The site visit was to Bransdale, a valley in the North York Moors National Park sandwiched between Bilsdale to the west and Farndale to the east. The funniest thing about the visit was that I had no idea that I would be driving (almost) to where I was living before the role. This was the first time that I started to get an idea of just how far and wide YPP’s peatland restoration works spanned.

The purpose of our visit was to help with measuring the dipwells on Bransdale, which formed a large component of the Nature for Climate monitoring strategy. We arrived at the site after almost 2 hours' driving, equipped with measuring sticks, tubing, tablets, and a packet of straws. The straws' role was still a mystery to me, but this all became very clear once Beth, our Research, Evidence and Data Manager, led us through the monitoring process.

We split into pairs: Beth was accompanied by one of our then volunteers (and now newly recruited Peat Project Assistant, Kane!), and I went with Tess, one of our Peat Project Managers. Between us, I was trusted with recording data on the tablet, and Tess used the measuring stick/ straw to blow into the dipwells to find out the water table height.  I preferred the title ‘Bog bubble-blower’.

The whole day started out with blue skies, mild temperatures and hardly any wind. All of my waterproofs were happily buried at the bottom of my rucksack, and everyone was blissfully unaware of the torrent of proper peatland weather that was soon to spring on us.

After 20 minutes of dipwell monitoring, our t-shirts became dappled with small specks of rain. ‘Ah, this happens all the time, it’ll pass’ was quickly followed by ‘that cloud isn’t looking too good’ and manic rustling to get to the bottom of our rucksacks. The cloud did not look too good; in fact, the shadow it had cast over Bransdale quickly consumed all the dipwell plots we were stood in between.

As Tess and I flung on all our waterproof layers, we hurried to a higher point on the hillside to try to regain connection on the tablets. The temperamental weather was wreaking havoc on our ability to navigate back to the cars as the rain, wind and cold temperatures surged all at once. With storm clouds quickly unfurling across Bransdale, our trusted metal measuring sticks weren’t looking quite as trustworthy as they had 20 minutes ago.

Staggering our way back to the car, we followed a faint shadow in the distance with the sincere hope that it was not a cairn, but Kane. Thankfully, that did turn out to be the case, and we retired for a spot of soggy lunch as the weather reached its worst. The relative calm inside the car was punctuated by gusts of wind rocking the vehicle back and forth; we were all just relieved to be sheltered from nasty weather surprises for the time being.

It must have taken about an hour for the storm to pass, which was a difficult pill to swallow after driving for so long to do our monitoring. Nevertheless, an hour later, we ventured back onto the moors during a period of relative dryness, continuing the task we had been set for the day. Hearing ‘look, looook!!’ in the distance from Tess, I was worried we were faced with another onslaught of troublesome looking clouds. To my surprise, I turned around to see this fantastic rainbow looming, but in a rather welcomed way, across the North York Moors.

This whole trip is best summarised as a proper crash course in peatland monitoring. Some days, it’s tricky and it feels as though all the elements are quite literally stacked up against you. On those same days, you might turn around to see a picture-perfect rainbow beaming from one end of a site to the other after a full day of monitoring (and with the packet of chocolate digestives you put to one side for a rainy day).

I can’t say many of my site visits have since compared to our trip to Bransdale, but I am very glad it was my first!