Up The Farway Tree

Hen Weekend

I have been on a hen weekend in the Lake District which was rather action packed - it was great fun although I am pretty shattered now.   There were 15 of us in a (large!) cottage near Eskdale and most people headed down after work on Friday.   We all had instructions the owner had sent and I had printed some maps and had my sat nav.  I had looked at the owners instructions and didn't think they were very good so didn't pay much attention to these - I was correct here as absolutely everyone got lost trying to follow them!  However I foolishly followed my sat nav instead.   Never trust a sat nav.  Ever.  The owner has said if you were coming from the south then the sat nav would try to take you over Hardknott and Wrynose Pass which should be avoided at all costs.  I wasn't too worried about this since I was coming from the North.   Well, I was coming from the North until the sat nav took my off the M6 much later than my road map suggested and then technically I was then coming from the south, but I didn't know this at the time.   I was driving myself and my friend Claire and we hadn't been able to leave Glasgow until 6pm so, factoring in a small break for food, we expected to arrive about 9.30pm.   We were making fairly good time until the dreaded moment when we realised we were about to cross one of the most notorious roads in the Lake District.   This route is apparently well known by motor cyclists and motoring clubs as a challenge activity and Hardknott pass is actually the steepest road in Britain, with gradients of 30% most of the way.  I have no doubt this is true because the majority had to be tackled in 1st gear!     It is basically a single track road with a series of hairpin bends and steep inclines and declines, with the added excitement of sheep standing in the middle of the road at unexpected moments.    The major problem was that it was now about 9pm, pitch black and as we climbed higher the mist also began to descend and even with full beams I could barely see 20 yards ahead.    At first we were amused and nervously laughed at our misfortune but as we progressed and the road got steeper and windier it really wasn't so funny.  The moment we both realised we also had no mobile reception was also not so funny.   For most of the way we were the only car on the road until about half way when suddenly headlights appeared behind us.  At first it was annoying me because they were driving very close and I wanted to try and let them pass - but then I got the notion that it could be some weirdo psychopath in the car behind (we had passed a stationary car parked off the road only 5 minutes before) and I didn't want to stop the car in case we were then trapped!  There was no way of turning round on this road anyway so we had no choice but to keep going.   Eventually I was forced to stop on a hairpin bend because I couldn't make it round in one go (close shave with a stone dyke wall) and we then saw into the car and there was a young woman and child in the back.   So we decided it probably wasn't a weirdo stalker (or the weirdo stalker already had kidnapped people so no room for us!) and we felt a bit better :-)  It took over an hour to get across this road and by the end we were both traumatised to say the least.   I had suggested we start saying some Hail Mary's about half way round so you get the idea of how stressed we were!   We had a bit of trouble finding the actual cottage but managed to ask someone and finally arrived just before 11pm by which time some of the other girls were out with torches looking for us.  Another few girls arrived at the same time as us having left Edinburgh at 5pm and getting lost finding the cottage, so we weren't the only stragglers.  No one else had gone over the same road as us though - typical!

The yellow line is the Hardknott pass road marked (stole pic from cycling website)

Another view

I noticed there are lots of video clips on You-Tube of people driving this road - this clip is what it was like!  Although sadly I wasn't driving a porsche....

The next morning we had to leave really early to drive to an activity centre and I did point out that we should avoid the above roads at all costs.  I wasn't driving that day (still in shock) and another car was leading.  You can guess what happened next...!    Yes, we ended up going over the same road although with the added benefit of daylight this time.   There were a few events on route where one car kept stalling on the ascent and was rolling back towards our car and we also did struggle with some of the slopes.  By the time we arrived at the activity centre everyone was in a state of shock and felt that we had had quite enough activity for one day :-)  The other girls couldn't believe we had driven that road at night, having thought we were just exaggerating when trying to explain it the night before!  I must admit it wasn't quite as bad during the day but it's certainly not a relaxing country drive!

Once at the activity centre we did quad biking and archery.  I was a bit nervous about the quad biking but it was actually really good fun.  You only had to worry about the accelerator on one handlebar and the brake on the other.   I did notice that everyone else had a wire connecting the ignition key to their wrist so that if you fall off you pull out the ignition key.  I didn't have one of these and pointed this out, but the guy just shrugged and said 'it will be fine'.   Oh well, better not fall off then!   We went round a small track first to practice then we had to follow him on a rubble path and then over fields going up and down hills.   We were out for about an hour and it was great fun - I would probably try that again.   I wasn't so keen on the archery, mainly because I was really rubbish!  I don't have the upper body strength to pull back the bow properly but it was still enjoyable.   We then headed back and relaxed for a while before dinner, which one of the girls kindly prepared.   We made cocktails and played some games where the hen (Gillian) had to guess which answers her fiance had given to set questions.  That was rather amusing!  We played on singstar for the rest of the evening.

On Sunday we did our own things -some people went for a walk but myself, Claire and Stephanie drove to Ambleside for the afternoon which was really nice.  We had a more relaxed evening and played some games and used up all the leftover food and made more cocktails :-)   Yesterday morning we headed home fairly early and made sure to avoid the dreaded Knotts pass so the drive home was somewhat less eventful!

 I am pretty shattered now from three late nights and lots of driving  but it was lovely to be away from everything for a while (I didn't even have any mobile reception).   It was back to reality this morning with PBL at 9am so I had to read up on the work last night and still felt a bit out of it this morning.  Hopefully the rest of the week will not be too hectic and I can just chill out this coming weekend.

Would like to leave you with a link to check out Corey's new fantasy mini series which has just been published called Magic of Myths.    When he becomes really famous Corey is going to give me lots of money and buy me a house (he doesn't know this yet though) so I though I should help publicise his work ;-)