The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Saturday 26 April 2014

Wales Coast Path: Anglesey

I said I'd be back today and I certainly intend to be back blogging today. However, the eagle-eyed amongst you may notice from the title that there's been something of an unexpected change in country and objective.

Mick concluded yesterday that it wouldn't be the wisest decision to continue to walk on his poorly leg. It is walk-on-able, but pain on every step is no fun. Plus, the objective of this trip was the TGO Challenge and, understandably, Mick doesn't want to jeopardise his participation in the getting there.

My first reaction was that I would carry on alone and that he could rejoin me in a week or so. Then I looked at the prices of trains. Having a Two Together railcard makes rail travel far more affordable, but it does mean that we have to travel together, and short-notice or flexible tickets to and from Scotland are not cheap.

So, the decision was made that we would both sit out the next section and recommence the walk further north in a week or so...

...which was fine, except I didn't really want to do the 'sitting' bit of sitting it out.

Whereas ordinarily I spent days, weeks or even months planning a trip, this time I had an afternoon to decide what I was going to do and how.

A small amount of consideration led to the bringing forward of a section of my intended Wales Coast trip (which, whilst walking last week, I had pencilled in for September). And, whereas my first thought had been to start from Chester, when I got as far as looking at Anglesey, it looked so nice that it became the primary objective of the trip.

Colin, whose tax had been cashed in in anticipation of 2 or 3 months of inactivity, was hastily put back on the road minutes before the PO closed last night and as I type this we're heading west.

As you may gather from the mention of Colin, I'm not backpacking. Rather, I'm 'slackpacking', with Mick and Colin in support.

Phone service permitting, I'll be back with an update later...


Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

9 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Poor Mick indeed. He would have loved today's walk (Monday), although, of course, if he had been fit to walk it then I wouldn't have been here in the first place...

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  2. Very wise, I was worried about poor Mick...And slackpacking is pure genius. You get all the fun and home cooked meals, gallons of tea and fresh baked cake to boot!! Like your style.

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    1. I just need to finish earlier in the day to fit in the gallons of tea ... and maybe remember to pick my flask up when I head out in the morning. Today's lunch was sadly tealess due to the flask omission.

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  3. An impressively quick execution of a new plan. Hope Mick's leg recovers for your crossing.

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    1. Mick's leg is already better than it was, so hopefully a few more days' rest will do the trick.

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  4. Bad luck for Mick. But Anglesey is wonderful, we walked much of the coast path last year....marvellous. Enjoy, and I hope Mick is good for the TGOC.

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    1. After today's walk, I'm wondering why it's taken me 27 years to come back to Anglesey! I expected it to be nice, but today exceeded my expectations.

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  5. Does that relate to me managing to go out on a walk with just a few hours prior preparation and without a single spreadsheet being put together?!

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