I left the Southern Upland Way last night, at Sanquhar, at the end of Day 6. I posted this tweet from the train station. In some ways it was a stalling tactic – I needed to announce my departure because people were following my progress, but I didn’t want to...
8th May 2015 – Stroanpatrick to Sanquhar: 18.7 mls I didn’t really expect a third day of good weather, so it was a bonus that I walked in sunshine for most of the day – broken by white clouds which took over later and eventually turned into rain, but not...
7th May 2015 – Clatteringshaws Loch to Stroanpatrick: 15.5 mls Although the day was perfectly acceptable in terms of weather, it was a bit worse than forecast, so ended up being a let down. The BBC local TV forecast showed a picture of southern Scotland without any cloud cover...
6th May 2015 – Bargrennan to Clatteringshaws Loch: 17.5 mls A day of better weather than forecast is always something to be thankful for and such was today. Today’s walk, after much deliberation, is brought to you by the teachings of Mr. Miyagi, who spent many hours instructing young Daniel...
5th May 2015 – New Luce to Bargrennan: 19.1 mls Today’s walk is brought to you by the word “puddle” and by the sound your legs make when you walk in overtrousers all day! My pedometer says I did 30k steps today, so that’s 30,000 swishes, many of which were...
4th May 2015 – Stranraer to New Luce: 14.2 mls Today was fantastic! A breeze marginally stronger than I would have liked was the only thing preventing me from calling this a perfect days walking. Today’s walk is brought to you by the colours Yellow (for the gorse bushes and...
3rd May 2015 – Portpatrick to Stranraer: 9.6 mls Today’s walk is brought to you by the word “dreich” which is a proper Scottish word hijacked by us southern softies who don’t really know what real weather is. urbandictionary.com defines the word as A combination of dull, overcast, drizzly, cold,...
2nd May 2015 – Home to Stranraer: 259 mls, 8 hrs There are some advantages to travelling First Class and I was hoping to be able to use a FC lounge in Piccadilly station. Unfortunately, it was only available to Virgin Train passengers, so my First Trans Pennine ticket...
I was unsure whether I’d do a kit posting for this year’s walk, but I looked back at the one I did for the 2013 walk and some of the other kit postings I’ve done for previous walks and I found them quite interesting. It’s been a good memory jogger...
The countdown to my Southern Upland Way continues. I’ll be heading out five weeks on Saturday and using a tortuous series of trains and buses to reach my starting point. I should at least be ready for the challenge ahead; last weekend’s walk with Chris has given me some confidence...
“It really shouldn’t be this difficult!” A phrase I kept repeating while trying to book rail tickets for my Southern Upland Way walk in May. Public transport needs to be much easier to access, or we’re all going to continue taking the default, simple, convenient and probably more comfortable option...
I’d walked about a mile or so out of Beattock, heading for the Ettrick Hills and as I reached an old cattle feeder standing rusting beside the track, I knew I wouldn’t finish the Southern Upland Way. I paused for a few minutes and wrestled with my conscience; I didn’t...
