Six years later

Yesterday  Gayle,  Click for Mick and Gayles blog , called in after her walk round my domain, and on her way to Scotland. Unfortunately Mick was absent due to some current employment.

It is unusual to make strong friends later in life, but Mick and Gayle are an exception for me. We talked without a single break for over three hours, but importantly we both talked and we both listened having a genuine interest in each others topics and anecdotes and that is the measure of good conversation and friendship.

My memory of our first meeting on day fifteen of my Land's End to John 'o Groats walk is still vivid but for you readers here is the relevant extract from my journal:

Wednesday 30th april 2008

Bawdrip to Cheddar

17.5 miles

Towards the end of this day I had just negotiated what became in my mind the worst stile of the whole trip. There was a gap in a hedge about six feet wide with a difficult stile descending via a nearly vertical mud bank about six feet down to a complete and unavoidable mud bath, and then ascending to another stile even more difficult than its partner, and all this, for reasons I can’t now remember had necessitated removing my rucksack.

I was just walking up the field trying to recover from this trauma when I realised I was being followed by two other walkers. They turned out to be Mick and Gayle who were also walking the End to End, and we walked together with some minor navigation problems due to our enthusiastic chattering, to arrive at the camp site at Cheddar. Mick and Gayle turned out to be a great couple who were doing the walk for the Macmillan charity. I think they will be visiting me at Arnside sometime in the future. Their planning had been meticulous with a large spreadsheet detailing all accommodation on their route, and they had also produced at home a large number of dehydrated meals using a proprietary dehydrating system. The meals looked very good.

And later on  my blog:

...we continued to meet each other from time to time until they took a different route via Offa’s Dyke from Knighton, but we have remained in touch by mobile  since…"

The offending stile.
Mick and Gayle were perhaps a hundred yards behind, but I hadn't seen them at this stage

Well, that was six years ago and we have had many pleasurable exchanges since, and long may they continue.

Book publishing

The leg progresses after two visits to my GP's nurse and another due on Thursday. It is still painful but getting less so.
I am currently working on the photos and text of my Norfolk/Lakes trip. I intend to produce this as book on the Lulu website. Last Christmas, unknown to me my daughter hijacked the photos and the separate journal for my Lands End/John o'Groats walk from my computer and completed the monumental job of integrating the photos into the text (all chronologically correct) and presented me with a beautifully prepared hard back version of my adventure.
You download a page template from Lulu which you must work within, and it must be in Microsoft Word. Help is available with designing the hardcover and other features. When your file is complete you send it to Lulu and they make up the book for you. There is no initial charge. Our single copy book cost about £38, but the price can be less for volume purchases. It is also possible to download a book at less cost. My LEJOG was in our own private domain at Lulu but I have now made it publicly available. A hard copy would cost £30 of which I would receive £5.12, and the download £10 of which I would receive £7.18. I would donate any proceeds I receive to The Motor Neurone Disease Association (MND was the illness my wife Ann succumbed to in 1997).
If anybody wishes to obtain a copy of the LEJOG book go to http://www.lulu.com/ and type: Conrad Walks into the find box - n.b. two separate words.
When the Norfolk/Lakes thing is ready I will post with the info.

47 A quality walk?

It has been suggested that I describe my meaning of a “quality walk”. Well I see no alternative but to provide lists of desirable and undesirable features. The parameters below would apply to a day walk – long distance multi-day walks may be another subject.

Desirable

Varied scenery
Circular or linear route
Distant views and cameo views
A good section of ridge walking and maybe some rock scrambling
Tarns, lochs, lakes, streams, burns and rivers
Some sort of shelter around the midpoint, if only the ubiquitous dry stone construction found on many summits, or perhaps a café
A feeling of remoteness with only the odd chance of meeting others
New territory not previously explored

Undesirable

Farmer’s cattle trodden fields
Farmyards and their dogs
Gates and styles
Walls and fences without gates (in particular deer fences in Scotland)
Proliferation of notices
Tarmac
Litter and discarded dog bags
Returning by outward route
Total tree cover - no views

Good weather is welcome, but I have no objection to bad weather when I have appropriate apparel. I enjoy the challenge of trekking across wild pathless terrain.

I relish winter mornings with cloudless deep blue sky and a touch of frost and total stillness - in the appropriate environment there is mostly uncanny silence, but any sound, hopefully of nature, seems to carry and ring more brightly then usual, even one’s footsteps produce a kind of echo.

Offhand I can’t think of a walk that satisfies all the criteria and if I could I would probably want to keep it secret.

One section of my Lands End/John o’Groats walk that was especially enjoyable considering that it was not in classic mountain country was the long ridge walk from Pandy to Hay-on-Wye. I had not been on that ridge before and it really took me by surprise.

32 A memorable day from my Land's End John o' Groats walk.

I have just read the latest post from Gayle and Mick http://gayleybird.blogspot.com/ They are planning the Kent to Cape Wrath diagonal for next year. There is mention of a trying day, and an extract from their journal on their LEJOG walk which brought a wry smile to my face because I encountered similar problems at the same place. This prompted me to post this extract from my journal.

Day 68

Sunday 22nd June (2008)
Inverlael to Knockdamph Bothy
10.5 miles

What a day!

There had been terrific winds and rain in the night and The Terra Nova did its business again; no complaints.

The rain stopped briefly as I packed up but started again. The route went on forestry road for a while, but then I spent ages looking for a path branching off up a very steep hillside. Much new forestry road work had been done here and the profile of the road altered, and I suppose the start of my track had been obliterated. In the end I took a compass bearing from a known GPS reading and went straight up the hillside which consisted of felled forest, bracken and thick heather. After fifteen minutes I hit another forest road and then found my track leading off it.

This track went endlessly upwards and I was walking directly into at least a force seven gale and driving rain which persisted most of this very demanding day. The track ended and became a path which then disappeared necessitating walking on a compass bearing across several kilometres of featureless moorland and bog and peat hags to reach a river. The river cut into a ravine and every few hundred yards side ravines fed into the main one and all these had to be negotiated steeply down and up with no path. Even looking at the map and taking GPS readings in these conditions is a trial. At a point which had to be identified I branched away from the river to climb over a pathless bealach and descend to Loch an Daimh. The route now followed the edge of this loch to arrive at last at the bothy. It was 4:30pm. In the past I have poked a bit of fun at bothies, but I’m telling you that when you need one they are the best thing in the world.

I was not exhausted when I arrived, but fairly damp and starting to get cold, but I was elated to have managed this tough journey properly and under control. It had only been about eleven miles, but it had taken me eight hours.

I had a hot cup-a-soup and then got into my sleeping bag wearing my Berghaus Primaloft jacket and dozed until 6:30pm on a proper bed in the upstairs room.

After I had made a proper meal I decided that the upstairs room was colder than downstairs so I put my Therm-a-rest on the floor and I had found an old duvet upstairs which I put under and over the Therm-a-rest with my sleeping bag sandwiched between them, and I had a surprisingly good night. Prior to retiring I made sure that all my food was stowed in the rucksack and no scraps left about so as not to encourage mice or rats.