Two and a half years ago Adam and I were in the Grampians National Park in north western Victoria. We'd gone for a weekend of sightseeing and exploring, and so Adam could experience more of Australia. We stayed in a lovely little log cabin, and right outside our back door there were hundreds (it seemed) of kangaroos, emu's and deer. Adam spent hours outside on our first night in amazement at the beautiful animals. The second day we went to MacKenzie Falls and couldn't even make the whole walk, we walked some of the way and decided that we could hear it and that was enough. I think it was a combination of laziness and lack of energy. I wouldn't say we were unhealthy, but we were far from healthy back then. Later that day as we drove through the Grampians we came upon a short 45 minute walk, we even drove up to the second car park to make the walk shorter, it was just to the top of the hill, not far at all. But for us, it was too far and we didn't make it half way.
This is the memory we use to base our fitness and energy levels against, remember the Grampians? no way could we have done this back then.
About a week ago Adam said to me, next weekend, lets climb Whernside.
Two days ago we climbed Ingleborough.
We spent an hour or so working out what food we would take with us, naturally that is my first thought. We decided on fruit (of course) a Paleo Niçoise Salad - see recipe below. And water. A day before we were due to set off I had a look on google maps, it said the walk would take four and a half hours, NO! For a second there I though Adam was having me on, oh yeah yeah it's about 5 hours return, including a break for lunch is what he said! He was fast asleep next to me when I was doing my research, the plan to begin with was to walk from Austwick, where we live - but there was no way I was going to walk 10 hours return.
I had a think about it, and decided to see how far Pen-y-ghent was, and Ingleborough. We live in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and one of the great attractions of this area is the 3 peak walk its about a 10 hour walk and covers the 3 peaks, Ingleborough, Whenside and Pen-y-ghent. Pen-y-ghent suggested about 2 and a half hours one way from Austwick, as did Ingleborough. We decided on Ingleborough, because we could get their easily from Clapham, and it was the one Adam had meant originally when he called it Whernside.
We packed our lunch, drove over to Clapham, which is about 5 minutes by car or an hour walk. We decided to drive this little bit, because we knew the last little bit would kill us on the way home. That morning Adam had found a pretty basic map online and printed if off, just in case. The map was basically a circle drawing with a few landmarks Clapham, Gaping Gill, Ingleborough summit. There were no contour lines signifying the gradient in the landscape or which fences to climb, or which paths to follow.
The weather was fabulous, after 6 months of absolute darkness, freezing cold winter, the sun shone down on our walk. It took just over 2 hours to reach the summit, from the top we could see both Pen-y-ghent and Wernside in either direction. The sky was so clear we could see all the way over to Morecombe by the coast and over to the Lake District in the north. We were blessed with beautiful views and rewarded with a delicious lunch.
The way down is always quicker, but by this stage we both had jelly legs. At the bottom of the hill, just by the entrance to the Ingleborogh Caves, there is a little information centre who sell Ice Creams. usually nothing would have stopped us from buying a yummy Cornetto, but we just don't feel like ice creams anymore.
We made it back to the car within 4 hours of setting off, ready for a big glass of wine sitting outside in the sunshine. Something we hadn't been able to do since arriving in our little town in the Yorkshire Dales 8 months ago. The perfect end to a very satisfying day.
Paleo Niçoise Salad
SERVES 2
2 Sweet potatoes cut into cubes, steamed and left to cool
2 Boiled eggs (approx 8 minutes)
1/2 cup green olives, pitted (we like the ones that are stuffed and marinated)
Mixed lettuce with baby spinach
3 stalks steamed asparagus left to cool
1/2 avocado chopped
1 vine ripe tomato quartered
100g smoked salmon
Combine all ingredients in a bowl, toss, I like to use a bit of the juice from the marinated olives as a dressing, it doesn't need much. And enjoy.
**I'm not sure if I've mentioned this already, but Adam and use the term Paleo as it is so much easier than saying - gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, no legumes and processed food free. Maybe there are some areas in our diets or lifestyles that don't completely comply with the Paleo ethos, but for us it's used as an umbrella term, if you will. We are also 80/20 - so we drink coffee and maybe a little too much wine or gin. But we stay away from the gluten, the dairy and the processed foods at all costs. And it is working wonders for us.
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