Our Gate Adventure

Hello again people and pooches. Joe the Cocker here reporting on our latest adventure. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions being in place we decided to have an adventure on our doorstep. Literally, on our doorstep. This was the first hike that we had done without driving to somewhere, usually hundreds of miles away. This was not a Scottish Trail or a Lake District circular lake walk. My dad said that he didn’t need his GPS or a map for this one. So, it was a beautiful sunny morning and after packing all our gear, off we went.

We started at our front door and after climbing down the two steps to the path, we were on our way. The path was a flagged surface and easy underfoot. Our first challenge came a couple of feet from the steps. There was a concrete edge to the garden area approximately four inches tall by two inches wide. Once we were over this, thankfully we were on the grass. The garden does have a badly stocked border around it but, we found an area that had been grassed over allowing us to step directly onto the lawn. This was a relief for us as there seemed to be no other way of accessing the lawn without jumping across the border. Our adventure could have been thwarted before we had begun. We took another couple of steps onto the lawn and we were relieved to have arrived at the flat grassy area.

My dad checked on-line to see if there is a Viewranger route to follow on this trail but, sadly he found nothing. We would have to ‘wing it’. This is what we did. After another couple of seconds that seemed to take an age, we took two steps west of our position and stopped for a rest. My dad wanted to drink a coffee so, he nipped back in the house for one. We didn’t want to rush this trip, we wanted to savour it and admire the scenery. When he reappeared, he stood still and looked at the scenery. We had great views of the front of the house, the side fence and overgrown plants, the side lawn and the front hedge. It was time to find a campsite.

It took us about 5 seconds to reach our camping spot in the middle of our front garden. The front lawn is approximately 5 metres x 5 metres so, we took our time choosing a good spot to pitch the tent. It took another 2 seconds to choose our spot, smack bang in the middle of the lawn. There was plenty of shelter from the privet hedge and the small fence. We found a good water supply from the tap on the outside of the kitchen wall. Food came from the house in the form of a defrosted frozen Costco Danish pastry. So, all we needed to do was to make the tent comfortable for the night.

This was when things started to go wrong. Firstly, there is a perfectly good bed in the house and the central heating was on. The TV was too tempting for my dad, as was the couch that he parks his backside on every night. My dad decided that we needed to abandon our adventure and head for home. So, that is what we did. He packed up our gear while I went inside the house and watched him through the window. It wasn’t a total disaster as my dad had spotted another nearby wild camping spot on the side lawn. That is for another time. We were both exhausted. Stay safe and healthy people!