beer,bikes and backpacking: September 2013

For the umpteenth time, I've filled in one of these - it's The Great Outdoors Challenge application form

I first filled in one of these forms in 1996, and I've filled one in every year since.

It's difficult to explain the magic of the Challenge, and why it's dominated our lives since we first took part in 1998, but I'll have a go.

The Challenge is a self-supported backpacking event that takes place in Scotland every May. Each year, over the second weekend in May, about 300 people set off on foot from 12 start points on the West coast of Scotland, and independently walk to the East coast over the next two weeks, having planned and devised their own routes. That's really all there is to it, although actually there is so much more. We walk together or separately, we follow the same routes or different routes, we walk at different speeds and walk different distances, we follow summits or valleys, and walk on tracks, roads, paths or cross country through bog or heather. We cross rivers, we wild camp in the most remote spots and stay in the most luxurious hotels. We endure heatwaves, snow and torrential rain, and enjoy glorious days in the most beautiful landscapes. We go days without seeing anyone, and carry our food and shelter on our backs. And it's our holiday.

Most of all, the Challenge is about the people who take part. We are an eccentric bunch (a bit like CAMRA people!!), of all shapes, sizes and ages, and mostly grey of beard and hair. When I completed my first Challenge in 1998 I was 34, and was one of the youngest taking part. Next year, on my thirteenth Challenge, I shall be 50 and I will still be one of the youngest taking part. The Challenge is an event that is growing old disgracefully, and all of us keep coming back year after year, for as long as we can.

Between us, Joke and myself have completed 21 Challenges (23 if you count the truncated event of the foot and mouth year) and I'm immensely proud that neither of us have ever failed to complete the walk. We have enjoyed countless Challenge reunions in Derbyshire, Scotland and Holland, and we got married in Montrose at the end of a Challenge. The event has immeasurably enriched our lives, for which I am most grateful, and my application form is in the post.

Another trip to Dunwich Heath this week, our third of the year, and almost certainly our last camping trip of the year.

The camp site at Dunwich Heath is reassuringly familiar, and our routine on these trips rarely changes - an hour or so of driving (it actually takes longer to load up the car with camping gear and bikes than it takes to get there), usually on a Sunday, a quick drink in the pub, put the tent up, a stroll through the heath to the National Trust tea shop, then back to the tent for dinner and a bottle of wine. However, disaster struck at dinner time - I'd forgotten the custard. So, we had our traditional camping pudding of fruit cake and custard, without the custard, which wasn't quite the same.

Invariably, it's a cream tea at the tea shop

and the walk back through the Suffolk heathland never disappoints, especially in the autumnal riot of colour courtesy of the heather and gorse

The setting of the camp site is exceptional - pitching in well established woodland, and literally just a few steps away from the beach

Next day, we had a gentle cycle ride down to Aldeburgh and back, stopping off at the the tea shop at Thorpeness on the way, complete with crocodile

Normally, I'd take exception to a lump of metal being dumped on an otherwise pristine beach, but "Scallop" at Aldeburgh is rather impressive - sort of Suffolk's version of the Angel of the North

After a brief wander around the Aldeburgh shops (my attention span with shops is less than minimal), we cycled back to Thorpeness for beer at the Dolphin

then on to the rather fantastic Eels Foot at Easthorpe for a pint of Gunhill

Then back to Dunwich Heath, having stocked up on custard at the shop at Leiston.

The pictures below show that the new tent is particularly spacious. In fact, it's rather too spacious at present, a result of me accidentally taking the inner tent to the dump the other day while clearing out the loft. I did check with Joke before taking it, and she positively identified it as belonging to an old tent that we hadn't used for years, and that it was OK to throw it out. OH NO IT WASN'T!! and I really should have checked

So, we now have a brand new £500 tent with no sleeping compartment. I'm currently waiting on the very nice people at Vango to tell me if they can supply a replacement inner. Fingers crossed...

Incredibly, after decades of problem free camping, this was our second tent disaster of the year. Our trip to Derbyshire in April was cut short, when, on a not particularly windy day, our previous tent blew down. It was an especially poor quality Blacks tent with flimsy fibre glass poles, purchased by Joke for no other reason than it had "integrated lighting" (this consisted of four fairy lights on a length of wire), and had shown tendencies to flap about in the wind on previous trips. On this occasion, one of the guy lines snapped, causing a domino effect of more broken guy lines and snapped poles. It's actually incredibly difficult to rescue a car load of gear from a hideously distorted and flapping tent that's designed to be six feet tall, but is actually now only two feet off the ground. I'd seen this happen to other people, and always assumed it couldn't happen to me - how wrong I was. To make matters worse, we had an appreciative audience of bemused looking Duke of Edinburgh Award youth, just to maximise my embarrassment Our old tent was last seen residing in a skip just outside Bakewell, and the new one is MUCH more sturdy, albeit with an important part now residing in a skip in Colchester.

Day three was our traditional walk to Southwold and back. Our route is always the same, through the woods, past the ruined windmill, over the heathland and the golf course to Southwold.

On arrival at Southwold, our routine is familiar. I buy a paper and a pie, and sit on bench reading and eating while Joke peruses overpriced shoe shops, happy in the knowledge that she hasn't got any money on her and so can't actually buy anything. She then returns from the overpriced shoe shop, enthusing about some "bargain" footwear, we return to the shop, look in the window, I point out that said footwear is "hideous", and we go for lunch. Happy days.

This time lunch was in the excellent Lord Nelson, an enormous coronation chicken sandwich and a pint of Gunhill.

On our way back, unusually, we took the ferry across the river at Walberswick, a bargain 90p to be rowed across, saving about a mile and a half of walking, before stopping at the Bell