When the trip makes it out of the group chat
Adventures under £100 (#2): Camping in Wasdale (costs and itinerary)
You know that “when the trip finally makes it out of the group chat” meme? Well, that’s exactly what just happened the weekend before last - and it exceeded all expectations.
But before I tell you more about the trip itself (keep reading for full details and costs of a 10/10 weekend camping in Wasdale), I want to tell you about the group chat.
Some time in late 2022, I received a message from a then-stranger called Hannah on Facebook. Hannah said that she’d recently read Coasting and really enjoyed it, and also that she’d just moved to Kendal and to let her know if I ever fancied a walk when I was up in the Lake District. I was thrilled by this message, and not only because of the book compliment. I’d just decided that I was going to move to Kendal too, I barely knew anybody there and I was very much in the market for some new friends.
A few months passed. I made the move to Cumbria but - because I’m absolutely useless - I’d failed to follow Hannah up on her kind invite to hang out. Then I received another message from her, something along the lines of:
“I’ve just had dinner with my cousin in Lancaster, and I think she’s your cousin too.”
It turned out she meant my Dad’s cousin Suzannah, so technically my cousin-once-removed. What a small world?!
With the chat resurrected by this huge coincidence, Hannah invited me to go swimming with her and some friends the following week. She gave me her number, and she’s still saved in my phone as ‘Hannah Long Lost Cousin’ today. Incorrectly, though, as it turns out - after some back and forth about the family tree, ChatGPT reliably informed me that your cousin’s cousin is not necessarily your cousin.
Either way, the next Wednesday evening I followed the directions she’d sent me to High Dam tarn. It was still early in the year and it was dark by the 6pm meeting time. I was the first to arrive and, alone in the empty car park, I had the ominous feeling of: this could go really well… or I could get murdered.
Another vehicle appeared and I then realised I didn’t actually know what anyone I was meeting looked like. A few more people arrived and, seeing the number of Dryrobes milling around, I guessed that this was probably my group, and walked over to introduce myself. It was at this point that I met Hannah, Nikki, Laura and Julia (and Alfie and Archie the dogs). We followed a trail to the tarn and swam under the light of head torches. I tried not to be too much of a wimp about the cold water.
Later that evening, I was added to the group chat.
That was more than two years ago now and the Wednesday swimmers have met almost every week since. My attendance has probably been the most patchy but whenever I’m back in Cumbria, one of the things I look forward to the most is catching up. Though I’ve since dropped the facade of being a brave outdoor swimmer - I mostly just go for chips and chats these days, and don’t even pretend I’m getting in the water. There are even splinter groups now, for games nights and bikepacking trips and social runs.
Moving to a new place is always daunting. I’ve done it a few times, and each time it’s just as scary. You wonder if the upheaval is going to be worth it and you worry about how you’ll ever replace all the people in your old life. And of course you never replace them (you just hope they’ll come and visit) - but if you’re lucky, you find yourself invited to a new group chat and meet new friends who you soon can’t imagine not knowing.
Thank god those women I met in that carpark two years ago weren’t axe murderers, but instead turned out to be really nice and fun and interesting people. And last weekend, a much talked about camping trip in Wasdale finally made it out of our group chat - and into a miraculous spring heatwave.
The plan
This is the second instalment in my series of Adventures under £100. The premise is: a whole weekend away for the price of one night in a lot of very average hotels. The first one was an A to B walk connecting two youth hostels. This time the plan was to go camping, always a solid option for a cheap and cheerful adventure.
We’d been talking about spending the weekend in Wasdale for a while. I think the idea came from some of the hardier members of the group wanting to have a go at swimming the length of Wast Water and back (10km in total). As it happened nobody ended up doing much swimming this time, but it planted the seed for a brilliant weekend.
We decided to camp at Wasdale Head Inn. It’s £8 per person, per night and first-come-first-served. It’s a great spot as you’ve got the pub and the little shop (which sells delicious ice cream) right there, plus easy access to so many trails and fells.
Our loose plan went like this…