SO, the last few weeks, the first few weeks of 2014, have been pretty varied. I’ve been revising for exams, enjoying a break from studying (and all that entails), job-hunting, and gone full circle back to studying.
So, firstly, I had an exam.
Anyway, enough about that and on to more exciting stuff. Suddenly, the revision is over, the exam is over, and all that pent-up energy had 11 days to explode outwards until university started again. This was a fantastic time in which I could climb, kayak, hike, bike and slack-line with my buddies to my heart’s content.
As hinted in the title, this is only a brief update as I’m off to watch the Superbowl very soon, so I’ll just expand on three of these events slightly.
Firstly, a friend had heard about a nice gorge around 20km into the heart of a valley. The next day, bright and early, we found ourselves pedalling in the sun, through a singletrack road, in the depths of Wales, to commit a recce of said gorge. Well, the gorge looked ace, so we agreed to go the next day, and set up a line. This was the first line anyone from my group of friends had set up a ‘high’-line so we were aiming to figure it our between us with our limited knowledge. I’ve put the high as questionable as it was only around 4m high, which, when you compare to some incredible people who send lines thousands of feet in the air, is unimpressive, but to us, we could not have been happier.
The photos below show how it worked out. It’s something I’ll be sure to try out again, and hopefully in increasingly gnarly places!
The second event was that my awesome Dad came down for a weekend’s hiking in Snowdonia. We managed to get a fair amount of hiking done, albeit in the diabolical weather conditions – on the first day, we faced hail, snow, sleet, rain, bracing winds, and thunder and lightning. The latter forced us to turn around and hike through the valley. I’m no expert on thunder and lightning, but being on an exposed ridge, heading for one of the highest summits around probably isn’t one of the best ideas. As inviting as the summit looked, it will have to wait for another day.
The second day saw us hike Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales, standing at 1,085m via the Rhyd-Ddu path, one of six main routes to the top. The weather… completely ignored the forecast and allowed us to head up in fairly clear skies and no rain. Happy days. It was made even better by a thin coating of snow on the top, and it snowed while we were there, making it more interesting.
Finally, the day I hiked Snowdon, I got home and checked my emails and saw one about working part-time on a farm until Easter. I made a phone call and within 10 minutes had an interview. Wednesday just gone I found myself on a farm, a hilly cycle away from home, being taught the basics of lambing, and looking after new-born lambs. Who’d have thought! Well, I got the job, and pretty excited about the prospect of it – not many students can say they helped pay the bills by lambing! I’m looking forward to getting back to nature, seeing how these things work on a farm, and learning something new. It will be epic being outside, and I’ll enjoy the cycle I have to make to ‘commute.’ I’ll definitely enjoy the income for a month or so which can hopefully fund so future adventures!
Anyway, superbowl tiiiime! Catch ya later guys!