Climbing the highest point in every county in England
Maybe it was the wrong choice of bike for the job
The idea started with a climb up what seemed an endlessly steep hill. As many a tired cyclist before me has asked, just how much more of this is there to climb?
Quite a lot more it transpired. Unbeknown to me at the time, I had just cycled up Kent’s highest point.
Just how high was it? A quick Google led me to Wikipedia and a list of English counties by highest points, with Kent’s Westerham Hill a lowly 251m and number 31 out of 48.
As a lover of the outdoors I’m always keen to persuade my youngsters to join me on a hike or a ride. Sometimes they want to, sometimes they don’t. Mention a challenge, however, and they can’t get their welly boots on fast enough.
Then it came to me. England may not be blessed with much in the way of mountains, but in the same way Westerham Hill was my tired legs’ own little Everest at the time, so a hill can be a mountain to a youngster.
And what better way to get them to see their own country and become a mini-explorer than the challenge of climbing up to the highest point in every county in England. And living in the south east of England, we could leave Scarfell Pike until the end when their legs were stronger and they were losing the thrill of the challenge.
And so the next weekend, we parked up nearby and went in search of the peak. More on that in a later post.
They may become the first brothers and even the youngest to complete the set, they may not. They may not even get round to complete the full set, but it hardly matters. Sometimes just getting up the hill is enough.
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