Camping Barn 2001
In attendance were: Simon, Andy, Zoe, Graham, Graeme, Tom, Tom, Martin, Tina, Karen, Barry, Geoff, Lisa, Fran
On Friday night we set off from the union running, as normal on Scogui time, heading for the North Pennines. Though sadly the mission for the trip, not to climb big hills or walks long distances, instead to be tourists. Karen and Tina commanded the Scogui tour bus with Geoff left to Sherpa the random kit that didn’t fit. After some interesting route choices the minibus arrived at the barn in Witton Park near Bishop Auckland. Despite a blazing fire the barn was colder than the snow covered Arctic, all right maybe not that cold but lets just say it wasn’t warm. Far too late to go to the pub we stayed in the barn drinking tea and talking into the early hours.
As dawn broke on this fresh, crisp spring Saturday morning we were gently waked by the inharmonious racket of deafeningly quacking ducks. A few more hours of sleep later and we were up cooking breakfast. The plan for the day was to head to Newcastle to go swimming. As we would need to drive past the angel of the North it obviously had to be added to the itinerary. As well as being ‘art’ the huge size of the angel meant it was also an engineering project. After climbing all over the angel foot, we took a few minutes ‘learn’ about it and in case you were wondering there’s 150 tons of concrete in the foundations (well you might have wanted to know). After lunch in the bus, it was on up the A1(M) into Newcastle well North Shields to be specific. The poor cashier at the Tyne toll both must have been very confused as we insisted on a receipt for the 80p toll and then proceeded to try paying with £15.
A few miles further and we arrived at the swimming pool. This had every possible kind of slide and a price tag that reflected it. Most of the group went for a swim, leaving a select few to look round town and find a pub for the afternoon. The swimmers, if that’s the right word to use as I’m not sure we actually did much swimming, were quick to start trying out slides. These included two tyre rides, one in the open with ‘whirl pools’ and the other, the ‘black hole’ somewhat darker. There were half a dozen normal slides; the maddest of the lot was one with a near vertical drop followed no too surprisingly by a long run out. This was sufficiently scary, as the drop defiantly appeared to be free fall. One of the other rides involved hitting green buttons as you passed by them, even those that weren’t short sighted or colour blind failed to get anywhere with the ride. A brief swim and game of tag ended quickly when us taking over a sauna for a game of footsie looked to be a much less energetic option. Many hours latter wrinkled like prunes we left the pool and headed back to the barn.
Barry decided to avoid the inevitable discussions as to whether spaghetti bolognese should contain carrots, or if people liked mushrooms that he would take the radical decision to cook something else. A vegetable and sausage pasta risotto was instead on the menu and very nice it was too. By the time we had eaten it was quite late but not late enough that we couldn’t go to the local pub to warm up and have a couple of beers. The local village pub didn’t quite know what was going on as we all piled in probably doubling the number of punters in the bar. We received a warm welcome by the locals intrigued as to what we were doing. A bloke singing live music further enhanced the atmosphere. The bar staff must have been as mad as us as there requested a copy of a photo of us, banner and all to pin up above the bar.
Sunday was a slow start aided by the clocks going forward. It wasn’t until the early afternoon that we left the barn. We were hoping to see a massive waterfall, but unfortunately the place was closed although they weren’t telling people that. Instead we managed a trip to Barnard castle. We had though we’d look around the castle, but as there wasn’t much more to see inside and you had to pay for that we settled with walking around part of it. Then returning to Loughborough to thaw out.
Written by Geoff Hampson
