We’re coming to the end of our second year of monthly jaunts inspired by Alastair Humphreys microadventures. Based around the idea of having a mini adventure once a month. As a family of 5, 3 kids under 13, we’ve modified it slightly and made our adventures family friendly, whilst still pushing our boundaries and limits.
A lot of our adventures this year have been walking ones, pushing our limits of distance and terrain (I’m training them up for a future backpacking holiday!).
Here’s a little round up of the first half of the year.
January
We wrapped up well and took a chilly 7 mile walk along the clifftops from Saltburn along the Cleveland Way (we’ve done lots of sections of this now, I’d love to do the whole trail together). We kept it reasonably short, as my 9 yr old feels the cold really badly. Then hunted for fossils and ate fish and chips on the beach. I really love the coast in Winter.
Cleveland Way – Saltburn
Saltburn microadventure
February
We had vehicle troubles this month, so we ended up staying local and walking 6 miles with some friends, via the pub. We’ve done this walk lots of times, but it’s nice to take friends somewhere new, and to see how the seasons change a route.
March
We met my mum, dad and dog for a very hilly 6 mile walk in the Yorkshire Wolds. We walked from Millington along the Yorkshire Wolds Way, up and down the dry Dales and valleys. It was a hard walk, with some very steep inclines, but it is such a beautiful area, I’ve driven passed here thousands of times on my way to Hull. It’s a real hidden gem, red kites and buzzards flying over, and a barn owl flying over while we were chatting before heading home.
Millington Dale – The Yorkshire Wolds
Bottom of one of the very steep dry valleys around Millington – The Yorkshire Wolds
April
We headed into the Yorkshire Dales to Pateley Bridge this month, I love the Dales, and this is our quickest and easiest area of the Dales to get to (still an hour’s drive from Leeds). We took a really interesting 8 mile walk from Pateley Bridge, up along the Victorian panorama walk and up into the hills through a disused quarry to Gouthwaite reservoir and back into Pateley Bridge for pancakes. My youngest was 6 at the time, she really has an awesome pair of legs, I think because we’ve walked with her since she was small it’s just normal to her, she constantly amazes me.
You can’t beat a massive Yorkshire sky. I always feel recharged and revitalised after walking in the Dales.
The kids loved watching a farmer and his dogs herding sheep up the lane.
May
We upped the miles a little this month, hoping the kids wouldn’t notice! Another hilly one. We went back to the Cleveland Way and walked 9 miles from Great Ayton up to Captain Cook’s monument on the North Yorkshire Moors, along the Cleveland Way up Roseberry Topping and back into Great Ayton. It was a beautiful day, sunny walk and picnic, bluebells in the woods, Spring.
A different route up the back of Roseberry for us, the kids thought the path looked like a dragon’s spine.
June
Our first camping trip of the year. We packed the car and headed out early (as early as you can with three children), and took off to Horton-In-Ribblesdale to climb our first of the 3 Yorkshire Peaks, Pen-Y-Ghent. We climbed Snowdon last year with the kids and my eldest vowed never to climb another mountain again (we had a bit of weather, even in August), so we knew she would be apprehensive when we told her we were climbing Pen-Y-Ghent. The weather was good, and after her initial shock and disgust (to put it mildly), we set off. We took it steady on the steep incline up from the road, trying not to put her off. Once we got to the scramble section my youngest two disappeared up the rocks (no fear at all!), and were up in no time.
My 7 yr old is usually at the front, she amazes me.
My eldest did really well, and enjoyed climbing up. It was quite funny, because once we reached the trig point, we all found it a bit underwhelming. I took this as a wonderful sign that they found it easy, that all the walks we had done so far this year had actually been much tougher than climbing the 3rd highest peak in Yorkshire. This was a real turning point for my eldest daughter who has since completely embraced ‘trig bagging’, and realises that she is far more capable than she realised
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