A Day Out With The Boys

My elder son, Alfie has been itching to get out in the hills for a couple of weeks. I think the attraction of the remoteness, and the chance to get away from the pressures of school have been a real pull for him. To be honest, I think he’d rather be able to go off on his own and enjoy some solitude, but very kindly invited me along. With this in mind, I decided that we’d make it more of an educational day rather than just a day out in the hills. The long term aim being to build his skills and awareness to a level where I am truely happy to let him go solo.

Starting to pick out features from the map
Starting to pick out features from the map

As we where starting to get ourselves ready to leave this morning, my younger son, Charlie, decided that he wanted to come as well. And so I found myself heading down the A49 to the Shropshire Hills with both of my boys this morning. It’s a fantastic area for navigation training, with a good network of footpaths, but also a wealth of geographical features compacted into a small area. we actually stayed away from the most popular areas, and stayed to the east of the A49 around the Hope Bowdler area.

For the first half of the day, we stuck rigidly to the footpaths. Getting a feel for the amount of detail shown on the 1:25k scale maps we were using, we were looking for the smallest detail that people would never even notice normally. From small kinks in fences; where a farm barn has been extended; a footpath slightly diverted; small inaccuracies in the map, we tried to get as much learning out of it as possible. We also spent some time measuring distances, both from the map and in the real word using timing.

Top the the world - well, the Gaer Stone anywayWith lunchtime approaching, both boys decided that we needed to get up higher to enjoy a good view with our sandwiches. Being up for a challenge, they opted to head up Caer Caradoc Hill. However, rather than choosing to follow any path, they decided to go straight at it, up the steepest section which proved to be a bit more challenging than they expected – good learning point! Gaining a bit of shelter from the breeze behind a rocky outcrop we took a breather and a fuel stop before taking in the top.

During the afternoon, we took an introductory look at contours, started to use the compass a little, ventured off the footpaths for short stretches and stopped for a spot of scrambling when the rock was irresistible.

It was a productive day in terms of introducing some good skills and knowledge, but even better to be out with my two boys. Hopefully it will be the start of a longer process of development for them both.

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