Scandal: Outdoor Bloggers spotted walking to a pub!

Outdoor Bloggers Weekend – North Yorkshire

I’m back from my first Outdoor Bloggers weekend which recently took place near Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire. A child free weekend, camping in a Bumble Bus, with walks, quizzes and chats with like-minded outdoorsy people. I’ve followed other outdoor blogger’s in awe of their adventures up mountains (and falling off them!), long distance walks along the West Highland Way, wild camping and product collaborations with awesome brands. I was nervous about meeting them, were my adventures too tame? …. blog not big enough? eek! the over thinking at its best.

The Outdoor Blogger community is a group founded by Jenni from The Thrifty Magpies Nest and Zoe from Splodz Blogz, to bring outdoor bloggers together and share our passion for the outdoors.

I pulled into the campsite in my Bumble bus, with hubby who I had persuaded to come with me and was greeted by friendly faces. Phew, everyone seemed lovely and came to look at my borrowed van. We spent the evening around the campfire, enjoying its warmth after torrential rain, and took part in a quiz. I’ve learnt I’m terrible at quizzes, but I do now know what an epiphyte is!

It was a relaxed and informal weekend and after a comfortable, but very chilly night, we awoke to unexpected sunshine for our first walk around the Hole of Horcum and Levisham moor. The Hole of Horcum, on the North York Moors, is also known as the Devil’s punchbowl and as we walked Jenni gave us some interesting facts about the area.

Before lunch at the pub in Levisham we made a two-mile detour to Skelton Tower. Don’t be fooled by the ruined walls you see in the distance, it really is worth the walk across the moors and down a steep hill to reach the tower. The view across the landscape and railway line below is both incredible and dramatic. We all took turns standing on the edge of the headland for the perfect outdoor blogger photo!

After a big lunch in the pub at Levisham, we walked on a pretty and winding woodland path before the huge moorland hill back up to the car park. A walk of approx. 11 miles and I only lagged behind once on the big hill!

Our second walk, the next day, was from our campsite in Ellerburn to Dalby Forest. We were tasked with taking nature photos for a prize and there would be a few spot prizes too. I somehow managed to forget to take any decent nature photos apart from some ‘tree shots’! I do get excited by forests and we managed to take some silly photos too. The other bloggers took some impressive nature pictures and I won a spot prize for ‘Blogger most likely to get wet’, thanks to spilling a water bottle into hubby’s hiking boots. It was lovely to walk along and chat, whilst discovering the forest trails. The weather was also kind, maybe a bit too kind to my nose as I ended up looking like Rudolph.

After a few hours in the forest it was time to walk back and begin to pack up at the campsite. I didn’t need to be nervous, these were people just like me, passionate about getting outside and who liked a chat. My stomach muscles were sore from laughing, legs thoroughly exercised, it was lovely to put faces to names and I had a great weekend. Hope they let me join them again!

9 comments Add yours
    1. Yes it’s a stunning place and we’re lucky to live not too far away, so can visit again quite easily. It was a great weekend!

  1. I couldn’t make this weekend as we were away ourselves but I’m definitely going to try to get to a future one. It sounds like you had a lovely weekend. Thanks for joining us on #adventurecalling . We open again for new posts tomorrow morning.

  2. From everything I’ve seen it sounds like you all had an amazing time. Hopefully I’ll get to make it to an event at some point, it’s always great fun meeting up with other outdoor bloggers. Thanks for sharing with us #AdventureCalling

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