I finally realised someone was having a laugh at my expense when I heard a brass band playing ‘Summertime’ as I stepped off my fourth train of the morning, at Marsden station, in the pouring rain, with a ferocious wind whipping the leaves from the trees and causing me to...
I should have been walking along the Pennine Way with @PilgrimChris this weekend, but family commitments forced a change in plan from him and so I was left to my own devices. I’m working against the clock somewhat with this Pennine Way guide book update and I was reluctant to...
The Oxford Dictionary defines sacrifice as “An act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy”. It also includes an alternative definition of “an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to a deity”...
I’ve now done 30 miles of the Pennine Way as part of the Trailblazer guide book update. That’s about 10% of the total mileage that I need to cover during the re-walk. The official route length is about 256 miles, but with options such as the Bowes Loop and the...
Or so the saying goes. Typically I’m a ‘leave it to the last minute’ sort of person, but that approach is never going to work for the Pennine Way project. I have to check the accuracy of every single one of the 270+ pages in the book, I have to...
Regular readers may have noticed, it’s been very quiet around here recently and for that I must apologise, however, that’s about to change and I should be getting back into the swing of updating the blog more regularly, with some (hopefully) interesting posts. The last post covered, the final, traumatic...
6th May 2013 – Beattock to St. Mary’s Loch: 21.3 miles, 3,310 feet “Happy is the man who has acquired the love of walking for its own sake” W.J. Holland – American Zoologist and Paleontologist (1848 – 1932) I’ve had to abandon the walk today. I tried to walk on...
5th May 2013 – Wanlockhead to Beattock: 20.0 miles, 3,578 feet “My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing” Aldous Huxley – English Author (1894 – 1963) Only a brief update for today, sorry. Today was my least favourite of the whole walk, certainly after...
4th May 2013 – Sanquhar to Wanlockhead: 8.2 miles, 1,973 feet “All walking is discovery. On foot we take time to see things whole” Hal Borland – American Author & Journalist (1900 – 1978) Although day seven was the shortest one of the lot, it’s had some of the best...
3rd May 2013 – Nether Holm to Sanquhar: 15.1 miles, 2,002 feet “After a day’s walk, everything has twice its usual value” George Macauley Trevelyan – British Historian (1876 – 1962) For once the weather forecast was bloody right. It predicted rain all day and that’s exactly what I got. I heard it start...
2nd May 2013 – St. Johns Town of Dalry to Nether Holm: 14.9 miles, 2,873 feet “One may walk over the highest mountain, one step at a time” John Wanamaker – “A pioneer of marketing” (1838 – 1922) Day five has certainly been the pick of the bunch so far....
1st May 2013 – Bargrennan to St. Johns Town of Dalry: 25.4 miles, 3,099 feet “It is good to collect things, it is better to take walks” Anatole France – French Poet (1844 – 1924) Day 4 I didn’t sleep too good last night. The room was comfortable and quiet,...
