8th July 2019: Garrigill to Allenheads – 12m If you asked me describe my perfect hill path I would probably just point you at the bridleway that runs over Knockshield Moor. It’s a lovely thin path, across spongy, springy peat running between mixed heather and moorland grassland sprinkled with bog...
7th July 2019: Dufton to Garrigill – 15.5m I knew I wasn’t fit, but today exposed that as one of the understatements of the millennium! I’m in my B&B in Garrigill now, and my feet are quite literally singing, my calves are tight and sore and my thighs feel like...
6th July 2019: Home to Dufton I heard the rain on the window before I got out of bed this morning. Bloody typical, it’s not rained for 2 weeks around us and the day I’m setting out for a long walk it decides to bloody rain! I had 150 miles...
This should be a Cape Wrath Trail report, broken into 7 or 8 different days, but if you’ve read my previous post you’ll understand why it’s not. For those that haven’t, I only managed about 30 miles of the trail before sacking it off and heading home early. As such,...
I made a decision last week. I’m not planning any more long-distance backpacking routes. It turns out that I love the idea of them – love the prospect of walking for days completely self-supported, but when it actually comes down to doing it, I hate it. It’s hard to admit,...
I’ll be heading north about 6am tomorrow morning, so just enough time to write a very short post about plans and stuff. My pack is bulging with 5 day’s food and all the other gear I’ll be humping across half of the North West Highlands for eight days. The final...
21st April 2019: Keld to Aysgarth – 14.5m When I set out this morning I had every intention of walking from Keld to Reeth along the new low route, beside the River Swale, that I’m adding to the fourth edition of the guide book. As it turned out, I ended...
20th April 2019: Keld to Reeth – 12m I slept like a log (an expression that has always baffled me), that is to say I slept soundly. Soft pillows helped immensely of course as did not having to listen to a neighbour’s TV all night. I stirred about 5am and...
19th April 2019: Hawes to Keld – 11.8m I dozed off about 8pm last night, but never got a decent period of sleep, thanks to the inconsiderate twat in the room next door who decided that full volume was the only way to listen to the TV. He/she was also...
18th April 2019: Aysgarth to Hawes – 13.1m I set out from Aysgarth in a mixed frame of mind this morning. It was good to be walking again, but the disappointment from last night was still weighing heavy on me. City’s Champions League quarter final against Spurs was one of...
Next week I’ll be driving to Aysgarth to begin 5 days walking around some of my favourite northern Yorkshire Dales. The primary motivation for this is to do a complete re-walk of the Herriot Way route in preparation for the latest update of the guide book. For those unfamiliar with...
This is the second of three posts related to the planning process for my Cape Wrath Trail walk, in May 2019. This post is going to look at kit, not so much the kit I plan to use, but at the Kit List spreadsheet I have developed that allows me...
