Top of the world

A few years ago I went to Cape Town on holiday and while I was there I met a resident who told me they'd never been to the top of Table Mountain. I was amazed by this but then I realised that having lived in Kirkby Lonsdale for twenty-five years, I've never been up Ingleborough, despite seeing it from my house every day, weather permitting.

And then, out of the blue, this week the Minx suggested that we should go up today while her mum took the miniMinx up to visit some family. So, it was that we were parking up in Clapham at eleven o'clock and getting ready to take a route that the Minx had found online. 

I'll spare you the step by step travelogue but it was in turns breathtaking and quite arduous (and, occasionally, both at the same time). The hardest part was the long ascent from Gaping Gill up to the top of Ingleborough itself, which was where I took this photo. I tried to take some other ones showing the landscape spread out below us but it was the wrong camera (or lens, at least) and, anyway, I like this photo with the Minx in it. 

But after that there was still some way to go, maybe another six miles, but we were back at the car by four o'clock, at which point I would have normally taken a nap, except that the radio show needed doing and I found myself doing that in a state of post-tiredness hysteria combined with a dose of endorphins. (You can listen to it here: part 1 and part 2.)

After that, it was back down to Chorley and a curry at the Elephant. All in all, a perfect end to a lovely day.

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-5.6kgs