During my MBA at Alliance Manchester Business School in the UK, going out on one of the weekend day trips to either a coastal town or the hills was a great stress buster for me. I loved taking off, most of the times on short solo-trips around Manchester, just to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and to engage in some photography sessions. Now, in order to appreciate the stunning coastlines and the peaks, it was important that I surrendered to hiking. Unfortunately, there haven’t been pleasant experience whenever I’ve gone on a hike. Here are some good, bad and ugly personal experiences of hiking in the UK.
Brathay
I did mention the Brathay hiking experience in my first blog post, My MBA journey in 5 photos. Here I’d like to delve into how I felt scaling and descending the hill at Brathay. We, as part of our MBA programme, were asked to undertake several team-building activities at Brathay located in Lake District, Windermere, ahead of all the group projects awaiting us. On the last day of the 3 day Brathay session, was our penultimate group task. Some of the tasks involved singing the ‘Manchester Rambler’ song, doing a map-related task, and a few more that I simply can’t remember. I had chosen to hike up a hill and back within 2 hours. At the time, I wanted to take it as a challenge and push myself. But little did I realise how difficult the task was for me. I struggled to go up the hill as it had rained early morning and the rocks leading up the hiking trail were slippery. It had been a very long time since I had last hiked and it definitely showed. I was also losing my breath as we were elevating. My teammate who decided to do the task with me was my guide and inspiration through the climb. Once we did get at the top, the view was absolutely gorgeous. It’s surprising how easy it became for me to forget all the pain after looking at the magnificent view. I didn’t want to head back down simply because of how serene and peaceful it was to be up on top of the hill. And there was excruciating pain in both my feet. But, we had to get back down to complete our group task. Here’s a photo I had taken from the top. It simply doesn’t do justice to what I could see with my own eyes.
The Giant’s Causeway
One of my most memorable trips was to Northern Ireland. I decided to go on a solo trip to see the Giant’s Causeway. The Giant’s Causeway is a place of both science and mythology. It’s famous for the hexagonal basalt rocks, formed over a long period of time due to volcanic activity in the region. After cooling, a reaction between the basalt from the lava and the chalk beds caused the formation of this honeycomb structure. Here’s a touristy photo I took at the site. It was absolutely amazing to see this natural formation up close.
The Giant’s Causeway gets its name from Irish mythology, which tells the tale of an Irish Giant who was in conflict with a Scottish Giant and had built the causeway as a route to get to Scotland to ‘finish’ him. This fascinating story can be found here. To get to the Giant’s Causeway, I boarded a bus at 9 am from Belfast and reached the final stop in about two hours. Neither I nor Google anticipated a cloudy day at Giant’s Causeway. Google said it would be ‘partly cloudy’. It was certainly not ‘partly’ cloudy. Yet, the pathway from the bus stop to the actual basalt rock site was absolutely gorgeous. Had it been a sunny day, the scene would have looked even more majestic. I loved the contrast of the green cliffs in the background and the towering basalt rock formations in the foreground.
One of the promises of getting to the Giant’s Causeway was hiking up the surrounding cliffs for a beautiful postcard view of the coast. Thankfully, the hike was made tourist-friendly by building flatter pathways and adding stairs. I do feel like Po from Kung Fu Panda whenever I am confronted with stairs, but I didn’t mind these as they had stops in between to help people like me take a quick break before resuming the climb. Getting to the top was definitely rewarding. Here’s a video from the very top.
I don’t remember how high the climb was, but with each painful step, the eyes were rewarded with a literal ‘breathtaking’ view. There’s something very relaxing about coastlines, especially when they’re not sandy. It also makes it so much easier to walk from one end of the coast to another. Unfortunately, the visit was quite short as the last bus to leave for Belfast arrived at 2 pm, which meant that I had spent only 3 hours at the spot. Very memorable 3 hours. I would love to go back to relive this experience.
Arthur’s Seat
In the middle of January, we usually get a week off from University and it’s dubbed as a ‘reading week’. The idea of taking time off is to protect students from the drastic change in weather with the onset of snow. Let’s just say it’s very cold during this time. So, I had the ‘brilliant’ idea to travel during the off-time and I dragged a friend along. A lot of the brainstorming of a getaway for a day had to do with avoiding all the ‘yellow warning’ days. And! we struck gold! The only place that Google said was ‘sunny’ and free from all the warnings was Edinburgh. We decided to go to Edinburgh by bus. We hopped onto an overnight bus to Edinburgh, which departed from Manchester at 1 am. The journey lasted for a total of 6 hours and at 7am we arrived in a surprising sunny Edinburgh. Also, our bus route had no weather-related disruptions. It’s almost like the stars had aligned to ensure we made it safely to Edinburgh.
We stopped at a McDonald’s for a quick breakfast before heading out for exploration. We strolled around the Scott Monument, before making our way up to the magnificent Edinburgh Castle. From there we went down the Royal Mile to see the Palace of Holyrood House. And, this is where, unfortunately, my friend lost his glove. We spent some time glove hunting and gave up our nascent Sherlock Holmes abilities after searching almost half of the Royal Mile pathway and not sighting the missing glove.
The next stop was Arthur’s Seat, the highest peak in Edinburgh. And, to get there required strength, grit and bravery. Speaking strictly for myself. As my friend was totally unaffected by the ordeal. He was, like most other hikers there, enjoying the climb. And I was dying both inside and outside. They say in order to get to know someone really well you need to travel with them. This experience definitely gave more than a glimpse into my hiking-related inadequacies to my friend. He was kind to realise this wasn’t a pleasant experience for me and made sure we both made it to the top, albeit at a snail’s pace.
And, what a feeling it was to reach the top! The view from Arthur’s Seat was absolutely beautiful. Draped in sunlight and melting snow, the city looked like a painting. I have my friend to thank for this experience. Had he not persisted that I make the climb with him and helped me do it at my pace, I would’ve been robbed of this view. The trip ended with us visiting the Nelson Monument and later, having incredibly delicious food at an Indian restaurant named, ‘Passage to India’. After our indulgence, we headed to board the bus back to Manchester at around 11 pm.
Peak District
After a rather lonely Ramadan in 2020, away from both family and friends, and after the lockdown restrictions had been eased, I decided to go away from Manchester for a day trip. My dear friends insisted that they wanted to go to Peak District, which is about an hour away from Manchester by train. They were keen to get some fresh air and honestly so was I. Peak District is famous for its long and beautiful hiking trail. The hills in Peak District look absolutely stunning both in summer and winter months. During the summer months, the hills are usually crowded with hikers. But this time around, due to the pandemic, there crowd had thinned. We took an early morning train from Manchester and reached our stop at Peak District in about an hour.
We started slowly on our hiking trail and very quickly I realised that my decision to go to Peak District wasn’t a good one. I started feeling the pain from the incline very quickly into the hike. And the sun was beating down on us. This made the green hills look absolutely gorgeous, but I was losing steam and it was hard for me to appreciate the beauty amidst the pain that I could now start feeling in both my legs. My friends were kind to have taken my bag pack from me to make my hiking experience easier. Yet, I couldn’t get over how difficult it was for me. It was almost like my body had gone into a state of shock. I decided to document my pain in order to remind myself that if I made it through this, I can make it through anything! Here’s some evidence of my documentation.
It was difficult to keep up with my friends and I didn’t want them to wait around either. So I asked them to keep moving and slowly dragged myself along. There was a point when I nearly lost my balance and fell head-first into the tall grass within the hill. Had it not been for my friend, who was sharp enough to catch my hand quickly, I would’ve possibly gone further down the hill! It became harder and harder me to keep going, but we had to in order to get back to the train station. At several points I stopped to give my dying feet some rest. Here’s a picture I had clicked at one of my pit stops.
Looking at this photo now makes me appreciate the scenery. However, in the moment, I was in a pretty bad state. But the good news is, I made it back to the train station, thanks to my patient friends who helped me get back down the hiking trail. All in all, both precious and horrifying memories were created during this hike.