Weekend away at Gradbach Mill (Peak District)

over the weekend i went with my cell group from Elim (combined with the Earlsdon cell) to Gradbach Mill in Peak District for a cell retreat. we left at 7pm on friday night and managed not to get lost (thanks Tim and Sarah) so that we got to the Youth Hostel at about 9.30pm.

first thing we saw when we entered the kitchen was this...
hmmm... perhaps that just signifies how weird the place was...

anyway, this was the girls' dorm! mine is the top bed on the right (see my bright pink leg warmers hanging on the side?)
anyway, in case you didn't know, i had an allergic reaction to the YHA because it was a bit musty (which made the place a bit stifling for me) and smelt of fresh paint. which overall contributed to a runny nose which i thought was the only side effect of my allergy - but then it turns out the flu i thought i had was actually an asthma attack (i had difficulty breathing as my flu and cough got worse on monday) and the phlegm was actually generated as a side effect of the asthma doing its 'thing' in my lungs.

but back to pleasanter things...
us 6 girls who were in that dorm room! from top row left, xiuli and emily, front row left, me, jia en, lucilla and lynn!
in day, this is how our hostel looks - we had the whole stand-alone buildin to ourselves. the single-storey part is the kitchen and dining area, while the double storey bit had the girls' dorm of 6 and the lounge at the top, and boy's dorm of 6, 2 rooms of 2 and 1 room of 3 on the ground floor.
some of the group climbed up the hill next to the hostel while lynn and i were cooking lunch (see what how much we sacrificed being the food people?!?)...and saw the plains around the YHA... apparently on the way down, the guys just ran down leaving the girls to have to tackle the steep slope on their own. with the exception of one very gentlemanly peter, who in the process of helping the girls, had a slip of his own onto the freshly muddy ground.
on the second day (or rather, our first day there), we went for a walk after our lunch. me and lynn (future housemates? i certainly hope so!) sneaking a picture just outside our hostel!
we found a map of a trail left on the kitchen table for us so we decided to take the path 're-constructed' in the drawing above.
see how a worthy investment it was for me to buy my bright pink puffy jacket! you can see me a MILE away! and when it started to get dark they made me walk in front so that they could use me as a visual leader! HA!

we walked along the stream that ran beside our hostel. you wouldnt believe how long it took us to go through the trail because it was SO muddy! especially when not all of us had hiking shoes and wellingtons like ben and steve did. those 2 were running and stomping in the mud, much to the dismay of emily who suffered from ben's childish antics 5mins into the walk. there was a puddle of mud along the trail just outside the hostel in true 'ben-fashion', he ran straight into the centre of the puddle and jumped in it, causing mud to fly up at emily and got blobs of mud on her jeans and boots. sigh.
as we followed the stream/brook (can someone offer a definition of the 2?) we came to a bridge which we naturally decided was a fantastic place for a group-1 picture (xiuli was the kind soul who took the picture).
if i remember correctly, the stream forked at the bridge so we continued to walk along on branch of the stream to the area marked 'ROCKS' on my map.
which lead us through some rather dark woods... we were climbing up the side of a hill/peak so we were somewhat in the valley?
finally we reached the big rocks! which we took some time to explore...
girly picture at the top of the rocks! notice xiuli is using her handphone. this is because we managed to get phone reception high up on the rocks which = EXCITEMENT!
look at the gorgeous view of the neighbouring peak! the sun was shining on that side so it means we were on the eastern side of our peak (right, right, geography experts?)
i think that's emily on that rock. it was a nice place to just admire the beauty of the land...
anyway, we FINALLY managed to get a move from there (because the days are short and we didnt want to still be up the peak when night fell) so onward we went to the cave. along the way we had some girls shrieking at the amount of mud on the path (in some cases the entire stretch was mud so we started walking on the vegetation next to the path because [a]cleaner, [b]less slippery which = safer)

we FINALLY got to the cave - which was SO COOL! we had to climb down a steep staircase of rock to reach a layer of very fresh mud - as lynn put it, it was like the segment in Takeshi's Castle (if any of you remember watching that hilarious Japanese variety show where they had all sorts of challenges to escape the castle) where you'd have to walk through this section of quicksand-ish stuff and step on the right places so you wouldnt sink. indeed we did have to find rocks to step on and use the rock walls on the side for support because when ben tried walking through the mud itself, it came up to the top of his hiking boots! YIKES!
what initially was a ben and me spoof picture ended up being a group spoof! :)

onward we went through even more muddy sections of the trail and finally made it clear of the forested area, up the steeper part of the peak to the ridge at the top. naturally, emily and steve were bounding forward like eager golden retriever and border collie, with hyper alsatian ben running back and forth to make sure everyone was able to press on. lynn and i were getting a bit jittery because we needed to move faster or else we'd get stuck up on the peak when the sky got dark.

but alas we were reaching the top!
and looking back to the side of the ridge that we came from, we saw the beautiful peaks behind.
we managed to catch the sunset while still on the top of the ridge (looking over to the 'other' side) which we stopped to savour before bundling everyone together to make our way down.
the sun was setting and we were still on top of the ridge. considering we took about 2+ hours to GET to the top of the ridge, we really had to go down much faster than we did to get up. emily, steve, me and lynn were in the front of the group trying to move as fast as we could so that the others would move faster too. we took a different route down which had less steep paths that went through areas without as much forest - which meant delaying our entry into darker areas. by the time we reached the forested area on the trail, it got very dark and we formed a tighter 'line' of pairs, with me and steve in front. pink jacket + pink beanie came in useful as a route marker (yay for pink!) and we finally made it to the rocks before the one last climb down a steep slope.

we were VERY relieved to make it back safely to the YHA for a scrumptious dinner of roast chicken and potatoes (prepared by me and lynn).

some pointers for people intending to go hiking:

a) wear appropriate attire - compared to other hikers, we were dismally attired because most of us were wearing sports shoes rather than proper boots. or be like steve and bring wellingtons (like those that fish-mongers wear). bring a walking stick and wear high socks which you can tuck your jeans/trousers into to avoid them soaking in mud. a beanie and puffy,wind-resistent jacket are important because even when you are feeling warm climbing up, when you get to the top, you are hit with strong winds and you need to keep warm or else your muscles (which you have just warmed up will suffer - learnt this when iain scolded me for not wearing a jacket out of the dance studio after one jazz class)

b) always carry a torch. and bring a dog. haha...

c) carry a satelite phone (we did this in Laos when we went for an expedition) when going to somewhere with no phone reception so that in case of an ermergency, you are able to contact someone. or make arrangements with people in base camp that should you not return by a certain time to form a search party. we didnt have this because there was literally no one else at the YHA and i dont think that even the caretaker lives in the next building... hmmm...

anyway, we had a good time that weekend (not much bible study as we had the year before but the hike was so much fun!) sorry but i didnt bring a camera so no pictures of how the food turned out (yes, lynn and i were the people in charge of 'feeding the faithful') but i personally was rather satisfied with how things turned out considering the food was hearty, healthy (yes! plenty of vegetables and fruit!) and NO TESCO VALUE FOOD WAS USED AT ALL! (mega proud of that fact). and we were under budget too! moral of the story? when you cook healthy and hearty meals, it doesnt blow a hole in your pocket! i think we even spent less per person than last year's food team which did buy quite a lot of Tesco value stuff like coffee powder, pizza and bread.
as we left on sunday, we managed to get some passerby-hikers to take a group picture of us (with a mysterious dog that turned up at our kitchen door at noon! SUCH AN ADORABLE COLLIE! it took a fancy to me, emily, ben and steve - especially to steve. we even wanted to take it onto the bus! haha...). one major question: how does a long-haired dog like that collie not end up as grimey as my family beagle who has short hair?!? playing with the dog, i didnt get any eye or skin irritations as i do sometimes with my beagle even one day after he has been bathed!

anyway... top row from left, lucilla, jia en, me, xiuli, emily, hsien, lynn, agnes, sarah; front row from left, peter, steve, ben and tim. note that ben is wearing a paper hat that peter made for him the night before when they were playing some game which reads 'unintelligible person'. peter and his dry sense of humour! :)