Looking back there are definitely only a handful of times that I’ve been nervous about camping: There was the first time I ventured into the Arctic all the way back in 2001 when I was eighteen, then there was my little solo expedition climbing a 5700m mountain in the Peruvian Andes in 2006 (which was also the first time I’d been that high or climbed a high altitude mountain). This was quickly followed by my solo attempt on Aconcagua a couple of months later which is a little short of 7000m. In 2008 when my colleague and I made our first attempt at a spring crossing of the remote Penny ice cap on Baffin Island (it was really cold and my feet froze) and finally our return trip in 2011 (for which I was nervous about my feet freezing again). I make that five times with the last one a full decade ago. Last week I added to that count.
Adventures in mid-England
We are nature people. We love the hills, mountains and coastline. Having traveled the world and lived across Western Europe I can hand on my heart say that the UK has some incredible coastlines and mountains and we enjoy nothing better to do on our weekends than to experience these wild places. So it was with trepidation that we moved inland to landlocked and flat Oxfordshire, a place so unfamiliar to the things we love that, despite the extensive countryside, we felt cooped in.
That's when we got hold of an inflatable boat. That’s when we discovered the rivers.
Wye Canoe?
A wonderful weekend canoeing down the Wye.