Today I woke my teenage son up at 5 am and managed to get him out of the house before 6.30 am.

There was no monetary bribes involved, I didn’t offer to buy him some fake money on GTA so he can use it to buy fake, cars and fake houses… My teenager was up this early to join me and The Veteran Boot Breakers for a 16 mile hike in The Peak District.

We had attempted this walk back in June and we were unfortunately monsoon-ed off. The trickle of a waterfall that we were supposed to be climbing up had turned in to raging river, so we vowed to return and complete the challenge.

We met in Edale car park and set off on a slightly different route to last time, with a view to get this one under our belts.

We started off in high spirits, the weather was okay, not great but definitely no monsoon and every now and then that big, bright, hot thing in the sky would put in an appearance.

However our victory was short lived when once again our path to the top was snatched away from us by Mother Nature. It just vanished in to the river, along with our dreams. Disheartened and only slightly soggy we were unsure of what to do next when three University students unexpectedly came to our rescue. They were pot holers out for a wander up Kinder Scout and offered to show us the way.

After a while it became apparent that these guys had no idea what to do neither, they were just traipsing through the peat bogs and wading through ankle deep water without much direction.

A twisted ankle, knee deep mud holes, sliding on our arses and a thousand profanities later, we slipped, slid and mud surfed our way back to a civilised path and eventually back to civilisation.

It was an incredible day, We’re all awesome. I am so proud of Christopher. He only moaned ever so slightly and I think he actually enjoyed himself even if he did end up with a dodgy ankle and spent more time on his back side than upright!

Bring on the next challenge 😉