I met Keith at a bus stop in Southampton (romantic, eh?) over 15 years ago and he changed my life from that moment on. I was doing a double language degree and wanted to travel. He was studying physics and was active, windsurfing or climbing weekly, so it wasn’t long before he introduced me to outdoors adventures. We went to the Lake District and, with Keith carrying a rucksack packed with sandwiches and chocolates, we made it to the top of the Old Man of Coniston. It was my first mountain and I ached the following day but I was hooked! Not just on the outdoors malarkey, but also the man who made it all the more fun. It’s not always been dreamy escapes to the hills, we’ve had times when we’ve made it back to the car hardly talking! But we’re working on an article about adventuring as a couple, so will save the gruesome details and trips for that…
We’re a family who believes in ‘presence over presents’. It’s our 12 year wedding anniversary coming up and we usually go big on experiences for special occasions and birthday, and try to get less ‘stuff’. In 2006 Keith and I went travelling for a year and so, after 5 years of saving pennies, we finally hit the road and had a great time. We were in Peru for our wedding anniversary, and having kept a travel journal of the trip, we thought we’d share with you some of our pictures and a few thoughts from our wild camp in the Cordillera Blanca.
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November 2006, Huaraz, Peru
We have done some trekking, but with the majority just over 4000m, us poor lowland Brits are finding it somewhat hard to breath…it´s taken us an entire week to fully acclimatize so we can even walk along beside a lake at 4250m and not feel out of breath.We started with a small day trek from a small village called Llupa with the intention to walk up to Lake Churup…if we ever make it there we will let you know, as we only got about halfway and decided it was time to head back on down. Our wedding anniversary was on Tuesday, so we decided to get away from everyone (no surprise to those of you who know us) and headed on up to Laguna Peron. This was amazing with fantastic views and only 3 people in a group walking past us the entire day. We camped up there, but will let the piccies do the talking. From there, a lazy day was next before heading to Llaganuco. The lakes there are very beautiful, and at about 3800m. We cheated and got a bus to drop us off at the top of the second lake so we could stroll along them.
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An Outdoors Family 
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