Sunday 13th. Rambling at Eyam, Peaks District

I woke up early for the rambling. I was keen to try out my new shoes, to see if they really are waterproof.

While waiting for the bus, outside my hall, I met a girl called Alex. She is an exchange student... and a mathematics student! It's unheard of. There are very few mathematics students, so the probability of being that and an exchange student is very low. She is a fourth year student and is interested in pure maths. She also likes science fiction novels, including H. P. Lovecraft. Awesome.

While on the bus we all chose which walk we wanted to go on. Last time I was restricted to the first two since I had no waterproof shoes. So this time I went for the 5th one which is the most challenging and requires waterproof shoes etc. It is 19km. I was interested in seeing how I would go with that.

The groups got dropped off at different locations for this walk. 5th group got dropped off first.

FIrst we walked up a big hill. It was fairly steep. I met a girl from Hamburg who is studying biomedical sciences, doing something post-graduate I think.

The track levelled out once we finished that hill. We were at the top of a slight cliff-like drop. So we had really good views. Lots of interesting rocks and so on.

All the people on this walk were the hardcore ramblers I think. They were the 'core members' of the club sort of. I met most of them and had interesting conversations. I forgot their names because I was focusing on talking and watching where I was walking and looking at the sights. They were all really interesting people. One told me a lot of interesting stuff about how to go long distance walking/camping. His family is really into it. Apparently in Norway there is a kind of wild cow thing that will attack you if it sees you.

During the walk it started to drizzle a bit. There was a fair bit of slushy water, so my waterproof shoes were awesome to have. Later we went up areas were it was even more muddy. Slipping was a hazard. It was quite good fun although it was raining a bit more at that point and I was getting wet. (When we finished the walk, I looked at the tag of my jacket and found 'water repellent' mentioned. So it's not water proof like the guy at the shop told me. Damn it. Lesson learned: don't ever listen to sales assistants).

We walked along the River Derwent for a bit. It was really nice. I think the people I was walking with were really keen to get back to the pub so they could have a few pints. We walked at a very fast pace. No time stopped for taking pictures or admiring the view.

After the last couple of hills I was feeling quite exhausted. Thankfully we were almost there. We were the first to get to the pub, yet we walked the furthest.

Derwent River

At this point it seemed that we weren't really where we wanted to be.

...So we walked down this hill a bit.

Very wet. But having a good time.

Right after this photo, my foot fell a long way into muddy stuff. I then almost slipped and fell while climbing this. It was much more slippery than I thought.

All the groups got back fairly early, so we managed to get home before they stopped serving dinner in the halls. I was pleased at this because I was very hungry.

Shoes went very well. My feet were completely dry. Also, new shoes and no blisters after walking 19km. I am very happy with them.

I was happy that I managed to do the long walk, but next time I think I might do a shorter one so that it's a bit more leisurely.