Macmillan Way - summary

As a rock-climber you look at a crag and see “lines” of ascent, maybe following a series of cracks, or taking a central route up a fine slab, or following an overlapping edge, all providing aesthetic satisfaction.

It is not quite the same with a long distance walk, but for me having a focus has an attraction. The Pennine Way generally follows the high ground up the Pennines. The Severn Way (and other river routes) follow the course of a river, coastal walks have their own ambience, and other walks link furthest points of the compass from coast to coast, and of course canal walks are entirely dedicated to their raison d’ètre.

The Macmillan way doesn’t really have a  focus. It pieces together parts of other established routes, often using uninteresting,  previously rarely used public rights of way to make the links, usually round or through the middle of crop fields or over rough pasture trodden into ankle twisting unevenness by horses and cattle. It has its exceptions which partly make up for the mundane with the levées and salt marshes at the outset and a number of fine ridges elsewhere and plenty of old pack horse lanes with atmospheric historic associations and even Tarmac that has covered old Roman roads.

Another problem is rapid growth of vegetation in summer. Even paths that have obviously been cut earlier have re-grown, and repeatedly I found myself battling through head high nettles and cow-parsley (or stepmother’s blossom), and that combined with many stiles, often in bad repair, and the need for careful navigation slow average speed enormously. It is all too easy to get on the wrong side of a hedge and end up in a cul-de-sac field forcing retraced steps. At my age I know I don’t walk as quickly as I used to, but I found it frustrating taking nine or so hours to walk my average fourteen miles per day.

Quite a number of the old lanes have been trashed by 4 x 4s, tractors,  and worst of all horses - the latter leave a spread of cylindrical deep holes almost impossible to walk over. Horse riders I spoke to blame “The Hunt” for  this, and undoubtedly they must contribute, but there is much general horse riding in these areas - of course, I admit that they have as much right to pursue their activity as we walkers do ours.

Not taking the tent, and staying in historic country pubs and a number of classy B and Bs was a luxury I had decided to take regardless of cost and that made up for much of the above mentioned travails. I could not afford to do that on a regular basis, but it certainly made this trip worthwhile.

Both my knees are dodgy. Although they are  reasonably ok whilst walking they stiffened up badly once stopped in the evenings and were strangely more painful in bed, but would be recovered again next morning.

Perhaps my age has influenced these comments and I will certainly give careful consideration to future plans with these thoughts in mind.

This may read like a pessimistic account but I enjoyed the trip having met interesting folk, done plenty of people watching, and walked through a large tranch of the country I have not previously visited. The Cotswolds were of significant interest and an eye-opener - like a separate country ring-fenced for the wealthy with villages preserved as if in the 16th century except for the inhabitants, but with agriculture as big business, modernised by expensive machinery, large fields and high yielding crops. The sense of being close to semi-concealed seats of power with all their security and the wonder at how such people have managed to accumulate such wealth gave me an eerie feeling - it reminded me of The Prisoner.

The Macmillan Way guide could learn a lot from Cicerone Press who have developed the most practical format. Macmillan is full of phrases like: turn right, and soon..., or ...after some distance..., rarely are any specific distances mentioned. And even though they highlight historical and anecdotal notes in different text it is still irritatingly inserted into the walking instructions and there may be a dozen lines of this before you pick up the walking instructions again which also include phrases along the lines of: ...at the top of the hill, look back for a good view of the lake, turn right... Walking instructions should be  explicit and specifically that and nothing else. We can decide for ourselves when to look back at a view. There are other inconsistencies such as: ...keep the hedge on your left, then ...keep to the right of the hedge.

It is not a fault of the guide, but it has become well out of date and they have published an ancillary list of corrections, but this is so badly done it is confusing trying to see where the new text should be inserted into the original.

I am working on the photos and hope to produce a Dropbox slideshow with captions shortly.