Do the May microadventure round-up waltz

May’s microadventure challenge was to go on a lunchtime microadventure. Here’s what people got up to! (Scroll down for June’s theme.)

Go on a picnic

Abby had a mid-week day off work. So did Dan and I. Brilliant! We met up in Tunbridge Wells to see the folk art exhibition, then got down to the serious business of picnic shopping (at M&S, because it is Tunbridge Wells, after all) before jumping in the car and heading out past Groombridge. We discovered a gorgeous spot beside a field of green wheat and spent a happy hour picnicking in the sun. Afterwards, we found a picnic bench on the banks of the young River Medway, where we set up the camp stove and made more than enough tea to quench our hard-earned picnicking thirst.

Visit the botanic gardens

Emily found nature in the heart of Melbourne - autumn colours, a rainforest walk, lily ponds and a greenhouse. She says . . .

I work just out of the CBD, right near the city's war memorial and the main entrance to the botanical gardens (which I'd never entered through before - didn't even know it was there!). I took more than a few lunch time trips of explorations around both this month, and look forward to doing more as weather permits! (Read the full post here.)

Explore a wild place

Dan went exploring on his lunch break one sunny day. He says…

I’ve walked through bits of Speckled Wood a couple of times before. It is an odd place - a mixture of pretty, peaceful woodlands and scrap metal dumping ground. The pathways are labyrinthine. On previous ventures into the wood I have tried to keep a general direction in mind (so that I could get back to work on time). On this expedition, I was deliberately trying to get lost. I took each junction as it came, taking whichever path felt rightest (or leftest) without thinking about how I was going to get back.

The wood straddles the Ore Valley, so much of my walk was spent either scrambling down or clambering up the 60 degree valley walls. This geological feature also meant that it was very easy to orient myself, effectively nullifying my attempt to get lost on my lunch break.

I walked along the bottom of the valley by the stream for a while. After passing the only other person I saw during my stroll, I leapt across the stream over the remains of a bridge and stopped in a clearing to eat my lunch. Despite the accessibility issues, it was obviously a popular spot - a fire pit in the centre of the clearing had seen recent action, as had a number of beer cans. After lunch, I tried to continue to follow the path in the same direction, but it soon came to a dead end. I returned to the clearing and tried another path. Another dead end. A third avenue was similarly blocked. I decided that maybe the bridge had been broken for a reason. I leapt back over it and slowly wended my way up the steep slope and emerged from the woods next to a skip behind a garage next to a church and made it back to work on time.

Cook lunch outside

I foraged a handful of sorrel from the field at the back of our house, chopped it up with a bunch of herbs from our garden, mixed it all with an egg and a bit of soy sauce then sat in our little courtyard and cooked herby scrambled eggs on my beer can stove. The weather was rather gloomy but this microadventure made the whole day a bit more exciting!

Other microadventures

Mags has written up her microadventures for March (explore a waterway) and April (matters relating to railways). She says . . . The River Pont goes on to join the Blyth river further downstream. The river is around 7 miles long and contains a large variety of fish. These include brown trout, grayling, eels perch and some gudgeon. The river has been known to flood, the last time being in 2008 (to my knowledge and research), which affected 19 properties. (Read the full post here.)

Last but not least, here are a couple of sleep-out microadventures. Dan and I slept out in a bluebell wood, which was a magical experience - the photos are almost as lovely as the real thing! Mags also slept out, enjoying a brilliant sunrise and a dewy morning.

June's microadventure theme

This month’s challenge, chosen by Mags is to visit a place of historic interest. How you interpret this is up to you, so it will be interesting to read what people find out. Some ideas:

• famous people’s residences
  
• disused factories and mills
  
• sacred sites, places of worship
  
• former quarries or mines
  
• castles and stately homes
  
• battlefields
  
• ghost towns
• places of protest
  
• archeological digs
  
• rock art sites
  
• houses of parliament
• dismantled railways
• abandoned infrastructure
• memorial monuments and plaques
  
• ancient woodlands and forests
  

So get out there and dig up some history (not literally, unless you’re authorised to do that). Let me know where you visit and what you find out so I can add it to the next round-up post!

Abby in the weeds on the banks of the Medway.

Autumn colours at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne (photo by Emily).

The rainforest boardwalk at the gardens (photo by Emily).

The footpath into Speckled Wood (photo by Dan).

Footpath and bridge in Speckled Wood (photo by Dan).

The River Pont (photo by Mags).

Golden sunrise in a bluebell wood.

A beautiful sunrise in East Sussex (photo by Mags).

Bodiam Castle - definitely of historic interest!

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Read about our previous monthly challenges: January (spend time on a hill), February (wildlife spotting), March (explore a waterway) and April (matters relating to railways).

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