Sponsored walk

By my reckoning, Charlie, my eldest, started at the local secondary school in 2002. Since then, she and three of her sisters have received a stellar education at the school, and Dan and Abi are just finishing their third and second years there, respectively. And in those fifteen years I've never once taken part in the sponsored walk, despite the Head, Chris, often saying "you should come along one year". 

Not that he goes 'round randomly inviting parents to take part (at least not as far as I know): he and I met through my second daughter, Hannah, and his son, when his wife and my ex-wife met at clinic when the kids were just a few months old, and we have been fast friends ever since. He's funny, very smart, and one of the most consistently interesting people I've ever met. Consequently, the prospect of a long walk in his company seemed like no bad thing.

So it was that having sorted out Dan and Abi with lunch, water, sun cream, and sundry supplies, I prepared my own rucksack and walked over to school to meet Chris. It was a glorious day for it and all the staff and pupils I encountered were in an appropriately sunny mood.

The walk itself is fantastic. Out of school and along the A65 before turning left to cross over Devil's bridge. Then up to the campsite and along a hitherto unsuspected path which is going to provide me with a new route to run! Then through High Casterton and up the hillside, stopping for a break at the cairn. We spent a lot of this first part of the walk behind the year 7s and, do you know, there was not one grumble. 

From here we walked to Bullpot Farm and then down to Barbon Beck for lunch. This was the only point on the walk where I saw the need for any real supervising from the teachers, as the kids were raring to get off after lunch but they couldn't be allowed to arrive back at school too early, so there was some effective herding until the enthusiastic walkers were unleashed once more to walk along the path through the woods beneath Barbon Manor, crossing the river at Underley (by kind permission) and then back to school. 

It was a tremendous day out and, as I mused to Chris's wife later on that day, probably the longest we've ever spent together without getting drunk. I took this photo on the ascent up to the cairn. As Chris pointed out at the time, it has a quite a Biblical look to it.

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