CYHA NEWS

It was one Friday afternoon and I was surfing the 'net' (internet) looking for any local walking groups, when I found the 'Chelmsford YHA' web site, and I was impressed with the large number of activity's the club had in their diary page. So the next Wednesday off I trot to the YMCA. What will I find, will they be friendly, will I get eaten alive??.

It was alright, they were friendly and before I knew where I was, I was signed up for the Capel Curig weekend in North Wales. Now my thoughts are, "I'm going with 11 strangers for a weekend walking in the mountains, I normally only walk coastal and low-land paths, will I get left behind by these 'professional' walkers". Visions of being left and lost at the top of a mountain sprang into view.

But no, all my fears where unfounded, it was a great weekend. I picked up Tim on the Friday and we both arrived in Capel Curig early Friday night where we were soon trying out all the local drinking hole's, (good start this I thought). After a interesting night sleeping in a dormitory (first time since my scouts day's), myself and Steve set of to conquer Mount Snowdon via the Miner's track, while some other's went via another track, and a few went by train !!!.

Some 3+ hours later after much walking and even scrambling up this big lump of rock called Snowdon, I was wet, cold, and worn out BUT I was there at the top, my first mountain, I'd made it. Now where was that cafe ?

Next day after another interesting night in the Hostel, (just who is that, that snored ALL night??), six of us, or was it 7, (too much drink the night before to remember) set of for a walk round the local valley as they had forecast storm's the night before. We started of in driving rain but who cares it's warm and I have all my 'gear' on, but soon enough out came the sun and off came the 'gear', so much for the weather forecast. We visited Conway Falls, and had a great walk, but sadly all too soon I had to leave to go home, so off I went and left the others to finish their walk.

Thank you Chelmsford YHA for a great weekend, already looking forward to the next one.

Darren and Dawn are proud to announce the safe arrival of JULIA RAE, who came bouncing into the world on 13^th July, weighing 6lb 3½oz.

Gareth and Karen are back from their epic trip to Peru, with stories of ice climbs, altitude sickness and food poisoning. We're promised a slide show and an article for the newsletter when they're feeling better!

Steve and Caroline are getting married on 1^st August. Everyone is invited to their Barn Dance.

Best wishes to Chris and Janet who have moved into their new home. We're invited to their house-warming walk and BBQ on 2^nd August.

A splendid evening was spent at West Park Pitch and Putt scaring fellow golfers and wildlife alike. An impressive scorecard showed that Nigel is in fact the Tiger Woods of CYHA, although Lorna was handicapped by missing the first four rounds. Tom and Dave both put in good performances and Gary succeeded in not concussing any wildlife this year. I won't discuss who won the wooden spoon, but I haven't mentioned Jim yet!

Our walk through the verdant environs of beautiful Nounsley were in fact a thinly veiled disguise for a visit to the as-much-as-you-can-eat, delicious Filipino buffet served at the Sportsman's Arms. Once we succeeded in locating each other (Chris's car had mysteriously gravitated to the pub instead of the pre-arranged meeting point) we set off on a delightful walk through fields and coppices and along side the river. Alison sneezed heartily into an apparently endless supply of tissues and Polly delighted in rolling in anything unpleasant that came our way. I feel at this point I should say that Polly is a small dog (for the benefit of anyone who thought she was one of our stranger members). We were obviously an attractive group as we picked up a stray farm pooch quite early on, and simply couldn't shake him off! Still, it was a gorgeous sunny day, at least it was until the heavens decided to open - in seconds Polly was reduced from a fluffy (if foul smelling) pedigree to a drowned rat, luckily the rest of us had come prepared for a British Summer!

By lunch time it was sunny again, so we chose to eat in the beer garden so the dogs could join us. Chris's dog, Odelle, was a paragon of good behaviour and obedience, whilst Trudi's dog Polly went up to every one in the garden for fuss and to have her tummy tickled. It was probably a good job they didn't know what she'd been in.

Wow! Fab! Groovy! Check out those threads! Lorna stunned us all with her 60's style flower-power design. Chill out moma!

An updated members' address and telephone list is being distributed with this newsletter. There are quite a few changes, so please put it somewhere safe, and throw out your old copies! Quite often people have trouble getting in touch with each other because they're using last year's list, which is a bit disheartening for those of us who put a lot of effort into keeping it up-to-date!

If you know of any more changes, please contact Dave Also please let us know if you would prefer not to appear on this list.

This newsletter is for everyone in the Group to keep in touch, so if you fancy contributing anything we'd be delighted to hear from you. Articles about trips or events, postcards from your holiday, comments on your latest purchase from Field & Trek, jokes, cartoons or anything else you think of. Just send it to Alison or Dave at the address below. E-mails, floppy disks, and plain old-fashioned paper are all welcome.