Geeks in the Peaks 2010b
Due to the incredible success of Geeks in the Peaks 2010 back in June it was decided that another outing should be fitted in before the end of the year. This weekend saw the second GITP camping trip of the year. Once again, the camping expedition was held at Haddon Grove Farm Campsite. This is a reasonably sized camp site at Haddon Grove, between Over Haddon and Monyash, close to the village of Bakewell and also Chatsworth House.
GITP runs from the Friday till the Sunday. The family and I decided to go out to the camp site a couple of days early since the kids and wife were on holiday from school and I was on holiday from work for a couple of weeks. We arrived on the Wednesday afternoon to pitch up in the same field that we has been in for the last GITP. The field was empty apart from 3 other small tents. This was to change from the Thursday onwards and by Saturday afternoon you could have been mistaken for thinking that there was a festival being held at the site. Pitched next to us on the Friday and Saturday nights was a few people from the Chesterfield Astronomical Society. It would be an understatement to say that the telescopes they had were quite large. This was a great group of people who were friendly and informative and allowed us Geeks to take a look through the telescopes at Jupiter and other stars and were happy to answer our questions.
On the Thursday, the family and I made a trip to Monsal Head and walked along the viaduct, which is something that I have been wanting to do since I was a small child.
On Friday whilst waiting for the Geeks to arrive, a few of us that arrived at the camp site early went for a walk and to try and find a geo-cache.
Haddon Grove sits above the Lathkill Dale which is a great place for walking and very scenic. It’s also a fantastic place to hide the caches. Ian Ibbotson showed the way using C:Geo on his Android phone. After about an hour we made it to the site and managed to find the cache quite quickly. It just so happened that whilst the group was looking for the cache I sat down on a nearby stone along with my youngest daughter. The stone we were sat on appeared to have space underneath it and as I looked down, in between my legs, I say the prize that we were looking for. At this time the immortal words came forth from my mouth “Hey Guys, Come and take a look between my legs”. This was the first time that many of us has been geo-caching and it was so much fun that we were eager to go find another, which we did on Saturday.
The remaining group of Geeks started to arrive late Friday afternoon and that evening, a great Tandoor BBQ was cooked by Jagusti and the GITP team which was quite extraordinary. The Tandoor chicken was excellent and I was reliably informed that so was the panir cheese.
Saturday started off a little slow due to the frivolities of the night before and after lunch we set out on another geo-caching expedition. This took us in the opposite direction down the Lathkill Dale towards the small village of Over Haddon. This was a great walk and the kids loved it, especially playing with the walkie talkies. The second cache of the weekend was found close to a disused mine, just off the beaten track. After finding the cache, we continued along the trail and to the Lathkill Hotel in Over Haddon for a well deserved drink. By the time we all got back to the camp site it was a little late for the communal dinner so everyone made their own dinners and then it was time to huddle round the camp fires once more and drink some beer and toast some marshmallows.
The weather over the weekend was superb with some of the campers evening getting sunburnt. Sunday was a laid back affair with the communal breakfast becoming brunch and campers starting to pack away.
A couple of things we have noted that we need for our future camping expeditions is a solar charger for charging the mobile phones and some walkie talkies so that we can keep in touch with the kids. They did tend to run off in to the small woodland areas around the camp site and to the kids play area.
Geeks in the Peaks is an awesome weekend and the family and I can’t wait until the next weekender and what it may hold. For now though, the camping kit has been packed away until next season.
