Four dodgy characters wandering into the woods

Mate has a bit of time on his hands so we kick around the idea of having a photo day out sorta thing. Snag is, in our usual positive decisive fashion we can’t quite make up our minds where.
Then a couple of other mates of long standing suggest we all get together and spend the day out at Salcey Forest in neighbouring Northamptonshire.

What a spiffing idea!

So we do.

Introductions first though. How best to describe us?

Well, there’s the ugly one. Then there’s the ugl.. er, no, that won’t work.
There’s the one who’s not quite right in the head. Then there’s the one who’s not quite right… um, don’t think that’s gonna work either.

Ok, try again. There’s that short one (that’ll be me!), then there’s that taller one. Then there’s the taller one again. Then there’s the taller one again.
Basically, that’s me, him, him, and him.

Thing is, it occurs to me that there’s something not quite right with four dodgy characters all wandering off into the woods together. But what the hell. And I pity anyone we may encounter on the way!

It also occurs to me that if the weather turns crap its not going to be much of a fun day. After all, there’s snow in these parts and more seems to be threatening at any moment. Nevertheless, one just has to go for these things. Doesn’t one?

Now me and him #1 weren’t totally familiar with this forest place. In fact, I can’t recollect ever having heard of it before. Whereas him #2 and him #3 had been there before. Quite a few times for one of them I believe. So him #2 was acting as our guide so to speak.

And the first place he guided us to was the cafe… the location of that indoor pic above, courtesy of the wonderful lady behind the counter who kindly offered to wield my camera for the occasion. Well, there were two wonderful ladies actually. And a super friendly dog named Tilly, but that’s all beside the point.

Refreshments taken on board, we start the first part of our little adventure…

following a path that brought us to a beautifully constructed footbridge…

upon which we of course had to indulge a stupidly childish game of silly buggers…

With that nonsense out of the way we backtracked over that particular bridge, eventually arriving at another sort of suspended wooden footbridge over some water.

But the high spot of this first part of the trek (in more than one way) was a wooden walkway that rose to treetop height which, had the weather been better, would have afforded some splendid views of the distant landscape.

Having admired the view for a while, taken a few pics, smoked a few fags etc it seemed to be about time to return to that friendly cafe for a spot of lunch.
So descend the steep steps from the viewing platform to the walkway beneath…

… still enjoying the unusual perspective of course…

… and finally arrive back at ground level.

The not insignificant matter of sustenance attended to, we contemplate session two of the day. Which proved to be not quite as inspiring as the morning.
Partly because the threatened snow started falling…

… but also because the path we chose to follow this time didn’t seem to offer as much potential. Not for pic-taking at least. Though him #1 took rather unfair advantage of a little detour off the path to once more attack me with a huge lump of wood.

I really can’t understand the animosity.

Anyway, about the only thing we came across that seemed worthy of spending some time on was an interestingly shaped tree stuck in the middle of a field.

Problem there though was that we couldn’t really get close enough to make the most of it. Oh well.

Finally we return to our starting point and all pile into him #2′s car for the journey home.

Despite the slightly disappointing second session the forest is clearly a delightful place, and we only managed to visit just a fraction of it.
Him #2 loves visiting it apparently so wouldn’t surprise me at all if we enjoy another little journey out there, probably when the weather’s a bit better.

But neither the weather or session two prevented us from having a great time… and quite a few laughs.

The complete set of Forest pics that I took are here on Flickr, and as soon as him #1 gets his finger out and bungs his pics into a set I’ll add a link to that too.

Dunno whether him #2 and him #3 are putting theirs up onto Flickr as well. Have to wait and see I s’pose.

Update: Here we go then… him #1′s Salcey Forest set on Flickr! Only thing about which is, how come we always seem to manage to take some virtually identical shots? Toerag!