Our Favourite Family Adventure So Far!

This is feeling heavy today. We are just hiking up and over Scarf Gap Pass in Buttermere to get to YHA Blacksail where we're going to be spending the next couple of nights. We first went to the Blacksail Hut in summer and we just cycled out there from Ennerdale so ever since then we've been really wanting to go stay so I'm really excited to be going to stay there. Harvey's behind me and he's got Aoife on his back. I think he's struggling a bit with the backpack today, finding it quite heavy. Oslo's ahead of me, always leading the way with his backpack on. It's not that far a hike, I think it's about 4km from the car park and we'll basically just go over this pass and drop down into Ennerdale and then there will be the hut. It's but a dream, yes, yes, three bags full. The choir is on their way up. Hmm? The choir is on their way up. Yeah. So we are currently here, where this pink arrow is. You can see Haystacks is over here, where it says Blacksail Hut. Oslo's up there somewhere. So the clocks went forward last night which means that we get lighter evening so it gets dark at half past seven. It's six o'clock now and it's so nice to be out like at six and not have to worry about getting back for dark. As I mentioned, it's just over the hill so we should be there. We're going to let Aoife walk a little bit. She's been saying that she wants to walk pretty much since we put her in the backpack. So we're finally going to grant her request, probably just when we get over this bit and start heading down the other side. This ground is just, it's too tricky for her to walk on. She's still very, got very little legs and very new to walking, but hopefully one day she'll be wanting to walk up here with us. That'd be amazing. There's the hut. Not far to go now. Home for the next two days, eh? Yep. You excited? Yeah. Dinner soon? Oh, such a great spot. Amazing. We're just on the final track to the YHA Blacksail now. Aoife is out the backpack and having a little walk. It's still quite rocky ground, but she's doing a really good job. And it's turning out to be quite a nice evening and tomorrow's supposed to be glorious. Actually can't wait for some sun on my face. Right, this is our room. We're going in. This is our room. I'm about to make dinner. We're all a bit hungry now. I've actually got a HelloFresh meal for dinner. We hyped it in. HelloFresh is a meal delivery service, so you can select how many meals you want per week for how many people in your household. And it just takes a little bit of the stress out of cooking. I find it really handy, especially with a toddler at home who I love to cook with. We often cook together, but her attention span is quite small. So I really like the quick and easy 20 minute meals. And you can choose those directly on the website. So I always choose at least one of those in our HelloFresh box. So today we're actually making a 20 minute meal, which is really handy because we're all starving and we are having the soy lemongrass chicken and veg stir fry. So I managed to hike our food in. It all comes in a little bag, so it's really easy to bring in and all the ingredients are portioned out so we won't have any waste with us, which is really handy for coming and staying somewhere like this. I'm really excited to have a quick, easy and nutritious meal for dinner. If you are cooking for a family as well, for April only, HelloFresh have a new childhood classics menu. So you can choose your nostalgic childhood favourites and cook for all the family. If you want to try HelloFresh for yourself, then you can use my code, which is HelloAthena to get 60% off your first box along with 25% off the next two months. So it's a really great discount. I'll put it on screen here, or you can click the link down in the description. Right, I'm gonna go get cooking now. I'm really hungry. Looking forward to this meal. Where are we going? So we woke up at YHA Black Sail this morning and wow, it is an incredible day here. We've just got blue skies, sun on our faces, feels so good. Feels like spring. It's actually quite warm as well. And we decided to walk up Pillar today. So heading out on a little hike. Um, it's a peak that Harvey's been wanting to go up for ages. Because, because of the climbing, that's kind of why you're interested, isn't it? It's just this kind of very atmospheric remote peak. Yeah. That just every time we come up Ennerdale, you look over, it's always shrouded in mist and just looks super atmospheric. So a beautiful blue sky today. So yeah, apparently, um, yeah, I was gonna say, apparently you can see over to Isle of Man. So we might be able to stay because it's just really clear. That's awesome. I was just saying to Harvey this morning that it feels like we're doing something really adventurous and exciting and something. It doesn't feel like we're in England. England, like in the summer, we hiked out to a mountain refuge in Italy. Some of you have probably seen that video and it was just such a cool experience. And this feels like that. It has that same feeling, feeling of doing something really adventurous with Aoife. And yeah, but it's actually really accessible. Um, how far was it hiking? Maybe like 4K really an hour and a half from home. It's just really cool that we can do this and get that, get that same feeling as when we're in a different country, but in our own country. So, and everyone at the hut is so friendly. Um, we had Bob looking after us really nice guy. Um, yeah, really, really impressed so far. It's been great, hasn't it? Yeah, it's been fantastic. I had like a really nice conversation with Bob actually just about, um, just kind of like keeping life simple and able to sort of be able to do these kind of adventures. And he has, he's worked in numerous YHAs and works on the footpaths and it's, it's a lifestyle choice rather than a get rich choice. Yeah. It's very much driven by, is your arm starting to hurt? Yeah. Uh, yeah, just driven by, uh, being rich in life and experience rather than money. And I think that's something we live by as well. We'll never be rich, but just being able to bring Aoife on these kinds of adventures and set this as the tone for her life maybe. Um, definitely her sort of experience has grown up. I can't think of anything better. We just stopped for a quick croissant break in the sun and now it's about two kilometers up to Pillar. We are just at the summit of Pillar now. There is not a breath of wind. And I have to say, this has to be one of the best views from a Lakeland peak I have come across. You can see the whole of the coastline, the West coast line, and then basically all of the lakes, like 360 degree, incredible views. Um, you can see Glencathra, Skidore, you're just like picking out all of the peaks, Haystacks, uh, Fleetworth, Pike. Yeah. It's just, just amazing. And the coast and the sea, Ennerdale down there. Incredible. So we're just traversing across the face of Pillar. Um, and we just keep on finding ourselves just being like, wow, this is probably like the most Alpine-esque path we've taken in the, in the lakes. It's, it's quite exposed and quite steep ground and quite rough. Uh, the path is actually pretty good. Um, and we're just heading for Robinson's Cairns. You can just sort of see in the, oh, you want some raisins, in the distance there. And then I think it opens up into a bit of a plateau and a flat area. So we're going to stop there for some food, but it's just, it's, it feels really good. Uh, Athena's slightly scared. It's kind of, Aoife's pretty chilled about it all. Uh, and yeah, yeah, just very beautiful. That's it. So we just got back to the bottom of the valley, just sat here by the river, throwing stones and just generally having a nice time. Uh, I think my concluding thought of the day is that Ennerdale is probably my favourite place in the lakes. There's just an incredible feel about these areas out to the west and, uh, and it's wild and rugged and just up around Pillar is just incredible and atmospheric and it's fantastic over here. Definitely, definitely my favourite place. Yeah. Well, we got completely drenched on the walk back over from, uh, the, the, the, the, the, over from Blacksail to Buttermere. Like it was like sideways, torrential, windy rain, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, that was pretty full on. Yeah, it was pretty full on. We got, we got back to the car and just like stripped all our gear off, got Oslo in the car, got Aoife in the car. Um, and we've driven over to the Lingholm estate to have some lunch. Um, which is always the best way that a little adventure ends is with a good, a good feed. Good hearty lunch. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, but, um, it was, it was... A good couple of days. It was amazing. I loved it. It was so fun. Yesterday was awesome. Yesterday was just, yeah, incredible. Like the weather was amazing. Um, going up to Pillar was really cool. Loved staying at the hut. It was just, it was a really great experience and I think we were saying quite a lot. It felt very alpine. Yeah, you liked the hut, didn't you, little flower? What did you think, Oslo? Like, I'm wet. Yeah. Um, it's got a bit of a 90s spiky hairdo coming. Hi, Oslo. Um, but yeah, it was just like a really cool, really cool thing to do. Actually really accessible with kids. Hello. Really accessible kids. You, I mean, we walked over, uh, Scarf Gap Pass, which was 4k-ish, wasn't it? Yeah, about that. Yeah. Or, yeah, about an hour. Yeah. Or you could cycle in from Ennerdale and that's like a 9k cycle, which again is pretty doable. Um, just like really easy forest tracks. With what? With a trailer. With a bike trailer. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Which we've done before. So yeah, highly recommend heading out to Black Sail. Um, yeah, just a really cool trip. And now we are actually heading over to Northumberland, aren't we? Yep. For a boat trip. So that could be interesting. Yeah. Hoping that the weather is not that bad over there. Um, otherwise I'm going to be very seasick. Yeah, I think, I think the next few days are pretty brutal. Thanks so much for watching this video and we'll see you guys in another one soon. Yep. And yeah, see you later. See ya.