A muddy eruption
Mud, mud, mud
What do you do when you’re bored in January and live in Cambridge? Answer: drive for 2 hours to fulfill an idiotic challenge to run up an arbitrary number of hills based on a somewhat tenuous definition of a ‘highest point’. It just dawned on me that I can’t really justify this challenge, other than “I’ve started so I’ll finish”. It’s genuinely nice that people regularly ask me how the challenge is progressing, but I also get a little bit of a sense of disappointment when I tell them I’ve only run up 16/103 hills. I don’t know if this is because people are constantly expected to be wowed by some achievement or other - a sign of modern times that everything has to be better, faster, stronger, than what came before. I’ve got great admiration for the people that step up to those challenges, but I’m not one of them, and this is not one of those challenges. This is my challenge and I’ll do it however I want to. It gives me (and Julie) a chance to see parts of the country that we might not choose to otherwise (some parts we definitely would never choose to: here’s looking at you Suffolk).
Back to January. I’ve focused most of my efforts on running up the hills that are within a drive of Cambridge (a few opportunistic exceptions, e.g. Brown Willy, Moel Famau, etc). The consequence is that we’re running out of hills to visit without spending a whole weekend away. I’d estimate that we probably only have another 3-4 that we can realistically reach in less than 2 hours of driving. After all, we don’t want to spend more time driving than we are running; that would be disappointing. We figured that we could just about reach a decent starting location for the highest point in Leicestershire (pronounced: liechestershestershire for any Non-British readers; honestly).
We always knew that some of the county highest points would be a little disappointing - they can’t all start in a quaint village or cosy pub. This one started in the car park of Coalville leisure center (glamour!). Bracing against the cold, dull weather we set off on a paved trail past dog walkers and a little fishing lake, with a few brave souls huddled up with their lines hanging limply in the water. The route we had planned looked suspiciously urban, but we were pleasantly surprised to be running through fields (albeit parallel with a busy A-road). Up and over a disused railway we crossed a couple roads and snaked through a housing estate, heading for our destination: Bardon Hill.
After a couple of miles we emerged onto the edge of a vast quarry, what remains of the side of the old volcano. Gaining height proved tricky as the recent rain had turned the track into a slick, sticky quagmire. Up and up we half ran - half crawled, trying not to slip over as the mud built up on our trainers, removing and last traction we may have had.
Eventually we emerged on to a wooded track, at least more sheltered, that traversed the side of the quarry below us. Over a couple of stiles, we took a right fork at a junction and continued the slippery climb up and up. Emerging on to a crest we passed a sign warning of the quarry blasting that took place regularly - thankfully it was a few hours away so there was plenty of time to get up and back down.
The final slog up to the col that joined our hill with Bardon hill followed the Ivanhoe way. By this point I was starting to get used to the mud (read: cocky) - so the universe taught me an important lesson and sent me stumbling through the mud and plonked me flat on my bottom. All I can say is that I hope that the two dog walkers watching had a good chuckle. Coated in iron-rich red mud we followed the path over a crest, through a stile and down to the radio mast at we thought was the top. We could see on the map that there was supposed to be a trig point (also seen in photos of Bardon hill). Following the winding tracks through a copse of trees towards, what we assumed, was the quarry edge we finally emerged out onto a vista of Bardon Hill quarry and the urban delights of Coalville beyond. Replete with an information board (who doesn’t love these?), the trig point (278m) stuck up proud on a promontory of volcanic rock, just about the only evidence that we were stood on the summit of a 600 million-year old volcano.
The cold weather stopped us from hanging around for too long (plus the potential threat of being blown up with dynamite), so we headed back to the beacon and down a metaled track. This area seems to have been re-landscaped quite a lot by, I guess, the quarry and land-owners, so some aspects of the footpaths and contours didn’t entirely match up. Taking the best guess path we headed off on what we hoped would lead us round the base of Bardon Hill and back onto the Ivanhoe way. Thankfully our noses for navigation have been well-honed by countless orienteering adventures (i.e. getting lost), and we were on the right path through along a pleasantly wooded lane. The last few miles were largely uneventful, following a narrow track along a school field, through another housing estate, eventually finishing through the suburban sprawl before reaching the leisure center where we had started this adventure. Somewhat muddier than when we set off, but full of the warm glow that comes with hill running, and a little bit of adventure.
We dusted ourselves off, donned some warmer clothes and grabbed a cup of tea from the leisure center cafe before enjoying the classic British past-time;a rainy car picnic, before commencing the drive back to Cambridge. Whilst this was not the most exciting hill, it was by far not the least interesting (mud always makes it interesting), though I don’t think we’ll be visiting this neck of the woods again any time soon…
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