On that hot, sunny day, I could only marvel anew that we survived our attempt all those years ago unscathed.  Hopelessly inexperienced and ill equipped, we set off up the reputedly easy Miners' Track beside brooding Llyn Llydaw and through the forbidding cwm of Glaslyn in uncertain weather.  Conditions deteriorated bringing strong winds and heavy rain to the summit.  Never mind, we would take the train back to Llanberis and solve the problem of the car parked several miles away at Pen Y Pass later.

The weather was so bad the train service was suspended, last run down for existing passengers only.  I cannot recall any sense of panic at all, though, as an adult, I wonder what on earth my parents felt.  In the end we sensibly took the safest option open to us and walked down the Llanberis Path.  Even at the end of a cold and wet baptism of all many mountains might throw at me in the future, I only remember exhilaration and joy and the desire for more.  Suddenly my immediate surroundings seemed restrictive.  The best a day trip could offer was Hadley Common or Epping Forest, hardly the wilderness that had whetted my appetite.

My long and loud protests at the prospect of moving north away from friends and familiarity diminished somewhat during an exploratory visit.  On one epic, placatory day out from our base on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, we toured the eastern side of the Lake District and returned through the Pennines by way of Hartside Pass.  En route down Teesdale, we stopped off on a sunny summer's evening at the site of the then still to be completed Cow Green Reservoir.  Curiously I watched the Tees cascade into oblivion over the rocks at Cauldron Snout calling me towards an uncertain future amid unknown hills.

Although I took time to settle in our new location for other reasons, I quickly grew to love our regular day trips.  I was captivated by the contrasts between the dramatic crags and sparkling lakes of Cumbria, the remote and austere moorlands of Northumberland, the tumbling torrents of Durham, the hidden coves and sweeping cliffs along the Yorkshire coast and the wooded valleys and warm, welcoming Dales villages.

More than enough narrow lanes, hairpin bends and roads with copious quantities of grass in the middle to keep my brother and I happy when we weren't damming streams or selecting mineral samples from spoil heaps in Swaledale and Weardale.  Without fear, my friends and I tramped the riverside paths, slept in a barn overnight and bathed next day in a bright pool beneath Kisdon Force.  With just my dog and the ever-present sheep for company, I revelled in learning about a whole new habitat as the curlews piped their plaintive cry high above.  Without doubt I knew I that this was where I belonged. 

Our more northerly location opened up vast new possibilities for holidays.  Most of Scotland was only a day's drive away.  From various bases our tours of extensive areas of Argyll, Inverness-shire, Ross & Cromarty and Sutherland revealed remote and inaccessible mountain and moorland on a scale I'd never before imagined.