About

This is me. Sturdy Girl. Lovingly named by my big brother many years ago when I realised that I’m never going to be a catwalk model, but then, who wants to be? But I do want to be healthy and have developed a passion for walking and that’s what this blog is all about.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Exmoor. Camping.

Am I being too ambititous?

Had an opportunity to spend some time with my lovely dog, Buster, so headed down to Somerset ready to whisk him away for a couple of days. With tent in the boot and walking boots ready, I bundled the poor unsuspecting bundle of fluff into the car and off we went to Exmoor.

Fired up by my recent navigation course [See ‘Previously’, left] I had planned a route taking me along and into the moors from the base of the Dunkery Beacon, taking in some cairns and a disused quarry before ending up at the trig point. Car parked, I set the map, took a bearing to make sure I was on the right path and off we went. First attack point reached, no problem. Timing, pacing – perfect. Second attack point – perfect. Now, for the cairns and time to head off the path. I knew where I was on the map, took a bearing to the cairn and off we marched, bouncing our way across the heather. Well, Buster bounced, I kind of stumbled, wobbled and muttered under my breath as I soon realised that short legs and heather don’t necessarily get on well together. I eventually reached my target but was disappointed to find I was out by about 50m. Doubled checked I was at the right point, took a bearing for the next Cairn and off we went again. Reached the Cairn on time/distance but what’s this – it’s the wrong Cairn! Had ended up at the neighbour of the one I thought I was heading to. Undeterred I took another bearing to find the next Cairn, which was over a convex summit and off we went. And went, and went, and went… No Cairn, or at least not on the route I was taking. More to the point, no reference points either. I knew how far I thought I’d travelled and checking the map could see there should be a path not far away so took a bearing, measured distance and sure enough hit the target spot on. So what had happened with the Cairn?

Feeling a bit confused as to why I had missed my mark I headed back up the path to a known point, took another bearing to the elusive Cairn and headed off. I’d estimated the time and distance and so was horrified to realise that I was nowhere near the target but had somehow ended up way up the hill in some very boggy, tufty grass and with no recognisable features to boot! What on earth was going wrong? At this point I was tired, confused and wanted to stomp my feet like a big kid but Buster kept on smiling and wagging his tail at me – at least he was having fun! I didn’t seem to be having any problems finding out where I was or escape routes back to main paths but I just couldn’t hit those *** Cairns. After 4 hours of wandering around in almost circles we’d both had enough and decided to head off to the campsite before the rain set in.

I didn’t have a good night – torrential rain, thunder, lightning, getting spooked by my reading material (Joe Simpson’s ‘Water People’!) - Buster and I finally abandoned the tent and book for the safety of the car. As the rain eventually eased off we packed up camp and headed back to Dunkery.

I was determined to figure out what had gone wrong the day before. As time passed by the weather began to close in, the winds picked up and finally, after we had been roaming around for 2 hours I’d had enough. I just couldn’t figure it out. The day had started well, hitting targets and finding my way around and then it all went pear-shaped again. Then, as I walked back to the car, Buster pulling at the lead and map flapping under my arm I wondered what could be causing the problem. I had a lovely new map, laminated of course, and had folded it over to show my target area. Folded it over. Hmm. Could that be the problem? On Preseli, there had been lots of stones and rocks to rest the map on to take readings, on Exmoor there is mainly heather so I’d been holding a heavily folded map with one hand (dog lead in the other) – could this be where the problem lay? If the map wasn’t flat could I be veering off due to creases, dips etc in the surface? It’s a possibility I suppose, that and being in a more complex terrain. Think I’ll section out the map, keep practising at home with a local site and then come back in a few weeks time to give it another go. Will follow the same route and see how I go.
The adventure has begun!