LTD's Camp-Out Well Away From Fireworks

 OK, I admit it. When I were but a sprog, we used to buy bangers - not sausages, but firecrackers. We used to set them off at night. Sometimes, we'd blow out hibernating earwigs from the holes in fence posts where the wire went through. Sometimes we'd chuck them at each other. Sometimes we'd put one in a cigar-tube and fire it across the road at Wentcliffe Drive. The streets of Earby were a war-zone from roughly the end of October till the 5th, after which no more fireworks were available till the next year. It's now 10 November and a firework has just gone off and LTD is running about in a panic. Fireworks have been going off at random since the last week in October, sometimes at 11:30pm on a wet Tuesday night. I meantersay, somebody somewhere close is a proper dweeb.

 

 

So, to avoid the worst of the Guy Fawkes stuff, me and LTD planned a camp-out miles and miles away from any fireworks. In the Howgills, four miles walk from the road in a lovely spot. 

 

 

 Spotting my tweets or faceache posts about this, JJ said he would come, then Beryl (aka Margaret) and, finally, Judith. I expect that the chance of a pre-TGO chally shake-down might have been on their minds: me, JJ and Beryl are forming a team for next year's TGO Challenge and we've made some tentative steps at planning a route.

 Me and LTD set off at about noon on 4 November in unpromising conditions of heavy showers, rainbows and blustery bluster from the approximate direction of Blyth (Had Dawn left her back door open?) We had the tent up by half past two and the kettle on a few minutes later and we settled in for book-reading, (where angels fear to tread)  brewing up and snoozing. This went on till the next morning, which was even windier, so we didn't venture far. No fireworks had been heard during the night and, apart from aircraft, a noisy fox and a couple of booms or rumbles from the direction of Warcop, the night was peaceful if a thundering wind can be labelled as "peaceful". I was in the akto, so there's no problem with an average gale-force blast.

 In the late afternoon I spotted two figures heading towards me along a contouring path and, these turned out to be JJ and Margaret (aka Beryl). Judith arrived at about the same time, having opted for a route up the little Dale that leads to our campsite. They all arrived by about sunset and we all settled in for a cold and starry night. Ice formed early, melted for a bit and then reformed. Margaret said there was mist for a while, but I was in snorydreamysnoozyland, as was LTD, tucked into his cosy doggy sleeping bag. We had a sigg bottle filled with very hot water and placed inside 2 socks inside my sleeping bag and right next to LTD's back to keep us toasty. I had to warm it up once about midnight and drank a bit of hot water just because it was hot.

 We struck camp at some point in the late morning, having spent the early part of the day brewing and chatting and generally mooching about and a couple of hours walking saw us back with the cars. As a final flourish, we managed to find a well-hidden benchmark. Judith collects benchmarks, apparently. There are photographs....

 So, we managed to avoid two nights of whizz-bangs (although there's still a few left apparently) and we had a jolly little camp-out in a remote-ish spot  where nobody else at all visited during our stay. As it's not such a good idea to be explicit about the locations of really nice wild camping places, because they soon get over-used, I'm not going to say exactly where we went. Many people will already have sussed it and may well have camped there themselves. It's a lovely spot, though, with good water and some short grass and it's very very quiet and anyone with a relevant map should be able to spot it. Nuff said.