Blencathra - The Lake District
Wow, its been quite a while, and alot has happened since i last posted. Its all been great. If the post about my holiday was long enough for you this one will be more of a challenge. You'll deserve a prize if you stick it out till the very end. And as usual it'll be cheap, pointless and consume space uneccessarily.
Tuesday 12th saw meet up with some people in Covent garden and we had a great day. about 20 of us took over Yates in Leicester Square, and it just so happens that the premier to Talledaga Nights (or however its spelt) was on that evening. Thursday i then went up to Reading, hauling behind me my holdall back and backpack for the up-coming trip. Worked thursday night 7pm - 4.30am and then friday night 7pm - 12.30am. Really starting to enjoy work now. You get used to the perks, which there are alot of, and the people there are great and its such a laugh. Even the managers seem quite laid back. Ive really made all that brief, but heres the rest of it, i.e. the trip up North to the middle of no-where. Ive also made this brief because to be honest with you, i cant be bothered to spend ages on this. I know i had a great time and there were many many hilarious moments, but you'll have to ask me yourself. Ive probably forgotten alot of the stuff anyway, as i didnt note anything down throughout the week. Too busy having a good time and didnt have any time to do so anyway...
Sat 16th Sept - Arrival
Woke up about 4.45am Saturday morning, having had about 3 and a half hours sleep after working the last night. Walked round to the College Arms pub where i was picked up by Ross and Paul at 6am. Next went to pick up Laura at St George's before starting our 6hour car journey up north in Ross' relatively tightly packed Ford Fiesta. Stopped of somewhere in the Midlands (sorry, i know the midlands is a very big place but i really cant be more specific... might have been somewhere around Birmingham). Much of the journey Ross was pretty much on his own as the rest of us had managed to doze off.
Arrived in Blencathra at about midday to find the place deserted as no-one had arrived yet. So we went on a 1/2 walk back down the hill the the 'local' pub. Ended up doing a pub crawl. Yes, we went into all the pubs in the area, which came to two. Blencathra, for those of you who dont know or havnt quite sussed it out yet is in the Northern Lake District in the county of Cumbria, and is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Bought chips and a few pints before receiving a txt from Vicki saying she had arrived to the deserted location about 2pm. She drove down and met us at the pub. In the second pub, Paul, Ross and I ordered pints of Fosters, and found that they tasted completely off. Thought we drank half of it before returning them for a another free full pint of Kronenberg.
Returned to the Field Centre about 4ish, just before the lecturers Steve Gurney and Kevin White turned up. Helped bringing equipment in before being shown to our 3-star rooms. Was actually alright. Us guys had a whole building to ourselves, and the were a total of five guys on the trip in a building with 10 beds... techinally 2 beds each. The nine girls had rooms in the main building along with the lecturers.
The first night was just about arriving and getting aquainted and find the bar and play area, which was cool. Food throughtout the week was decent, the alcohol quite cheap, the sofas in the bar area (which was more of a lounge, but they call it the bar area) was really comfortable.
Sunday was about familiarising ourselves with the local area and getting our bodies used to the emmense amount of walking we would be doing. After breakfast (8am every day) we packed u our stuff and Took the coach down to Seathwaite, 130m above ea level. From here we walked up to Sourmilk Gill loacted 398m above sea level and a good few kilometers walk. Looked at some glacial features and did some more walking. Noted stuff down in our notebooks before returning to the coach about 4pm. Back at Blencathra we had a short lecture and then dinner at 6.30pm. Returned to the classroom after dinner for some more talking and lectures until "beer o'clock", a.k.a. 9pm. Then the usual drinking, catting, playing table tennis, playing pool, etc until people could be bothered to go to bed.
Monday we went to Longthwaite where we did work - shock horror! Split into 3 teams, we went to 3 different locations within the same area and used tape measures to measure out 30m x 30m grids. Within this grid we recorded the co-ordinates, circumference, heigh, weight and volume of the trees. Walking back we were crossing a river and rather than jump it i just put my foot in. Only problem was, unlike all the othe rrivers we had so far come across, this one had a soft bed instead of gravel bed. I sunk into it and my leg got soaked pretty much up to my knee. Only just managed to pull my leg out of the mud before i gotstuck, otherwise it would have been bye-bye Markie! Later returned to the field centre to give presentations on our findings and then bar again. In fact i might as well just say now that we all went to the bar at about 9pm every day that we were there. And there were some hilarious moments.
Tuesday our teams took up 3 different locations on a hill called Cat Bells. One team at the bottom, one middle, one top. We volunteered to go to the top (stupid) but it was ok cuase we had awesome views over the valley and Derwent Water. Took about an hour to climb, but only 1/2 an hour to descend. In our locations we toom readings of air temperature, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, cloud cover and precipition events.These we taken at 10 min intervals for 2 and a half hours. Was extremely windy up there. We were actually leaning backwards and the strength of the wind was preventing us from falling over! Though if the wind had suddenly stopped we'd have fallen backwards and off the side of the hill to the ground 400m metres below. Well, that would have been the quick way down i guess. Were also attacked by ravens when we decided to start having lunch. Again, returned to prepare our presentations, have dinner, give our presentations and then go to the bar.
Wednesday (Day 5) was hydrology, and we went to Glenridding River for this. Again we had to climb steep hills to get to our location (this time 351m above sea level). Today it chucked it down with rain and everyone got soaked, however i and a few others were wearing waders because we were going into the river. Waders are basically wellies that come up to your chest... so i only really got wet chest upwards. My boots, bag, everything got saturated! It was blowing into our eyes too, but oh well, when the food fight me and Jordan had with oranges began spirits soon improved.
Thursday was a day of geomorphology at Bleaberry Tarn. This was a really steep climb, but by now we were used to it and we were far fitter than at the start of the week. Looked at a few glacial landforms at the top and drew a few sketches of the area. Also had beautiful views over the valley and the two lakes down below.
Ok, up till this point was written about 3 weeks ago, but i really cant be bothered to continue. All you need to know is that we had a great time, drank lots (especially on the last night), had some very memorable moments such as everyone slipping over on rocks, Me and Jordan slapping each other with latex gloves leading to Steve Gurney's (the lecturer) famous reply that got turned into a ringtone, Jordan falling asleep and someone putting a chocolate in his mouth so that when he woke up it was everywhere, me sinking into a river up to my knees, the matress bundling in Rowan and Jordan's room, everyone messing up their presentation speeches (Rachel: anemomememem...!, Dee: the rocks were covered in vegetarians, me: The rocks were covered in moths :P). Thats about all i can remember now. Was such a while ago.
Anyway, till the next episode - x -
Tuesday 12th saw meet up with some people in Covent garden and we had a great day. about 20 of us took over Yates in Leicester Square, and it just so happens that the premier to Talledaga Nights (or however its spelt) was on that evening. Thursday i then went up to Reading, hauling behind me my holdall back and backpack for the up-coming trip. Worked thursday night 7pm - 4.30am and then friday night 7pm - 12.30am. Really starting to enjoy work now. You get used to the perks, which there are alot of, and the people there are great and its such a laugh. Even the managers seem quite laid back. Ive really made all that brief, but heres the rest of it, i.e. the trip up North to the middle of no-where. Ive also made this brief because to be honest with you, i cant be bothered to spend ages on this. I know i had a great time and there were many many hilarious moments, but you'll have to ask me yourself. Ive probably forgotten alot of the stuff anyway, as i didnt note anything down throughout the week. Too busy having a good time and didnt have any time to do so anyway...
Sat 16th Sept - Arrival
Woke up about 4.45am Saturday morning, having had about 3 and a half hours sleep after working the last night. Walked round to the College Arms pub where i was picked up by Ross and Paul at 6am. Next went to pick up Laura at St George's before starting our 6hour car journey up north in Ross' relatively tightly packed Ford Fiesta. Stopped of somewhere in the Midlands (sorry, i know the midlands is a very big place but i really cant be more specific... might have been somewhere around Birmingham). Much of the journey Ross was pretty much on his own as the rest of us had managed to doze off.
Arrived in Blencathra at about midday to find the place deserted as no-one had arrived yet. So we went on a 1/2 walk back down the hill the the 'local' pub. Ended up doing a pub crawl. Yes, we went into all the pubs in the area, which came to two. Blencathra, for those of you who dont know or havnt quite sussed it out yet is in the Northern Lake District in the county of Cumbria, and is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Bought chips and a few pints before receiving a txt from Vicki saying she had arrived to the deserted location about 2pm. She drove down and met us at the pub. In the second pub, Paul, Ross and I ordered pints of Fosters, and found that they tasted completely off. Thought we drank half of it before returning them for a another free full pint of Kronenberg.
Returned to the Field Centre about 4ish, just before the lecturers Steve Gurney and Kevin White turned up. Helped bringing equipment in before being shown to our 3-star rooms. Was actually alright. Us guys had a whole building to ourselves, and the were a total of five guys on the trip in a building with 10 beds... techinally 2 beds each. The nine girls had rooms in the main building along with the lecturers.
The first night was just about arriving and getting aquainted and find the bar and play area, which was cool. Food throughtout the week was decent, the alcohol quite cheap, the sofas in the bar area (which was more of a lounge, but they call it the bar area) was really comfortable.
Sunday was about familiarising ourselves with the local area and getting our bodies used to the emmense amount of walking we would be doing. After breakfast (8am every day) we packed u our stuff and Took the coach down to Seathwaite, 130m above ea level. From here we walked up to Sourmilk Gill loacted 398m above sea level and a good few kilometers walk. Looked at some glacial features and did some more walking. Noted stuff down in our notebooks before returning to the coach about 4pm. Back at Blencathra we had a short lecture and then dinner at 6.30pm. Returned to the classroom after dinner for some more talking and lectures until "beer o'clock", a.k.a. 9pm. Then the usual drinking, catting, playing table tennis, playing pool, etc until people could be bothered to go to bed.
Monday we went to Longthwaite where we did work - shock horror! Split into 3 teams, we went to 3 different locations within the same area and used tape measures to measure out 30m x 30m grids. Within this grid we recorded the co-ordinates, circumference, heigh, weight and volume of the trees. Walking back we were crossing a river and rather than jump it i just put my foot in. Only problem was, unlike all the othe rrivers we had so far come across, this one had a soft bed instead of gravel bed. I sunk into it and my leg got soaked pretty much up to my knee. Only just managed to pull my leg out of the mud before i gotstuck, otherwise it would have been bye-bye Markie! Later returned to the field centre to give presentations on our findings and then bar again. In fact i might as well just say now that we all went to the bar at about 9pm every day that we were there. And there were some hilarious moments.
Tuesday our teams took up 3 different locations on a hill called Cat Bells. One team at the bottom, one middle, one top. We volunteered to go to the top (stupid) but it was ok cuase we had awesome views over the valley and Derwent Water. Took about an hour to climb, but only 1/2 an hour to descend. In our locations we toom readings of air temperature, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, cloud cover and precipition events.These we taken at 10 min intervals for 2 and a half hours. Was extremely windy up there. We were actually leaning backwards and the strength of the wind was preventing us from falling over! Though if the wind had suddenly stopped we'd have fallen backwards and off the side of the hill to the ground 400m metres below. Well, that would have been the quick way down i guess. Were also attacked by ravens when we decided to start having lunch. Again, returned to prepare our presentations, have dinner, give our presentations and then go to the bar.
Wednesday (Day 5) was hydrology, and we went to Glenridding River for this. Again we had to climb steep hills to get to our location (this time 351m above sea level). Today it chucked it down with rain and everyone got soaked, however i and a few others were wearing waders because we were going into the river. Waders are basically wellies that come up to your chest... so i only really got wet chest upwards. My boots, bag, everything got saturated! It was blowing into our eyes too, but oh well, when the food fight me and Jordan had with oranges began spirits soon improved.
Thursday was a day of geomorphology at Bleaberry Tarn. This was a really steep climb, but by now we were used to it and we were far fitter than at the start of the week. Looked at a few glacial landforms at the top and drew a few sketches of the area. Also had beautiful views over the valley and the two lakes down below.
Ok, up till this point was written about 3 weeks ago, but i really cant be bothered to continue. All you need to know is that we had a great time, drank lots (especially on the last night), had some very memorable moments such as everyone slipping over on rocks, Me and Jordan slapping each other with latex gloves leading to Steve Gurney's (the lecturer) famous reply that got turned into a ringtone, Jordan falling asleep and someone putting a chocolate in his mouth so that when he woke up it was everywhere, me sinking into a river up to my knees, the matress bundling in Rowan and Jordan's room, everyone messing up their presentation speeches (Rachel: anemomememem...!, Dee: the rocks were covered in vegetarians, me: The rocks were covered in moths :P). Thats about all i can remember now. Was such a while ago.
Anyway, till the next episode - x -
