A Peaky Blinder

 One of my New Years resolutions was to try and camp out at least once per calendar month - the #pitchpermonth challenge. Another, was to do my first wild camp in the Peak District. It was the third weekend of January, and, on this occasion, I would start the year by killing two birds with one stone.

After finishing work at lunchtime, I headed home to pick up my camping rucksack I had prepared the night before, changed into my walking gear, and set off south to the Peak District.

My sat-nav estimated it would be an hour's drive from home to my destination just outside Castleton in the Hope Valley. In actual fact, driving the A6 through Stockport, and hitting some of the school-traffic, meant it was more like 1 hour 20 minutes to complete the 37 mile journey.

I arrived at the Mam Tor National Trust car park at 3:40pm. The pay and display machine was broken, and covered with a black bin bag, which meant free parking. (Although it woudl have been free anyway with my National Trust membership). Sunset was due in about half an hour, and it was already weighing low in the sky. Luckily my final destination for the evening was just over a 20 minute walk from the car park.

It was a clear but cold winters afternoon, the golden sunlight casting over the fields and rolling Peak District hills. It was also very muddy, and this was especially the case after crossing over a step stile and following the path through a field. My route passed through an open gate, and the ground near the gateway was pure mud, churned up from dozens of sheep hooves.

I entered the neighbouring field, where the sheep were gathered around what I can only presume was some feed put down by the farmer to help see them through the winter.

It was a little bit un-nerving walking through the field though - as the sheep stopped and starred at me. Who was this human interrupting their dinner & traipsing through their field?

I passed the evil-eyed sheep without incident, and up ahead I could see the next step stile, which would take me onto the top of Winnats Pass.

The step-stile had broken slightly, and some of the wooden steps had collapsed on the opposite side. I took off my rucksack, and carefully made my way over onto the top of Winnat's Pass.

A narrow, muddy path circled around the top of the southern rim of the pass, the dramatic limestone cliffs plunging hundred of feet to the road below. In the distance was the village of Castleton, and a bit further on, the rather unsightly landmark of the Hope Valley Cement Works.

I made my way along the top of the pass. I could see my potential camp spot above the cliffs at the end of the pass, and the ground looked quite flat on top.

The view from the top of the pass was quite spectacular, overlooking the Hope valley, the Great Ridge, & leading up to Mam Tor itself, with the dramatic cliffs of Winnats Pass immediately below. I set about looking for a photo compostion as I had an idea in mind to do a long-exposure showing the light trails from cars driving up and down the pass, with Mam Tor in the background.

I got my compostion set up, and did a few test shots, althoguh it wasn't quite dark enough just yet, and I had to wait for the rush hour traffic to start making its way over from Manchester.

Whilst waiting for the light to drop, I set up my tent, and watched the late afternoon sky light up the clouds, turning them from grey to a pastel pink before the sunset and darkness set in.

The temperature dropped too, but luckily I was prepared, and had brought with me my new down jacket, and a pair of winter gloves, which kept me toasty.

Soon after, the light conditions became just right for my long exposure shot, and after a few attempts trying to time it right with passing vehicles, I caught a shot I was quite pleased with.

I retired to the tent and started cooking my dinner. On a recent visit to Go Outdoors, I decided to pick up a couple of the Wayfarer camping meals they sell. They are more expensive than the usual Look What We Found (LWWF) meals I bring - £4.50 compared to £1.50, but you get more in the pack & contain more calories. Tonight I was trying out the Beef Goulash, and had also brought some Idahoan Instant Mash to accompany it.

The Wayfarer meal was boil in the bag - the same as LWWF - and after boiling it up for 10 minutes or so on my MSR Pocket Rocket stove, I used the remaiinng water for my instant mash.

Overall, I found it was a very tasty and filling meal, especially with the accompanying mashed potato, but compared to the £3 cheaper LWWF meals, I can't really see myself swapping to the Wayfarer.

I have another camping meal to test from Go Outdoors - an Adventure Food dehydrated meal - which I'll be trying out in the not to distant future.

Whilst eating my dinner, I spotted that quite a few stars were beginning to appear over-ahead. So I took the opportunity to play around with some astro-photography. I identified the constellations of the Plough, as well as Orion, which was directly behind my tent, so I attempted to grab a few shots.

Unfortunately there was a breeze picking up, and the gusts were was causing a slight shake in my tripod as I was trying to capture an exposure. This meant most of my pictures were slightly blurred, and the stars were nowhere near as sharp and pin-point as I would have liked.

Eventually, it began to cloud over, and started speaking of rain, so I headed back into my tent, and the warmth of my sleeping bag. And just in time to, as a quite heavy shower started.

I zipped up the door to my tent, and listened to a couple of podcasts before calling it a night. The wind gusts picked up overnight causing me to wake up a couple of times during the night, but I maged to get a good few solid hours of sleep.

The next morning, I awoke around 07:30 am. Sunrise wasn't due for another hour, but I headed out of the tent to answer nature's call. It was a clear, but cold and blustery morning. The few bits of cloud were moving pretty quickly overhead, and not too far away, some cloud was intermittently shrouding the top of Mam Tor. But the good news was that a bit of colour was beginning to build over the south-eastern sky, along with some dramatic clouds.

I slowly took my time to wake up, had a breakfast oat bar (or two) & orange juice before making a start packing away. The sun poked it's head up over the horizon right on time, and brought with it some lovely warming sunshine.

I headed over to the cliff top over-looking the pass towards Mam Tor, now alight with golden sunshine. What surprised me was that I then saw a Bird of Prey hovering above the pass about 20 feet or so from where I was standing. It was about the same level as me though. It was no doubt looking for it's breakfast, and I stood silently watching it hunt. A gust of wind made the bird swoop a bit further along the rim of the pass, where again it began to hunt.

It was finally time to pack up, as I could see a person heading along the path at the western end of the pass. After packing away my tent & hauling my rucksack on my back, I returned along the rim of the pass, and back to my iced up car.