20°C, brisk SW, sunny.
Steady ride over the beach grasses and a chat with a Spanish traveller.

22°C bright sunny after an early shower.

A long drive for one day’s work. On paper, not a good return for my time. The time was made worse by many traffic jams, a lorry blocking the M42 roundabout, soon followed by a 3 car pile-up and finally another broken down lorry. The average speed was 11mph. I set off allowing 1 hour extra but lost that before I even reached the motorway. My arrival was 1/2 late. The team was sympathetic.

Anyway, we spent the day with groups on a rota learning basic skills 1, mapping; 2, Tents; 3, cooking; 4, first aid. I did the mapping. The groups varied in their concentration which led to a slightly different approach with each group. The latter ones were set a chellenge where they listed grid references, direction and distances on 3+ legs and the other team had to identify place names they had listed. In other words, make a simple route card. Then the maps lists were swapped to the next table on the right to be solved by the next group.

That done right at the end of summer term; they were obviously in need to a summer holiday. Some were due to fly abroad tomorrow and others simply looked worn out.

The company I was working for seemed really good so I intend to sign up with them because they do lots of DofE expeditions nearer to home. I’d like to cut down on the number of very long drives that I do currently. Let’s see if I can be more canny with these trips in future.

22°C, bright and sunny.

Not quite the ride I wanted. Rather like 2 weeks ago, I took the Bannister Hill route with the same cafe stop. Energy wasn’t there though, I got up the climb well enough, bit getting round felt like effort. Last time, I could have gone on past the 60 miles done.