Aaargh

Miles today : 23ish
Miles remaining : 33


I'm hoping the trick is to have a good data connection before trying to publish - we shall see.
Anyway, another nice day, and a good climb up to Hope Cross and down brings me to Edale, start of the Pennine Way of course and something of a place of pilgrimage for me.  I feel a powerful urge to head north, sod going back, go to Scotland instead...

But no.  At least now I can answer a question I might have asked a few years back when I finished here after walking the way southbound - what if I keep walking?

Wrote the above at lunch.  Turns out the answer is, a bloody nightmare.  May explain more tomorrow.

First Pennine Way signpost at Edale

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Technology Fail

So, wrote a big post but it is stuck.  Maybe I can post a little one?

Llamas.  Or maybe Alpacas.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Peak District Traverse - Preview

So, the first bit of travelling with attached blog.  Not my first walk ever obviously...  This will be a four day route, totalling 67 miles or thereabouts, mostly through the scenic Peak District National Park.  I'll start in the fair city of Sheffield, renowned for its production of steel, cutlery and intelligent pop/indie music.  The finishing point will be in Stoke-on-Trent, famous for its pottery.

It's not a long walk, around a quarter of the length of the Pennine Way for instance, but four days is all I have.  Planning this, I had a few goals from the start - the route should be four days long, mostly in a National Park, and start and finish at places with direct train access to London with a reasonable journey time.  A glance at a map of the UK shows National Parks tend to be some way from London, and in fact the only one easily accessible by train is the Peak District, which has the Midland Main Line to the East, and the West Coast Main Line to the West.

That still leaves plenty of possible options for endpoints, so I've fairly randomly picked Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent - the first 'cos my old friend Chris lives there and it is cool, the second as about the furthest South possible, so nearer to London and allowing more of a North-South traverse of the Park. Once I'd settled on the Peak District, there were a few places I wanted to include, a bit of the Pennine Bridleway, the stepping stones in Wolfcote Dale, etc. Then it just became a matter of ensuring each day was around 16 or 17 miles, with a pub halfway, and a campsite plus pub to finish.  Speaking of pubs - time to get to one and meet Chris.

This means getting a train though - and I hate trains. On this occasion I get on it OK, but the ticket collection machine refuses to work, so I have no ticket...  As it turns out, no Inspector arrives between London and Doncaster. I feel oddly disappointed. Changing trains at Doncaster, I manage to get the ticket - there are two references and I was using the wrong one.  Obviously.  But anyway... pub time!

Me, Chris, Austin and Claire.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

And so it begins...

Just what the internet needs, another blog.

Well, it isn't as though I am forcing anybody to read it. Indeed, I'm not sure I really expect many people to do so, certainly for the time being. And frankly that isn't a problem... while I guess at some point in the future friends and family may use it to keep updated on whatever I'm doing, for now the thing is for my own benefit as much as anything. That will remain true in the future as well.

Essentially the thing is intended to be an aide-memoire, or even a substitute-for-memoire. I guess I have as much memory space in my brain as most people, but the fact is that while retrieval from it works pretty well for technical work related stuff, or plotlines of obscure 1970s TV shows, when it comes to my actual personal experiences it isn't so good. Maybe I have filled it up with the aforementioned TV plotlines etc, or maybe I've killed the necessary parts of my brain with beer, but anyway...

This isn't a problem with the day to day grind of work of course, I really don't need to be able to recall exactly how many coffees I drank on a given day. But when I'm off doing something a bit more exciting, which for me will mean some kind of expedition, it would be nice to have some sort of record, either in my brain or outside of it. So maybe the act of writing a short piece on what happened each day will help commit things to the grey matter... or if not, at least I can go back and read my own blog to find out what I was up to.

Eventually I suppose, it will be impossible to say whether I remember things actually happening, or me writing them down, or reading what I had written later on. I'm not sure that is terribly important though.

Of course none of this would be necessary if my mate Alex would stop wasting his time being a pillar of the UK's high tech engineering sector and just follow me around with a camcorder. Although, not twenty four hours a day obviously.

Anyway... enough wittering, on with the travelling. This will begin tomorrow with a little trek in the Peak District, an entry describing the plan for this may well turn up later.

Needed a picture for the first entry, so walked east for a bit, this is one of the 'Pirate Ships' by Tobacco Dock

Pennine Way 2000 : Day 15 : Byrness to Kirk Yetholm

The Home Straight

In a bothy.

Well, this is it, the last day and also the longest, some twenty-five miles by our reckoning, but time is running out and it's Kirk Yetholm or bust.  We set off before 7am and start off with a long, steep climb up a muddy woodland path, and it's no surprise at all to find bog waiting for us at the top, and indeed most of the day is through bog.

However for once it isn't so bad as a real effort has been made to lay artificial surfaces on this section, and we make good time along the flagstones, marvelling at the effort involved to lay them in this desolate place.  The weather makes a last effort against us, but with our waterproofs on it's only our boots that get wet - and they are wet enough from the bog anyway.  It is a little unpleasant to stop for lunch in the rain, on an exposed ridge, but we have no choice really - we must look very strange, sat with our boots off and plastic bags over our feet, eating cheese and pickle sandwiches in the rain.

Last crossing into Scotland.

There is little to tell of these twenty odd miles on the border ridge - the time wears on, and so do the miles, and we just keep going.  There is no way we could have done this two weeks before, but now, with the finishing line in sight there is no stopping us.  To be sure, there is little in the way of scenery, and the first photo I take is in a mountain rescue hut (P1) with around seven miles to go - it may not look like much, but sitting there smoking a cigarette some kind soul had left seems like one of the best half-hours of my life.

The last pub!

We then have to traverse the Cheviots, indeed the guide suggests we take a three mile detour to walk up the Cheviot itself... yeah, right.  For me the Schil is entirely adequate as a 'last big hill'.  From here it's downhill all the way, firstly passing over the border (P2), and then down a grassy track into Scotland.  The rain has cleared up, the late afternoon sun beats down and the going is genuinely pleasant.  As for the arrival in Kirk Yetholm (P3 & P4)?  Well, if you want to know what that feels like, you'll just have to do the Pennine Way yourself...

We paid for a room at the inn.  I think we earned it...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Pennine Way 2000 : Day 14 : Bellingham to Byrness

The Bog Strikes Back

The tent that smelled of death.

We wake in Bellingham, which oddly has the same name as my part of London, although pronounced differently ('Bellinjum' rather than 'Bellingum').  After the trials of the previous day we are tired, but determined - while our feet are increasingly showing the strain, we are sure they can last the little time remaining.

It is with a strange mixture of sadness and great relief that I realise that there are now only two days to go.  Today at least is a short day, only fourteen miles or so, and after I've recorded the state of the tent for posterity (P1) we set off early, hoping to reach Byrness while the shops are still open so that we can get some lunch for the long last day.  But while the day is short, it isn't going to be easy, and very soon we are in bog again (P2).

Lovely bog.

Today it has some new surprises to throw at us - while midges seem fewer, countless flies descend on us whenever we halt - Alex reckons this is a fair indication of how we smell after thirteen days of walking.  On top of that, the stretches through the border forest are, if anything, worse.  The bog actually continues along each path through the trees, but here we also have to deal with waist high clumps of bracken and nettles.

Thankfully the last few miles are along a gravelled forest road, so although our boots don't fully dry out they at least don't get any wetter - even so it is only the Ibuprofen that keeps us going on our painful feet.  It turns out that Byrness doesn't have any shops, however the campsite owners make us some sandwiches, and we head for the Byrness Hotel (P3) for a pleasant evening meal, made more interesting by the arrival of the family that have been keeping pace with us.  They are amused by the fact that there are now only two of us, and we in our turn can't help but laugh as they drink one grapefruit and lemonade each then go to bed. We hang around for seven pints or so, then get back to the tent...

The Byrness Hotel.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Pennine Way 2000 : Day 13 : Greenhead to Bellingham

 O Me Miserum

Sitting on the Wall.

Today we are walking in the footprints of the Romans - along Hadrian's Wall, then north to Bellingham.  We are also doing two days from our guide in one, and aren't really looking forward to it.  Indeed things quickly go wrong, as we reach Thirlwall castle to find that the picturesque ruin from the guide is now a mass of scaffolding - while the restoration is laudable, it's also a little disappointing.

But worse is to come as we take a wrong turn, and after fifteen minutes or so find ourselves back in Greenhead - there's nothing for it but to turn and retrace our steps.  With this mishap behind us we press on to the Wall, which is as unimpressive in it's current state as we'd been led to believe.  I take a photo of us sat on the thing (P1), and also a portrait shot (P2) and a shot of the view south (P3), and then we head off along the Wall.

More Wall.

It turns out that the ridge we walk along is regularly cut by gorges, and the going is very tiring - before long we decide to take an unscheduled break at the oddly named Twice Brewed, at which we are very thankful for the pub (P4) being open at midday.  After a couple of fortifying pints we head back to the wall, pausing on the way for Alex to study the local wildlife (P5).

The wall has been restored somewhat here, and while it's still not impressive in itself, the picture one gets of the effort and organisation involved in the original construction certainly is.  Unfortunately after this glimpse of history, the Way turns north and into another prolonged trek through bog, this time made even more unpleasant by the presence of an unending supply of midges.

We trudge on as best we can, but it is a very long day - in fact it really isn't possible to express quite how unpleasant the conditions are.  Suffice to say that by the time we get out of the bog and start walking through farmland (P6) both Alex and myself are beginning to suffer from trench foot.  Thankfully from here it is but a little way to Bellingham, and the somewhat ominously named Cheviot Hotel (P7).

View south from the Wall.

Bonus pub!

Alex has a toad.

More sheep!

Not many pubs left now.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.