Sunday 8 April 2012

Easter Egg Rolling in the Mournes!

Happy Easter everyone! 

In the mountains we decided to celebrate easter with a bit of egg rolling, but first we had to get to the mountains. Drew Bradley decided that he needed to get some multi discipline training under his belt and so cycled to the Mourne Mountains.

He was absolutely delighted to see Oonagh Thompson and Dominic Ruud Berry on the way. It gave him a massive boost. Something that will be very much needed on the Challenge! After 30 miles on the bike in a good time of 1 hour and 53 minutes, Drew arrived here...


Slieve Donard was covered in beautiful sunshine, apart from the top which wrapped itself in a damp blanket of cloud. Something for the team to look forward to later in the day. 

The mountains were teaming with people enjoying the long weekend and getting some fresh air. We decided to climb Slieve Donard, the largest of the Mourne Mountains. Hopefully the above photo shows just how busy the mountains were. This is the view from the saddle looking up Slieve Donard (which is steeper than any of the photos do justice to).

After a stop for tea and a sandwich we continued up. The cloud wrapped us up and a steady drizzle clung to us. 

It was lovely to have so many people out on the mountains and to hear everyone encourage each other so much. There were lots of 'nearly there's to be heard and plenty of 'not far now's floating around too!

The team decided to celebrate Easter with some traditional egg rolling. After a hotly contested bout of egg rolling Ruud emerged victorious with Oonagh a close second and Drew a distant, distant third. We then ate the eggs, free range of course! 

 

A great day and the team is feeling really good about the challenge!