Well, we nearly did it. And that’s way better than I’md imagined at the start, back when I laid down the challenge to see if we could get an overnight microadventure happening in every county of the United Kingdom.
I launched the challenge for a few reasons:
- It eliminated the excuse that ‘œI’m™d love to have more adventures but I don’™t live in the right, wild parts of the country.’
- It created a level playing field ‘“ a night on top of Beacon Hill in Norfolk (103 metres above sea level) is just as valid an adventure as a night on top of the Inaccessible Pinnacle in the Highlands (986 metres).
- It was a chance for the 40+ regional Microadventure Facebook Groups to make some plans together and for the 20,000 people on the main Microadventure Facebook Page to get involved.
- To create a useful compendium of microadventure pictures that will help persuade people across the country that you can find adventures almost anywhere, if only you make the effort to do so.
Here is how the map looked at the end of the month:
(Thank you to Ant for his diligent work making the map work, despite the absurdly complex borderlines of Britain’s waxing and waning counties.)
It’s fantastic to see that almost the whole of the UK got ‘bagged’ – bivvy-bagged!
You can see what people got up to on social media here, or on the list at the bottom of this blog.
It warms my little heart to know that people up and down the land have been enjoying microadventures this month – well done, all! Congratulations, too, to the folk in 12 other countries who joined in the challenge.
The true reward from doing this is, of course, the enjoyment and the memory of the microadventure – by yourself, with your friends, with your work colleagues, with your family. But I did also offer some prizes as an incentive to people – I’mve been in contact with the winners.
Thank you Osprey, Haglöfs, Alpkit and Victorinox for your support.
Amongst many, many fabulous nights out, these are some of my favourites:
#MicroadventureChallenge #Highlands Bivi near the Inaccessible Pinnacle during a traverse of the Cuillin Ridge pic.twitter.com/gN9XXYjOOj
‘” cornishben (@cornishben) June 5, 2016
A photo posted by iPhone 6 (@tomphot) on
@Al_Humphreys first #microadventure with this fella planning the next one! pic.twitter.com/lWVL58DSLp
‘” Sarah Moyle (@moylie69) June 26, 2016
A photo posted by Jo.MF (@jo.mf) on
Bed for the night on Bleaberry Fell #microadventurechallenge #lakedistrict
A photo posted by Dan Rooney (@danroon90) on
Bed for tonight #microadventure #microadventurechallenge #cumbria
A photo posted by Andy Kindleysides (@ajkinder80) on
First ever night in a Bivvy bag, did it at 1100 meters so I couldn’t back out #MicroadventureChallenge #Moray pic.twitter.com/lsak0C4wU0
‘” Charles Baker (@crbaker212) May 29, 2016
There were also some nice blog accounts (photos and / or writing) from a variety of types of trip:
- Four forty..ish women ( and a son) decided to head for our gorgeous coastline to spend a night under the stars
- A summer solstice bivouac amongst the dunes
- Two counties in one night
- My husband, young son and I had our first ever bivvy up a hill Monday night
- Bus-stop birding
- A post-thunderstorm microadventure
- My microadventure plan was simple: I wanted to catch a lobster, I wanted to go sea fishing and I wanted to wild camp
Well done to everyone who got involved! I hope it’s promoted you towards a summer of many more adventures large and small.
Here is the full list of counties that participated, with an example from each. Many counties had many entries, but I just added one for each.
England
- Avon
- Bedfordshire
- Berkshire
- Buckinghamshire
- Cambridgeshire
- Cheshire
- City of London
- Cornwall and Cornwall
- Cumbria
- Derbyshire
- Devon
- Dorset
- Durham
- East Riding of Yorkshire
- East Sussex
- Essex
- Gloucestershire
- Greater London
- Hampshire
- Herefordshire
- Hertfordshire
- Isle of Man
- Isle of Wight
- Jersey
- Kent
- Lancashire
- Leicestershire
- Lincolnshire
- Norfolk and Norfolk
- North Yorkshire
- Northamptonshire
- Northumberland
- Nottinghamshire
- Oxfordshire and Oxfordshire
- Rutland
- Shropshire
- Somerset
- South Yorkshire
- Staffordshire
- Suffolk
- Surrey
- Tyne and Wear
- Warwickshire
- West Midlands
- West Sussex
- West Yorkshire
- Wiltshire
- Worcestershire
Wales
- ‘¢ Blaenau Gwent
‘¢ Bridgend (Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr)
‘¢ Caerphilly (Caerffili)
‘¢ Cardiff (Caerdydd)
‘¢ Carmarthenshire (Sir Gaerfyrddin) - ‘¢ Ceredigion
‘¢ Conwy
‘¢ Denbighshire (Sir Ddinbych)
‘¢ Flintshire (Sir y Fflint)
‘¢ Gwynedd
Ԣ Isle of Anglesey (Ynys M̫n)
‘¢ Merthyr Tydfil (Merthyr Tudful) ‘
‘¢ Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy) ‘¢ Neath Port Talbot (Castell-nedd Port Talbot) ‘
‘¢ Newport (Casnewydd) ‘
‘¢ Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro)
‘¢ Powys
‘¢ Rhondda Cynon Taf ‘
‘¢ Swansea (Abertawe) *
‘¢ Torfaen (Tor-faen) ‘
‘¢ Vale of Glamorgan (Bro Morgannwg) - West Glamorgan
‘¢ Wrexham (Wrecsam) ‘
Scotland
- Aberdeenshire
- Angus
- Argyll
- Bute
- Clackmannnan
- Dumfries and Galloway
- Glasgow
- Edinburgh
- East Ayrshire
- East Dunbartonshire
- Falkirk
- Fife
- Highlands and Highlands and Suilven
- East Lothian
- Midlothian
- Moray
- North Ayrshire
- North Lanarkshire
- Orkney
- Perthshire
- Renfrewshire
- Scottish Borders
- Shetland
- South Ayrshire
- South Lanarkshire
- Stirlingshire and here.
- Strathclyde
- Tarbert Argyll
- Tayside
- Western Isles
Northern Ireland
- Antrim
- County Down
-
Countries from the rest of the World
- Germany and here
- Australia and Australia
- France
- Sweden
- Canada
- Norway
- Sweden
- Kansas
- Netherlands
- Switzerland and here
- New Zealand
- Slovenia
- Michigan
Very impressive! Nice to see so many stories… looking forward to many more microadventures to come. 🙂
Ceredigion should be colour on the map too as I microadventured there. And it’s already linked from the page above:
https://twitter.com/LittleJimArnold/status/740109265034182656
Agh! My mistake! Well done!
I know I was late for submitting, but don’t forget Austria:
http://outcozo.com/touren/biwak-hohe-kugel/
🙂
Best regards, Martin