Christmas Cracker (Hillocks)
Saturday, 5 December 2015
I arrived at chapel to find George worrying about whether he had a flat tire, we located his spare tire, decided it would be ok and after being handed directions from Rachel; George, Luke and I were off. Unfortunately I wasn’t really sure where these directions began from so we just navigated to a motorway and this seemed to work.
We got off at the correct junction and started to discover the directions were shit. Google maps seems to count the exit you join a roundabout on in it’s directions, i.e. the 3rd exit becomes the 4th exit. After leaving the roundabout at the incorrect exit George nearly hit a car turning round. We continued through Sheffield following Matt Day (at this point the instructions were pretty much useless, with the provided map not showing roads, only place names).
As we were at a junction an ambulance came up behind us, George accelerated towards the curb to get out of the way, failed to mount it and bounced back towards the oncoming ambulance. Fantastic. We debated having breakfast in Sheffield but decided against it (not because we thought it would be to anti social but because we thought Rachel would kill us (Luke)).
Having fudged our way to the cafe (mainly by luck) we met up with the others and had breakfast. After a discussion over groups/routes we were off again. Despite the directions telling us to go West I think we went East (I did not bring my compass with me) and did a large circle around the village the cafe was in. At this point the others started doubting my directions and Luke got his (minimally charged) phone out.
We pulled over and contemplated life; as we were doing so John drove past so we followed him. Unfortunately after a while it was clear he did not know where he was going either so we lead (also having very little idea where we were going). After accidentally sending the bus the right way we went the wrong way and came accross matt. We followed him and ended up greenlaning. This was quite exciting in a ford Ka (Basic). Anyhow we got to the cave.
Splitting up into 3 groups (down 3 entrances) we went caving. The cave was brief as the connection to Knotlow was sumped. Rachel got rather annoyed as I suggested Bar pot would have been more interesting. Mince pies and wine were enjoyed with Tom having BROKEN THE FLASK, meaning the wine was cold (DISGRACEFUL). After faff and photos we headed out. As we left the cave George and Luke got pissed on by Mike, as revenge they pee’d on Mike’s (mums) car. To avoid further escalation we quickly headed home.
Unfortunately we didn’t actually know where we were going, but Matt drove past us as we were by the side of the road contemplating our failure. Unfortunately a) Matt wasn’t going back to Leeds & b) drove to fast to follow. We ended up going back through Chesterfield as my advice was no longer trusted, meaning we got back to Leeds later than everyone else. Curry was had, with George getting bitter about his (lack of) Chicken Pakora and Luke getting ranty about trips.
A fun day out, but bar pot would have probably been better