# Camping and Nordic Walking



## Chris Hobson (Sep 25, 2020)

I’ve just enjoyed a fun camping (long) weekend at a campsite near Masham in Yorkshire from the 18th to the 21st of September. It has sort of become a thing that myself and wife Liz do stuff with her divorcee sister. Now that we are all a bit over the hill, the concept of someone being a bit of a third wheel no longer really applies and we all get on really well as long as the conversations stay away from politics. We had previously crammed all of the camping equipment for events that involved the whole of the West Hull Ladies running club into our car and trailer. With only three of us on this trip, packing our stuff in should be a doddle. The problem is that, although camping obviously involves roughing it a bit, we are really reluctant to give up our really comfy camp beds and our really comfy folding chairs. These are really cleverly designed to fold up very small but are inevitably still quite bulky. We also need a tent that actually has room for three, four actually, people and their stuff, rather than one that only claims to. In addition we have a kind of giant gazebo type thing that is our cooking and sitting area. So, in the end, we have a challenge to fit all our stuff into the trailer and even the mighty load carrying Korando was struggling. Still, we made it to the campsite, got set up, got a good night’s sleep and planned our walk.

Liz had a phone app with a circular walk on it, we also carried an Ordinance Survey map of the area. We set off with our Nordic Walking poles and started out making pretty good progress. The app was very good in that the route was clearly marked and had a little arrow that showed your location so that you knew if you had wandered off the path. Our problems began on the second half of the route because the path had not been maintained at all. There were styles that were in very poor condition,( I blame Paul Weller), and paths that had been obscured with fields of maize. As a consequence we found that our little arrow and our route were going their separate ways rather often. There followed a lot of U turns, climbing of rickety fences and falling into patches of nettles. We did eventually make it to the end of our circular course and amassed about 22 thousand steps on our Garmins.

Any fools who have been following my previous wibblings will be aware that I now have a problem with my right knee. It isn’t too serious but has meant that I have had to give up running, then cycling and now, after my epic walk, I find that my knee is rather swollen. A few doses of Ibroprofin seem to have sorted it out but I think that I might have to admit that my triathlon days are over. Swimming is the thing that I can fall back on once the covid thing is over. Having started doing fairly vigorous endurance events back in 2013, I think that I have had a pretty good run before the wheels came off.

On day two we went into Masham and took a short walk by the river. Later we went into the market place and there was some kind of unofficial motorbike rally going on. There were several Vincents, a Velocette, a BSA twin, some modern bikes, Triumphs and BMWs mostly, some Harleys. The one that caught my eye was a CCM Spitfire. I had quite a long conversation with the owner. I have been a motorcyclist on and off my whole life and, now that I am retired, I am contemplating buying a bike. The CCM CR-40 is pretty much my ideal bike but unfortunately it is way out of my price range and is unlikely to get any cheaper as there were only 25 made.

I spent my birthday breaking down our tents and packing them into our trailer and car. We were incredibly lucky with the weather, sunny and hot, despite it being late September, my conk got sunburned. The rain even held off until we had dried our camping equipment out on our washing line.


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## Drummer (Sep 25, 2020)

The Nordic walking poles are what has kept me mobile on a couple of occasions when I'd have been very  restricted without their help. They have kept me from toppling over on our very badly maintained footpaths and pavements. I heartily recommend them.


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## Vonny (Sep 26, 2020)

Sounds like it was a wonderful trip... and 22k steps!!! With a dodgy knee. You are to be congratulated on doing another (albeit short) walk the next day too. I'm afraid I am far too lazy to contemplate camping these days, all that putting up and breaking down, though I know I'd love it if I did it again.


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## Chris Hobson (Sep 28, 2020)

The air beam tents are really quick to put up and take down. You notice this when other people are dealing with the old style fibreglass poles. The gazebo has a skeleton of steel tubes but it is really cleverly designed to make it easy to put together. Liz and Jill used to be girl guides so have experience of old school canvas tents.


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