Our September Adventures: Family Walks, Mountain Biking & Campervan Trips in the UK

September in a nutshell!

This month we’ve mostly frequented our local walking and mountain biking spots. So rather than bore you all with accounts of places we’ve already recently blogged about, I thought I’d put together some of our favourite photos and videos from this month, and there’s a link by each location if you want to find out more about that place. I hope you still enjoy the post 😊.

Llandegla (take 2). Just two days after our trip to test Llandegla, we found ourselves back again! Admittedly it was the August Bank Holiday Monday so it really happened in August, but there wasn’t enough to write a full post for, so I’m adding it here! On the Sunday, in between today and our first visit, our friend AS told us he was selling his sons full suspension bike, with a 24″ and 26″ wheel set up. We were on the lookout for something like this for C, as being able to ‘grow’ the bike with the child means you get even more years out of it – full suspension bikes are not cheap! But finding one was proving tough! Of course, we bit his hand off, and he came and delivered it for us, with a suggestion to hit Llandegla the next day to give it a whirl. We headed out with AS and his son (who’s a similar age to our lads) – AS has been one of two ‘van-life enablers’ in our life, and he also came along in his own van today, where we set up next to each other and later enjoyed a grilled lunch and natter, leaving the children free to enjoy the skills park as we enjoyed the rest of the Bank Holiday sunshine (which is a rare feat in itself 😂☀️). It was our first real ‘van-life’ day and it made me smile as we drove home that evening thinking what a great day we’d had on nothing but fuel money! This is exactly what I wanted with a van! Anyway, back to the biking – my husband, S, (our eldest), AS and his son all hit the red route, but as it was his first time on a bigger bike, C stuck with the blue route, along with myself. He took to it like a duck to water however, and went absolutely flying (which meant I had to let go of the brakes today 😅) – the blue route is fast and flowy and today we really felt just how fast and flowy this could be with his new bigger wheels! We were all grinning from ear to ear by the end of today!

Hanchurch. Our nearest mountain biking spot, and a good place to head to if we feel the need to hoon around a forest after a day at work and school, being just a short 30 minute drive away from us. On this occasion the boys were here to test their new full suspension bikes (they’d previously had hard tails). C had moved from his 20″ to a 24″ bike (as detailed above), and felt ready to try the jump on Naked Tramp. S was on the same size as his hard tail, an XS, but finding affordable options in smaller sizes is really difficult, so he was excited when we finally found him a full suspension bike. He now has a dropper post and better gearing and was thrilled to make the most of these. Both boys had a fantastic evening putting their bikes through their paces and not once did we have a grumpy face – all hills smashed with grace and smiles 😀

In fact, throughout September we were blessed with dry Friday’s, so we made a point of getting out to Hanchurch every Friday after school and work, and the boys absolutely loved doing this. They would remind us through the week that they wanted to go out on a Friday – I’m buzzing that they’ve finally found something they truly love and get enthusiastic about! We’ve discovered and tried new trails and we’ve all got a little better and braver as the month’s gone on. We’ll try and keep it up through October, for as long as the light and the weather allows! Anyone got advice on decent light setups? 😅

Cannock Chase. After testing out their new bikes at Hanchurch in the first week of September, the boys were dying to get back to Cannock Chase and test routes they knew well to make comparisons between their hardtails and full suspension setups. We joined up with our van-enabler friend AS, and his similarly aged son again, and all enjoyed a day out hitting the blue and red trails, followed by another ‘van-life’ lunch after – I could get quite used to this! The boys smashed it today. S said having full suspension was so much nicer, and C’s bigger wheels saw him climb the entirity of Cardiac Hill, along with S. S often smashes hills, but C has never made the full length of it until today! Big grins and plenty of flix mix shared at the top! With almost 10 miles under our belts, we headed back to the vans for oatcakes on the grill and a natter again. The only downside to this is that by the time we’ve had a lovely lunch and sat down to natter, I just can’t be bothered to drive all the way home again 😂.

Winnats Pass. Our only ‘new’ walk of the month was a visit to the Peak District! My husbands friend invited him to a stag-do hike across Winnats pass, and the boys and I decided not to waste a trip to the area, jump in the van and go on our own adventure. Castleton is an incredibly busy place and it’s not somewhere we’d choose to go to by ourselves because of this, but when we get invited by friends we don’t turn the opportunities down. Find out what happened on our wettest ever walk – and dare I say, wettest day of the year – here.

September has been fruitful despite being so busy. We’ve had weekends of weddings, and other commitments, and trying to squeeze in walks and bike rides has been difficult. Fitting in Friday evening mountain bike rides has been a game changer in racking up the miles and still getting our favourite activity in week after week. As winter approaches (along with darker evenings) I suspect these rides will become less frequent and our walks will pick up instead. Who knows – either way, I’m excited to see what this winter holds!