Dales Outdoor Weekend 7-8 May 2011

Darren asked me if I would help to promote the upcoming Dales Outdoor Weekend.

Below is the piece Darren has written for it.


It seems bikes as well as boots are truly in vogue with the backpacking fraternity. The year round diary of meetings organised around the country by Backpackers Club is well sprinkled with the trips where wheels get the lightweight camper members between one pitch and the next.

Bikepacking they've called it, ever since the author Robin Adshead went ride-about and showed the way with a book that partnered his Backpacking in Britain title. (go Google it all) Robin was one of the original gang of gadabouts who helped build the backpacking in Britain image.

Northumbria Backpackers have already set the style for the Club's weekend in Bellingham, as all good Buff wearers remember. The 2011 agm weekend of Backpackers Club is back in the North east region, billed as Dales Outdoor Weekend, to broaden club appeal and get the public along to see what it is all about.

The organising team have linked into local features such as the Weardale Railway and the famed Coast to Coast hike & bike trail (C2C), Mike Knipe will help people discover more about the joys of tinkling along in an ANOB, and there's also a bike ride option.

Above Weardale sits Parkhead Station, with as good an all-day breakfast as you'll get anywhere - b&b too. The train no longer gets to here, but the old track is now National Cycle Route 7, from Sunderland, past Parkhead Station and terminating at Whitehead, or even Inverness if you are Highlands inclined.

Most people on the Weardale patch will use these tracks as part of a C2C trip - and there are some fine pitches for a tent or two you can find if you have the nose for that sort of thing. The arena for the lightweight camping equipment displays and the like is at Stanhope Showground, with hills either side, a river that burbles and all around nature at its very best.

There is also a poster with details of the whole weekend which can be downloaded from HERE.