My Adventures in Art.: Last summer's trip to Cheddar in Somerset, England to photograph the Gorge.

Mission - to climb up Cheddar Gorge and capture some photos to use as reference material for my artwork.

Event - June 2015.

Equipment: Compact cameras - nothing fancy.

Now I'm not the world's best traveller, and in the past I used to suffer badly from panic attacks, but I had the urge to go on my own to Cheddar (which is not that far from my home town in Somerset - by car that is.)

Anyway, I set off mid afternoon from nearby Burnham-on-Sea and I already knew where I had to go to find the way up the Gorge - the track is called Cufic Lane, opposite the National Trust Information Centre. Which I had discovered the last time I visited Cheddar; as I saw people walking down the lane and realised this would lead me to the top and enable me to look down on the Gorge.

I had imagined that it would be a gradual climb up to the top - quite leisurely - well I was wrong! Not far along Cufic Lane there is a gate leading steeply up a hill. I met a couple coming down who looked a lot older than me, they told me it was a very strenuous climb and they were right!

Lets say I was not as fit as I thought I was. Because I soon became really hot and sweaty and was very out of breath. A few times I had to hold on to trees as my head was spinning.

I managed to pick my way upwards over rocks and tree roots (good job it wasn't wet and slippery!)

This climb seemed to go on for about twenty minuets until eventually I reached the top where the trees thinned out and I was surprised to see goats walking around.

I followed the goats until I reached my destination: Mission Complete. Apparently you can take a route from here that will loop all the way around the Gorge and you end up on the other side. As this was only a reconnaissance mission for me I was not really up for a long hike and time was getting on as it was after 5.00pm when I reached the top.