Tag: Nature

Transylvania Trek 1: Moeciu to Cheile Gradistei

Sat in my tent, I was thinking about the reason why I was with a group of 25 strangers, in another country, about to set of on some of the most physically demanding walks that I’ve ever had to do.

I reminded myself of the reasons. I wanted to prove to myself that I’m strong enough. Mentally and physically I can sometimes struggle. I have endometriosis and the side effects from different types of medication can be difficult. I have lots of migraines and often feel shattered. I also have my own experiences of anxiety and depression. Despite this, I wanted to prove that my sense of adventure hadn’t been overshadowed by cautiousness and fears. I want to prove that I am enough and I wanted to prove to myself that I could manage a challenge this big. That being said, it was one thing booking the trip in a moment of bravado and another thing entirely actually being in a tent in Braşov, getting ready to start an unknown adventure…..

It was the first day of my Transylvania trek. Technically, this was day 2 of the trip but our first day had been a whirl of travel, so this was our first day of actual hiking. This was supposed to be a ‘starter day’, designed to help to break us in gently  and help us to test our pace and stamina. I thought that the trek leaders might go slightly easier on us for this one…. forget that – it was tough!!

We were starting our walk at Moeciu and walking through to the ski resort of Cheile Gradistei. It was a beautiful start to the trip. Moeciu was a sunny, pleasant 14km walk through meadows with stunning mountain views as far as the eye could see. The weather was beautifully hot and we were soon taking off layers to accommodate the heat. That’s not to say it wasn’t difficult – we were all soon feeling the exertion, huffing and puffing our way up the hill. It was also clear that the pace of the walls would be somewhat quicker than I had been used to in my training. It was at this point that I discovered that I am more of a plodder than a walker!

The sound of cow-bells were never far away as we walked through the meadows, creating an unearthly soundtrack to our footsteps.

Animals seemed to be the theme of the trip, with two dogs joining us for the walk. Whilst Moft (a scraggy but excitable companion) was completely up for the 5 hour trek, his friend Charlie didn’t seem to be quite as interested, leaving us to continue on without him for the last half of the walk. Having a dog in tow was amazing for morale. Just as everyone was starting to flag, along would come Moft and our spirts were raised again and again. Although he was quite a dirty dog, everyone soon forgot the warnings of ‘don’t pet the animals’ and were quite happily stroking him and snapping pictures. There is something irresistible about a friendly dog, and he was very instagrammable too!

Some parts of the walk were fairly comfortable, however elements of the trek were really quite hard, particularly the steep climb before lunch and the twisting paths through the meadow. The path towards our lunch spot looked never-ending and it was certainly a test of determination to keep plodding upwards. Particularly when a couple of walkers going down the hill, who were much older than me, seemed to bounce down with buckets of energy, leaving me panting for breath and struggling ever upwards. At the highest point of this trek, we reached 1187m, stopping at the top to sit for a well earned rest in a circle of little tree-stump seats. It was a really positive feeling to look around my fellow walkers and know that everyone was feeling the same sense of achievement.

The way back was peppered with more beautiful sights, particularly around the hilltop retreat marked with cairns and chair swings. Even though we were all pretty tired, we still managed a race to the swings, relishing in the chance to sit down and look out across the beautiful views over the mountain range.

Our descent took us down through a steep meadow where there was no flat foothold to be found.  The entire section was carried out with angled ankles and uneven steps, making us all watch our footing a little more closely. I found myself glad of the strong ankle support in my boots, without which I’m sure that I would have ended up with an injury. The final part of the descent was down the steepest hill I think that I have ever seen. It reminded me of cheese rolling competitions and I certainly felt like I was taking part in a great cheese chase as I made my way cautiously down the embankment. Moft had no problem navigating the terrain and was waiting for the group down at the bottom, happily wagging his tail and acting like the 14k over hilly terrain was no big deal.

Heading down the hill to the ski resort was a welcome relief – particularly as people were bursting for the facilities (me included). We plonked ourselves down in one of the outdoor seating areas for the restaurant and rewarded ourselves with drinks – I don’t think that Sprite has ever tasted so good!

That first day taught me a lot about walking and about myself. I learned that I can talk to complete strangers for five hours without feeling stressed or anxious. I think that as we were talking about the reasons we were undertaking the trek and our personal circumstances, we had breezed past the small talk that I usually find so difficult. Give me an in-depth conversation and I’m super comfortable, talk to me about the weather or who won a recent TV show and I’m out. However, the whole group got to know each other so quickly and it was great to have such meaningful conversation to get us through the long walk.

I’d also forgotten the impact of sleeping in a tent. Waking up to natural light helped to reset my body clock and I found that I was more awake and ready to go much earlier in the morning (which is a bit of a miracle for me – usually my brain doesn’t wake up until later in the day). The strangest part of the day was settling down into my sleeping bag in the tent alone. Listening to the night settle in outside, I was able to rest my head and start to think about preparing myself for day 2 of the trek.

 For the full trip posts, visit the links below:

Transylvania Trek 1: Moeciu to Cheile Gradistei

Transylvania Trek 2: Bucegi Massif

Transylvania Trek 3: Castle Bran and Piatra Craiului Mountains

Transylvania Trek 4: Postavarul Massif, Tampa Mountains and Braşov

 

Transylvania Trek, Day 2: Bucegi Massif

After the ‘warm up’ walk of day one, day two upped the ante somewhat to a 20km walk with a height of 2180mtr. The sun was shining brightly and the walk through the woodland path to the stunning mountain range was beautiful. We were again joined by a four-legged friend who made the walk look easy!

All the way up the mountain we were serenaded by the sound of cow bells, clearly rolling across the hillside – my overarching memory of the trip is soundtracked by those cowbells! The day seemed like a day of reflection for many of us, with people moving in and out of friendly conversation to reflect on the reasons for signing up to the trip. Many of us were there because of our own personal experiences: loss of a loved one, our own journeys with mental health problems, a need for adventure, a need to prove something to ourselves or simply to raise money for Mind, the mental health charity. Regardless of the reason, for me the day felt like a real sense of achievement, albeit almost surreal that after all of the months of training, I was actually doing it for real!

Soon the grassy hillside gave way to a more challenging shingle gravel and the brilliant sunshine disappeared behind a wall of clouds. We quickly realised that the Transylvanian interpretation of the word ‘undulating’ was very different to what we’d originally expected. For clarity: ‘undulating’ to a professional walker is my definition of a ‘steep climb’!!

At the top of the ridge, we came across a storm shelter – a little round hideaway to provide safety from any passing bad weather. Luckily it wasn’t needed and we trudged on across the ridge to start our descent down the mountain.

The group naturally split into walkers of different speeds throughout the day, however there was a constant swapping of faces – some walking quicker to join a conversation with the people up front, some stopping to remove or add layers of clothing depending on the temperature and ending up as part of a slower group. The ebb and flow of people throughout the clumps of walkers was my favourite part of the day. Sometimes you were ahead, sometimes behind (I was often behind!!) but regardless of the position in the group, no one judged anyone else and everyone was entirely focused on supporting each other through the day. This consistent swapping of groups also meant that new conversations were initiated over and over, helping us to learn about each other, our likes and dislikes and our backgrounds really quickly. I’m probably well- defined as an introvert and I often find it hard to navigate small talk, however, by cutting through the trivial conversations and really learning about each other, with no distractions other than the view, it was easy to bond with people, quickly stripping away any awkwardness and resulting in long and loud discussions about the passions we share.

For the full trip posts, visit the links below:

Transylvania Trek 1: Moeciu to Cheile Gradistei

Transylvania Trek 2: Bucegi Massif

Transylvania Trek 3: Castle Bran and Piatra Craiului Mountains

Transylvania Trek 4: Postavarul Massif, Tampa Mountains and Braşov

Life Gets In the Way: Or How I Paused Travel Blogging To Travel!

So it’s been a few months since I last posted. I went from posting every week to not posting at all.

It wasn’t a conscious decision – in fact when I realised, I felt really guilty (there’s that perfectionist trait kicking in). It wasn’t that I’d made a choice not to post that week, it was simply that life got in the way.

In my last post, I talked about training for my Transylvania hike to raise money for Mind, the mental health charity. I knew that it would be a serious undertaking and that I was going to need to work really hard to keep up with the group on such a hard slog through the Carpathian Mountains.

I was really putting my all into it. Lie-ins were sacrificed and weekends were taken up with hiking bags, water packs, hills and lots and lots of distance. I was seeing lots of new places and pushing myself to get into shape physically – it just left very little time to write about it!

At first I was beating myself up: all these new places and I’m not even writing about them! However, after a bit of reflection, I’ve realised that it was because I was too busy living it. It’s ok that I didn’t post each week, I will still get to put it all down in the blog; it just might take me a little longer!

I’ve got my whole Transylvania trip to write about, including the learning and personal challenges that I faced throughout the experience – but I can do that in my own time. Without the weekly writing schedule, it means I can really reflect on my experiences and put more into the writing, rather than just meeting a (self imposed!) deadline.

For now, I’ll just say a huge thank you to everyone who donated. You helped me to raise an amazing £2150 and contributed to a team total of over £40k for an amazing charity. I’ll share my experiences over future posts – it was one hell of a ride!!

Snowdon, UK

So in the quest to keep up my training for the upcoming trek in Transylvania to raise money for Mind, my travel blogging has been suffering a little. I’m finding that most weekends I’m out walking which leaves little time for writing and organising photos. Hopefully all should be back to normal after the trip and I’m sure that I’ll have lots of new experiences to share!

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been out to explore Upper Derwent in the UK Peak District a number of times (blog post to follow) and eventfully, I also climbed Snowdon.

Snowdon is the highest mountain in England and Wales. It’s also a beast of a walk. I knew that I was in for a rough day when it took us longer than planned to get parked up. After a two hour drive, I was ready to get walking, but the busy parking situation meant that 45 minutes later we were still looking for somewhere to park. Once we’d left the car behind, we then had to battle the unhelpful and unfriendly shop workers to purchase a map of the routes up Snowdon. I get that tourists are a pain but if you sell maps, you have to expect that people are going to ask you for the maps, right?!

By the time that we hit the Llanberis path, I was not in the greatest of moods and that was about to get worse. The path itself isn’t too bad: clearly marked and fairly comfortable underfoot, however as the path started to level off, the weather took a turn for the worse and started to rain. Already fairly stroppy, I was highly unimpressed at getting soaked and took shelter in the cafe about half way up. Two ladies heading down in the opposite direction asked about the time to the bottom and their expressions reflected my feelings –  they had another hour and a half to descend and I had another two hours to climb up. None of us were happy!

Setting off again, my hood was pulled tight and I was cold and pretty soaked. To make it worse, as we crossed under the train bridge, a thick fog draped over the mountain and it was impossible to see more than a couple of feet ahead. Being quite honest, this completely panicked me. I am not great with heights or edges and the thought that there was a very steep and very narrow edge close by that I couldn’t see or locate was terrifying. I spent the rest of the assent in a state of panic, struggling to control my breathing and stopping every couple of minutes to try and calm myself down. Groups came and went and every time another group disappeared into the fog, I was convinced that we would either end up lost, wandering a mountain alone or falling off an unseen edge. Trying to gain some motivation, we asked a couple of people how far it was to the summit. A mixture of responses, including: “10 minutes“, “about 40 minutes” and “another hour, but it’s horrible up there” didn’t make me feel much better. At one point, we were seriously considering turning around and going back down. The thought of getting on the train to come back down the mountain was the only thing pushing me to the top. That and the thought of the pizza I was going to demolish when I arrived home.

Upon reaching the top, there was no celebration or taking of photos. For one, it was far too wet to risk taking out my phone to snap a shot or two and secondly, the photos would have showed fog and not much else. By that point, I just wanted to get somewhere warm and dry. I didn’t care that we had just scaled the highest mountain in England and Wales; I just wanted to go home. Heading to the visitor’s centre, hair plastered to the side of my face and dripping, I closely resembled a drowned rat.

Alas, the plan to return down the mountain via train was not to be. There were no spaces on the train (of course not; the weather was terrible, no one in their right mind would have chosen to walk over taking the train) and so, after spending far longer than necessary huddled over the hand dryer in the toilets, we set off on our descent.

As soon as we headed out in to the fog again, I could feel the panic trying to take hold. Then came my saviour. A guy in front of us, hiking with his two young children (who simultaneously made me feel ashamed for panicking and reassured that if they could do it, so could I) was talking about how many times he’d done Snowdon, his approach to the different routes and how to stay safe in the mountains. So we did what any logical people would do; we stuck close to him down the mountain, pretty much latching onto his group until we reached a lower point on the path. They didn’t know it, but that man and his children were my saviours that day!

In total, it took us about 5-6 hours to go up and down Snowdon, however we later worked out that it took us around 4 hours up and only an hour and a half to come back down: a sign of how desperate I was to get back to the car and the warm heaters!

Looking back, I’m glad I did it. Taking on the challenge in the bad weather has given me a chance to realise how quickly the weather can change in the mountains and how well prepared you need to be. It also gave me some practice with heights and edges, regardless of how much I wanted to be on lower ground. That being said, it wasn’t a walk that I enjoyed. So it’s one to add to the tick list, but I think that I’ll leave Snowdon to more enthusiastic walkers next time!