Lost in the Farmer’s Fields!

After a couple months of planning, preparations and asking people to join us we finally began and completed a 22 mile hike, originally 18 miles. It took a lot of strength and determination to do it but at the same time we all had a lot of fun. The weather wasn’t very helpful but I’m sure the sun burns would make it harder to forget this wonderful event. As I have mentioned before, the hike was supposed to be 18 miles, however, due to some terrible orienteering and miscalculations we ended up adding 4 more miles and possibly more.

Throughout the route there were many corn and wheat fields we had to trek across as well as a horrendous tomato field, which killed our feet as the path was very bumpy. There was many run ins with different animals; mainly sheep and cows. Someone screamed at a sheep, a goat got stuck a fence and cows glared evilly at us and blocked our path. Although the animals were intimidating, they didn’t freak us out as much as during the night we stayed at the campsite.

Having walked miles to get to the campsite, you cannot imagine the relief and pride we felt. Once we arrived there , we discovered that we had the entire site to ourselves since it was only used for scout trips. Our excitement instantly grew at that revelation and we spent a while deciding where to camp. Ultimately we chose to stay near the campfires and then waited for our gear to arrive. Whilst everyone else was setting up the tents my task was to cook the sausages on the BBQ. We ended up losing three brave sausages to nature. As it started to get dark we finally started making the campfire, which ended up being a bunch of sticks and logs being set a light by tissues and paper plates.

Now to the more creepy part of the night. A random group of teenagers appeared next to our site, who we later discovered were trespassers. Our reaction; just stare and cook the sausages. Then we contacted the night guards. A couple hours later, the fire was reduced to embers and ash and we decided to go to bed. We all fell into the tent, literally; stayed up talking some more and played cards. It wasn’t till all was quiet outside when we heard a twig snap and saw a light outside that we freaked out. I hid in my sleeping bad, and looked like a slug; two people launched themselves on top of me and another casually lay at the end of the tent unfazed. We were freaked out to say the least, it didn’t help that we knew we were meant to be the only ones. After investigating the strange events, one of us getting locked outside and a pole being thrown at our tent, we somehow managed to get some sleep.

The next day we ate our cereal, waited for our gear to get picked up, then set off into the wilderness again. The return back was similar to the day before and we were exhausted by the time we got home. It was an amazing experience and I’m sure we would all do it again, and we plan to. So far we have raised £77 offline and £30 online, it may not seem much but all things take time and we cannot wait to help out at Warwickshire Pride.

15th August, halfway through the hike, just passed Kenilworth Castle.