Anniversary Trekking

Monday was Gem & Gubbs' first wedding anniversary. To mark this event, they booked a long weekend away to Malvern, Worcestershire. As it happens Malvern is home to the Malvern Hills, so Gem hatched the brilliant plan of using the Saturday to do some Trailwalker training along them. Gubbs did a little research and found a couple of routes across the hills, opting for a 18 mile one which is a 'there and back' type walk so we could always turn back early.

We set ourselves a seven hour limit as we wanted to get into the hotel and enjoy some of the facilities before the day was out.  We knew it was unlikely that we would be able to do the whole of the 18 mile route in this case so we thought to turn back after 3 and a half hours.

As we set out on our journey to Worcestershire, we encountered rain, and lots of it. We had packed our recently purchased waterproofs and we thought we would be using them. The longer the rain went on the more and more the 18 miles were reducing...

But as we approached Malvern the rain stopped so Plan A was resumed!

The climb to the top of North Hill

The start point was a car park at the far North of the Malvern Hills and we first climbed a zig zag path up the side of North Hill.  As the path levelled out, the instructions Gubbs had printed off suggested we climb a steep incline to the summit of North Hill. At this point we did wonder whether the instructions were a little off. Granted it said steep, but this was taking the biscuit. We carried on however and reached the point where walking poles were no longer any good to us, it was time to crawl... and crawl we did up to the top of North hill where we were treated to fantastic panoramic views.  It was definitely worth the climb.

Worcestershire Beacon

In front of us we could see the Crown of the Malverns Worcestershire Beacon. It's at this point Gem uttered the immortal words, "That's not a hill, that's a f***ing mountain!"

We quickly realised that these hills were not like our home stomping ground of the South Downs.  These were more intimidating. These were like hills on steroids. It wasn't so much the fact there were the peaks and troughs, we know we can handle that, but just the amount of them over a shorter distance. It's like squeezing a large section of the South Downs into a 9 mile stretch!

Gubbs on top of Worcestershire Beacon

Well we were here for hill training and hills is what we got.

Following the route on the instructions we descended North Hill and headed for neighbouring Sugar Loaf Hill which was easy in comparison to the first one.  Then we headed to Worcestershire Beach which involved a bit more of a climb. The views on the top were incredible from all angles.  You felt like you were on top of the world!

As we descended we followed a paved path for the casual walker who can park up relatively close and wonder up to catch the views. We must have looked a little keen to many, with our walking poles and backpacks stuffed with supplies and equipment.

Gem at the top of Worcester Beacon

We carried on following the instructions which insisted on you going up every peak even if there was a nicely  maintained path which skirted the peaks.

When we got to Herefordshire Beacon which as the name suggests is on the Herefordshire boarder, we planned on eating our lunch on top of British Camp, an Iron Age hill fort and later Norman Castle, which earthworks give it a very interesting look. There was a path to follow up this one so we didn't have to storm the fort like a Medieval knight.

A View from British Camp

After lunch the time showed we had been out for 3 hours and 20 minutes so we decided to head back after a little under 6 miles.

On the way back we decided to miss the summits and use the paths which skirted the tops of the hills. These paths still pretty much took you to the top though. Gubbs' suggestion that they were skirting hills led gem to complain that these were less like skirts more like bras.

Gem & The Malvern Hills from British Camp

We completed the hike in 5 hours and 30 minutes doing a distance of 11.6 miles. Lunch must have giving us some turbo power as the time was well within the 7 hours.

A great start to the weekend with the rest of the weekend to enjoy some R & R.

Jo & Julie meanwhile were taking support crew team member Jeff on a walk on the South Downs taking in Stage 5 of the Trailwalker course.  More on that in our next update.