Cheddar Gorge!

Yesterday I finally broke sweat for the first time this week! Hooray! In fact it was the first time in... err... too long. Me and Mr JRB had the day off work to celebrate my birthday. My birthday isn't actually until next week but as Mr JRB is away on business then (as usual - NAB) we had a fake birthday for me yesterday. For some reason I didn't get a single present or card :-( Perhaps I might get some on the real birthday next week.

So we headed down to Somerset to a place called Cheddar Gorge - which is kind of like the English grand canyon... it's a lot smaller though! The weather was fantastic for this time of year - 20 degrees! The drive down was really pretty in places - we went through some lovely parts of Wiltshire. No pictures sadly (we are rubbish at taking photos!).

This is where we first stopped. That's my smart car at the front (crap car - highly UNrecommended). There were guys climbing up the rock face in the background. I've recently been quite keen on trying climbing but as I watched these guys climb I thought that perhaps it isn't really my cup of tea.


Unfortunately we took no pictures of the steep trek we took up to the top. It seemed neverending and I had to keep stopping to sit on logs to get my breath back. As usual Mr JRB made it look like it required about as much effort as sitting on the sofa. It took a little while but it was great to get my heart pumping! The path we took was a steep narrow path up through some woods that at times had old wooden steps dug into the mud.

Here's me at the top pondering life's big questions like - "Why are there so many calories in ice cream?" and "Where is the nearest Waitrose?". This side on shot is the only one I'm happy to post because in all the others I look as wide as a house. Damn you toffee tarts.

More views from the top. You can see the road down at the bottom of the gorge that we'd stopped along earlier.

Also forgot to take pictures of the trek down! Curses. Well here we are back down at the bottom anyway. That's Mr JRB.

This bit was really amazing. You can see some people climbing down the rocks near the bottom.

So that was it, a few hours and a few miles later we were all done. There are caves here too but the entrance fee was far too high so we didn't go in.

On the way home we stopped at a Somerset farm shop in Shipton near Cheddar and picked up some proper local cider! I don't do cider but Mr JRB loves it. We got 5 litres straight out of the barrel and headed home. It was a good day and it was great to get outside and get some exercise.

Planning to get back to the gym again from next week. Can't say I'm thrilled about it right now, hitting the treadmill at 6:30am isn't quite as fun as hiking up Cheddar Gorge on a sunny day! It's got to be done though, especially now that I've got so podgy :-(

I've got a great new incentive for getting fit. We've planning our summer holiday and currently our favourite idea is going RV-ing around California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada (maybe a quick stop in Colorado) - we're thinking it would be great to explore some of the National Parks. That means hiking, mountain biking, horse-riding, swimming, canoeing etc. - basically a tonne of stuff that I don't want to be too unfit to enjoy! Bring on the treadmill...