Why exactly are we doing this...?

It was raining - hard as it happens -  the traffic crawling and a snake of tail lights extending somewhere towards Birmingham. The kids were moaning in the back; the ipad was out of charge and the crisps weren't the right sort. Driving 300 miles up the M6 on a Friday night is not the time or place to be impatient...

Jane snapped, Remind me again, why exactly are we doing this?

Five hours later we reached Preston and our bed for the night at a Premier Inn.  If we get up at six, I jollied, we could reach the Lakes in a couple of hours, have breakfast in Keswick... Jane's look suggested I keep schtum.

But it's strange how moods can turn. The room was spotless, the pub next door just what we needed, and Dylan slept through the night without a murmur.  Next morning we were off (at eight-thirty), driving to Penrith under a cobalt sky and debating how we might lengthen the walk in.

Our goal was Black Sail Hut, one of the oldest youth hostels in the UK and certainly, the most remote.  It's situated in the Ennerdale Valley and requires a five mile trek from almost any direction. Travelling with us was a friend and her two children (aged 6 and 7) - which explains why our sacks were bulging with sweets and chocolate as we strolled the south shore of Buttermere, heading for Scarth Gap.

Now Scarth Gap isn't a huge pass; it's one of the tourist routes up Haystacks mountain and takes about an hour for an averagely fit walker.  But when you're six or seven years old, and playing with your mates, it's a different prospect. It's steep too, and the boys took to holding a stick between them, shouting as they hauled themselves up the rocky path; one and two and three and four...  I smiled. They were counting steps, as if parodying the title of my book (that's not a contrived plug - it really happened), and I marvelled at how life so often repeats itself.

By the time we reached the last rise Dylan and young Jack (so small I could almost fit him in my pack) were a hundred yards ahead, waving their poles and posing for photographs. The descent to the hut took half the time and twice as many stumbles - we arrived mid-afternoon, dumped our coats, put on a brew and sat listing to the mountains.

An hour or so later the wardens arrived; they'd been to the pub they said, over at Wasdale Head. I must have looked puzzled. It's only a forty minute fell-run they explained, pointing to the pass by Pillar Rock. I noticed their stick-thin limbs, their sinewed calves -  and estimated their combined body mass index to be approaching 15!  They were great wardens though - proper mountain people - and it was obvious they cherished the time they were here.

Black Sail is also unique amongst the remoter UK hostels in that it provides evening meals. Dinner was soup, sausage casserole and sticky toffee pudding, washed down with Cumbrian Ale and a bottle of red. Another family was staying too and by the time the stars were out there was one conversation around the wood-burning stove and a shared sense of how special this place is.

So having driven three hundred miles, then walking another five  to sleep in a shepherd's hut, we woke the next morning and promptly walked back. There was mention of severe weather approaching, but the sun held out. As did the little ones, whom though tired, still managed to reach the pass before me. Ninety minutes later we all were back at the car and soon heading to Keswick for lunch before the long drive south.

There are few places in England that can offer such a compact adventure as Black Sail..  Of course, walking to the Ennerdale Valley doesn't risk life and limb - but it's a world away from the clutter and comfort of everyday life. It's part of the comprehensive education I want for my children,  in the hope they'll learn to appreciate and participate in nature - to understand there's more to life than Gameboys and cinema and for that matter, Premier Inns or swanky hotels.

It's to the YHA's great credit that it keeps Black Sail running. I wish the Association would find and open others like it, for I'm sure the demand would be there. We drove home in less time than it had taken to reach Preston on Friday night. Tired, yes, but more refreshed and ready for the week ahead than if we'd called it off.

Remind me again, Jane had asked on our way north, why exactly are we doing this?  As we unpacked the car two days later, Dylan begged,  Next time we go - could we stay a bit longer?  

Enough said.

Doethie

Sometimes it's the snatched opportunities that we remember most. Trips we plan too carefully often fail to meet our expectations, leaving us deflated and wondering why we made the effort. When I think back it is often the chance encounters that are most vivid in my memory.

And so it was last weekend. I'd planned to go backpacking with Daniel, mapping out a route over the Beacons, researching a wild campsite – I'd even packed his rucksack. 'I don't fancy that route,' he said, just before we were due to leave. 'It's too far and too high, can't we go somewhere different?' We'd already had a row – typical teenage lounging as everyone else was getting about the morning – it was midday by now and I was keen to be off. 'We could go to the Doethie valley, but it's a bit of a drive to get there.' Excellent he said, I can sleep in the car.

The Afon Doethie rises in the southern hills of the Elenydd, falling steeply into the wider curves of the upper the Towy near Llandovery. The Towy is a favourite with picnickers, who splash in the gravel beds, much to the annoyance of fishermen casting their lines into silent pools. A few miles upstream the Doethie valley marks the end of the road; the only way onward by foot or horseback. At its head, only five miles distant, the valley joins the high plateau of hills above Soar y Mynydd and the Llyn Brianne dam. Anyone wanting a pick up would need to persuade a driver to make a thirty mile diversion to meet them over the watershed.

We started our walk here, it was late afternoon and we were hoping to make camp by a copse of oak trees that I knew to have flat ground. When we arrived, there were jays in the trees, being harried by what looked like large hawks, though I wasn't certain. It was early and we decided to carry on, reaching the track to Soar y Mynydd as the sun began to dip into the horizon. From here we walked to the old youth hostel at Ty'n Cornel, once an isolated farm accessible only by the drove road from Llanddewi Brefi. I love this place, rescued from closure by the Elenyndd Trust, it is the best and most remote hostel in Wales. The volunteer wardens, Mark and Bronwen, greeted us with traditional northern hospitality, 'Would you like cup o tea?' We would, and we decided to camp in the hostel garden.

The hostel has a small snug; there is one conversation and you either join in or bugger off. We started the evening as strangers, sitting round the fire, and as so often happens you realise it's a small world. Bronwen was studying creative writing and Mark told me story of how he and a friend had once walked four miles to a pub in Pembrokeshire only to find it had shut up shop the week before. That pub is next door to my house, and I vaguely remember two blokes sitting on the wall one evening and their disappointment as I told them they'd be waiting a long time if they wanted a pint.

As we retired to the tent the sky was alight with stars; I could see the Andromeda galaxy, the Milky Way a thick band from horizon to horizon, the occasional meteor falling through Leo. The tent was thick with dew, and we snuggled into our bags leaving the door open to the night. 'I like it here,' Daniel said, and fell asleep.

Next morning we packed and ate breakfast with our new friends; a woodpecker joined us on terrace, picking at the nuts in a feeder. Some of the hostelers were off home, one chap was walking to Dolgoch, the other hostel run by the trust – it is lit by gas lamps and has a church organ in the sitting room. We would retrace our steps, descending with the river to the car near Rhandirmwyn. Not a cloud above us, the bracken damp and smelling of earth; two ravens sat on the oak trees where the jays had been. It was swift walk; Daniel strode ahead of me, leaping over the pools and squelchy ground; his back now as broad as mine, his body chiseled and hard. The river, young too at this height, cascades its way over rocks and drops, foaming and turning, gouging in haste to reach the flatter landscape.

I walked the last miles some way behind Daniel, enjoying the silence, the company of the river. As I stopped to drink the peaty water a dragonfly rested on my arm, its huge eyes watching me, daring me to move. It followed me for a while, attracted I think by the colour of my rucksack, until I reached the road at Troedyrhiw farm.

Daniel was waiting at the car, lying on the grass and looking at the sky. We had parked near the cave of Twm Shon Catti, the welsh Robin Hood. The legend says he lived in these hills before building a manor at Tregarron and becoming a pillar of society. I wonder if he ever returned – snatching a visit on days when the sun shone, the river tumbled through the autumn bracken and dragonflies hovered by the streams. There are few better places in Wales.

Gwaun

The Gwaun Valley tends to be overlooked by tourists: there are no obvious attractions, the access is difficult and the villages are, frankly, dour. And yet I like it a lot. We went there often when the boys were small, to walk by the river, pick blackberries or play in the water.

I returned today for the first time in a couple of years. We walked from Cilrhedyn Bridge to Llanychaer, the same route as always. It's not the most beautiful of walks, at least not by Pembrokeshire standards, and yet it has a rustic charm. The farms are worked hard, there are tyres in the fields, we found an abandoned tractor on the path today, the woodland is largely left to its own devices.

It seems the people of the Gwaun like doing things their own way. The valley is best known in Wales for celebrating Hen Galan, an alternative new year based on the Julian calender - equivalent to our 13 January. The valley pubs reputedly pay scant regard to licencing laws on that day, or many others for that matter. As if to underline this individuality, one of its few well known farms is Penlan Uchaf, which promotes the unlikely combination of beef from long horn cattle and having a show garden for visitors. And at Llanychaer there is a garden which incorporates a flush loo, a metal sculpture of a miner (or is it a farmer?) and a kitchen range built into the wall!

But for me, the Gwaun is all about the river. The valley sides are steep, making for fast run off after rain, and streams swell the main flow at regular intervals. Today the river was dashing over gravel beds and churning through the falls. The trees on either bank grow down to the water's edge and our path crossed many rills running between their roots. Outside of the summer, it's not a walk for keeping your feet dry.

In winter, the river turns quickly to spate. I have kayaked it many times, and though never hard it is not for the faint hearted. Below Llanychaer the river has carved a deep gorge, the walls of which are covered in rhododendrons. There is no way out, other than by boat, and though it is only a few miles to the sea the water can't seem to wait; the rapids follow one after another, no eddies, no place to stop - until, more quickly than you expect, the last rush over cobbles into the harbour at Abergwaun.

It's somehow satisfying to finish a river journey at the sea. I have kayaked all over the world, including descents of major rivers in Asia and the Alps, but I can think of none with a more delightful ending than the Gwaun. The old harbour at Fishguard is one of the most picturesque in Wales; in the Sixties it was used as the film set for Under Milk Wood. And yet there is no attempt to cash in; no shops, no pubs, no commemorative plaques. So typical of the Gwaun, and one of the reasons I like it so much.

The trouble with technology

Most of you will know that a Global Positioning System is device that tracks its position using geo-stationary satellites. For mountaineers, this is particularly useful as it pinpoints your location to within five meters - handy in a white out when a wrong turn can be fatal. The better models also have a particularly neat feature which allows you to navigate over complex terrain by following a direction pointer. Safe as houses - unless the technology decides to have a bad day.

Our trouble started after we'd climbed Red Pike, a 2,600 feet summit south of Buttermere. As we ascended the direction pointer had worked fine - who was I to know that the pre-programmed route had picked up a few stray way-points in Pembrokeshire, inserting them into the High Stile ridge? Every time we ventured from the summit we'd follow the trusty arrow, head in the wrong direction, flail about on the slopes in a thick pea-soup and eventually return somewhere near Red Pike again.

I write about it now with a sense of jest, but although we were never seriously in trouble, it wasn't a pleasant experience to feel quite so lost and exposed. I like technology - I really do - but is there anything, when it fails, that can induce more stress? And stuck up a mountain, in the mist, with a teenage son who's getting cold and fractious, is not the best place to test my patience.

If I'm honest, it distressed me that with so many years of experience I couldn't work out what was going wrong. I felt dependent on this gizmo and it wasn't performing as I expected; it took all my effort to stay calm.

But salvation came in two guises. Firstly a return to old fashioned technology - I got out the map and compass! And secondly a return to traditional values - I asked some walkers we stumbled on for assistance, which of course they gladly gave. Half an hour later we were back on route, I was confident again and the stress was a distant memory.

In a way, this story is particularly apt, as our destination was the remote Black Sail Hut, high in the Ennerdale valley and approachable only by foot or mountain bike. It is about as old fashioned and traditional as it gets - one of the iconic hostels of the YHA and little changed in over sixty years of use. I had long wanted to stay there, booking last January to ensure we could go on midsummer's weekend.

Black Sail was all I had hoped it would be - the simplest of buildings, in a unique location, enjoyed with great company and a sense of adventure. I wasn't just pleased that we'd made it, I was delighted, elated, refreshed by the whole experience - the best night out this year, by far.

And yet as I sat there, enjoying every minute I knew that to others, particularly many of my colleagues at work, it would be something entirely different. To them, Black Sail would be a musty old shepherd's hut to be endured on Outward Bound type weekends. Why is it, I wondered, that I like these places so much? And what is it about them that means I chose to seek them out, often in preference to the best hotels?

There are some obvious answers. I love the landscape; I treasure the time spent with my sons in getting to these places; I thrive on their remoteness and isolation. And I think too, that there is a particular pleasure in sometimes leaving technology behind and returning to simpler ways.

That word 'sometimes' is important here. Because I'm not so 'head in the clouds' as to deny technology's good side. Nor am I so Romantic as to think that Black Sail (or its like) would remain as charming after a few weeks stay. But a short time away from it all helps us appreciate the rest of our busy, stressful, digitally enabled lives. At best, a little time out helps us to sort the crap we need to ditch from the things that really matter.

What did we do at Black Sail that I enjoyed so much? Well, epic over, we met up with Ian and Mike who'd biked in - and who had their own stories to tell. We enjoyed a meal, drank some beer and wine, played monopoly, laughed a lot, chatted to the other walkers and watched the stars flickering over Great Gable.

Simple stuff - old fashioned values - the best of times.