

Dufton to High Cup Nick 14 March 2014 - the continuing story .......

I hope you've had time to read my previous post about the recce we did at Dufton in preparation for our walk this weekend to High Cup Nick - this is an account of the whole walk and boy what a walk! We chose a route from the internet which was supposed to be around 8.5 miles but because of my achilles tendon injury the recce we did the previously was to find a place to start the walk a bit further along the route in order to shorten it by a few miles.  

The start of our walk

The weather forecast was good for the day with light winds but it was very cold and icy and we could see snow on higher ground so we wrapped up well and made sure we all had a flask of something hot to drink for lunch later. We arrived at our parking place around 10 am and set off in high spirits.  

Dufton - A nice 3 mile bimble - 8 March 2015

The 1st of March was the opening date of Whitegate Caravan Park where we own a lovely caravan holiday home so at the first opportunity we winged it down the A1 and over the A66 for a weekend in paradise. We just love this place, and it's our second home but we're still not too familiar with the area and still finding our way around. The walking around here is just brilliant and relatively people free which is just fine by us.  

We're expecting visitors here next weekend and are walking from Dufton to High Cup Nick so today we decided to go check out where we were going to start the walk from and have a nice, short bimble just to stretch the legs.  Plus, Heidi hasn't been too well this last week so although she looks like she has loads of energy we didn't want to overdo it so thought a nice 3 mileish walk would be just perfect.

Signposts everywhere making the route to High Cup Nick easy to find

The weather was great only raining once for about 5 minutes and we had perfect views showing us exactly what the walking is like around this area.

Newlands Horseshoe - 16 August 2010

My BFF, Brenda, and her partner Paul meet up every year for a week's walking with old school friends of Paul.  In August 2010 they were meeting in and around Keswick and we got an invite too which we accepted although we could only stay a few days.  This was before the days of having Heidi so you'll notice no dogs on the photos.

We had never met any of the group before and on the Saturday we all met in a pub in Keswick to plan the following week's walks and they soon made me and the Hubster feel very welcome, as if we'd known them for years. 

The first walk we did on the Sunday was a nice short one up Latrigg, just to get the limbs moving a bit and on the Monday we were to meet at small parking area near a bridge just past Little Town to do the Newlands Horseshoe.  Brenda found the walk in one of our walking books and apart from missing out one Wainright (Hindscarth) we followed the instructions and had the most fantastic walk we'd ever been on. 

Our first "stop to look at the view" break haha