Hotlegs on Tour - By Andy B

There was a distinct chill in the air at the traditional WMWG New Year weekend away, though North Devon was spared the snow that affected some parts of the country. The weekend officially began with a short hike from the picturesque village of Dunster with its beautiful narrow streets and castle, though some decided the 8am start from Birmingham was too much and made a more leisurely journey down to Lynton.

Everyone met up in the bar at the Sandrock Hotel for the New Years Eve party and not a single item of Gore-Tex in sight either! We tucked into the buffet that included a tasty fresh salmon and a bowl of Bombay-mix. It was then straight in to the New Years Eve celebrations, complete with the disco blasting out ‘poptastic' cheesy tunes. At midnight, as soon as we had exchanged the usual Happy New Year greetings, we were treated to a firework display in the hotel back garden. For 15 minutes, the Lynton skyline was lit up like a quite night in Baghdad. By the end of the display, most of us were happy to go back into the relatively warm hotel to finish off the evening, the last going to bed at about 2am.

There was a slightly delayed start for the main New Years Day walk to allow for the extra cups of black coffee and paracetamol to go down after breakfast. A 13ish mile route (according to the pre weekend literature!) from the hotel, up on to Exmoor, and back along a wooded valley was the order of the day. The views across the Bristol Channel to the snow-capped Brecon Beacons were fantastic, and the ice made for some skating moments that Torvill & Dean would have been proud of. The meaning of the ‘ish' bit of the distance became clear when, as darkness was falling, we realised that we still had about 3 miles to go! Sally finally got to test her wind up torch from Aldi and we all finally got to Lynmouth in total darkness at 5.30pm, though it was worth it just to see the spectacular views of the moon rising over the Bristol Channel. Andy told us later on what some of us had suspected - a total distance of almost 16 miles, not bad for a 'hangover' walk!

Friday night and the pool table beckoned for a tournament, which hustlers Rachel and Leander had been planning to organise. However, before we could get started, Ed the ‘cheeky cockney' barman, challenged us all to a game of ‘killer' pool. Killer pool with a cash prize! He had obviously been observing the earlier ‘warm up game' involving myself, Rachel, Leander and James where balls were being potted at the speed of plate tectonics and he fancied his chances. Despite Ed making up the rules as he went along, he eventually got knocked out leaving a battle between myself, James and Stu. Ed's protests about being set up could be heard from the room next door for the next two hours.

On Saturday, John led the extreme ‘tea-shop challenge' around Woody Bay, and Andy led a coastal walk involving a 20 minute bus journey from a very chatty bus driver all the way from Stechford! (He must have taken the wrong turning at the Hunters Moon island and never looked back?) Half way back along the coastal path we reached a sign that pointed in four directions to Iceland, Russia, New Zealand and USA. Unfortunately, Andy was so distracted by this sign that he failed to spot the more modest sign pointing the way back to Lynton, so we ended up doing an additional half a mile!. This time we had marginally more daylight left as we walked through the Valley of Rocks and around the cliff path back to the hotel. The evening's entertainment was laid on courtesy of our very own ‘Quizzie Rascal', Steve Davis, with a pub quiz followed by the customary sing-song, with a special stand up performance from WMWG's answer to Bernard Manning ‘Stand up Stu Harvey.

The final day was another freezing cold one and those of us left headed up to County Gate for the start of an 8 mile route around Lorna Doone farm, though Steve Myatt was left sitting in the car listening to the football on the radio after succumbing to a bug which also affected at least two others. I think medical term for the bug is ‘a hang over'. At the lunch stop, Rachel pulled out her secret stash of Bailey's, once again, and at the end of the walk, Stu handed round some sloe gin and Sally treated us to home-made mince pie to keep us chewing all through the M5 traffic jams back home to the West Midlands.

Thanks to Andy Page for organising another fantastic walking weekend! Here's to many more great weekends in 2010!