It was almost warm, single figure warm, for the ten slow Warts’ (Swarts?) outing from the gas station. The combination of the heat and warming up on the way to Emlin, did get the circulation circulating to the extent that I suddenly remembered that I had left the house keys behind. The thought that I might have to spend time sitting outside the house until 10pm when my Fi came back from her choir, prompted me to phone from Emlin trig. Fortunately, there was a signal and she was in, so arrangements were made to prevent a possible dose of hypothermia and homelessness. All this whilst the tolerant Swarts waited for me fiddling with the phone.
Our planned route was Emlin, now done, a spring in the Hobson Moss area, the Hunter wreck and the track leading to the shooting cabins on Bradfield Moors. Our leader admitted he was disadvantaged by his compass which had a 20⁰ to 30⁰ bias to the east, explaining our fairly recent adventure, on 27th November from Denis Knoll, where a consistent approximately 20⁰ drift to the right to Jarvis Clough added to the enjoyment of the evening. Not only this, our leader’s torch tonight was literally on the blink, which in combination with the misleading compass, enhances his reputation for navigational skills. It was decided that the spring was not such a worthwhile target after our experience of river crossings including a significantly steep heather, bracken and moss climb out of Hobson Moss Dike. It is on such climbs that our optimism that the vegetation handholds will actually hold, comes to the fore. Suffice it say we’re still optimistic even after quite a few sometimes-disastrous downward sliding disappointments!
We did arrive at the Dukes Road near Flint Hill area, and immediately crossed it for a planned direct heathery crossing of the moor to the Hunter wreck. First, though, it was important to bag another summit on the Bruston Croft Ridge which we did before aiming for the wreck only to find ourselves back on the Dukes Road. By this time, there was a reluctance to go back to more heather bashing to reach the wreck but a little bit of serious persuasion inspired us to go and pay our respects there.
Once back on the Road, though not for very long, we left for a relatively fast bit of track where running (yes) was taken to, past the cabins and with apparent increasing speed in our perhaps futile attempt to become Fast Warts (Fwarts?). Needless to say, after our adventures, we all arrived back to the cars safely and in excellent spirit.
A visit to the Plough at Bradfield finished off the outing in grand style and in good company, as always!
Graham