Day 9 - 0630

6.30am:

Number of people who have exited the tent this morning: 2

Number of people who have done so with the slightest degree of elegance: 0


Good job there's no-one around to see us!

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Day 8 - Elsham Wolds to Brantingham

8 April (0730-1645)
Distance: 19.5 miles
Fitbit steps: 47000
Weather: mainly dry, some showers, only one violent; cool
Number of very long bridges crossed: just the one

The rain finally abated last night and, in between further showers, the sky cleared. With condensation then a-go-go, there was no opportunity for our already soggy tent to dry out. In spite of the dampness all around us, we were perfectly comfy in our bed, until that moment this morning when we had to throw off the quilt and put our nice warm feet into wet socks and wet shoes. At least it was a sunny start to the day, though.

The most remarkable thing for me about today's walk was that I remembered none of it except the approach to the Humber Bridge, the bridge itself and the couple of miles after. Some of the route was pretty noteworthy too, and it definitely featured in our E to W walk (it's the section Mick and I did separately), so it bamboozled me how I could have no memory of the majority.

The Humber and the bridge were the main features of the day and we could see the bridge from early this morning. Had we taken a direct line towards it, it wouldn't have been many miles away. However, that would have involved walking exclusively along roads, so we opted for the longer, but scenic, route which saw us heading away from our objective for a while before swinging back towards it. It was particularly nice for me to have the view of the river and the bridge today; last time I walked this section the haze was so thick I only saw the bridge just before I reached it (maybe that explains why I didn't remember today's surroundings - I couldn't see them last time).

It was as we reached the bridge, where the 'High Wind' warning signs were showing, that the one violent shower of the day passed through. The wet weather gear we donned ("Careful nothing blows away!") was a good idea from a warmth point of view too; it was not a warm day today and was even chillier on the exposed walkway of the bridge

After a prolonged grocery stop in North Ferriby, we only had 5 miles to go, but whereas the first 14 had flown by, the last 5 were long (not helped by a wrong turn and back-track, something in which I'm specialising at the moment!). We arrived at our night-stop in the end, and being paying customers of a B&B tonight (well, £6 to pitch the tent in their field and have use of a toilet and shower) we didn't have to worry about where or at what time we were pitching.

On reflection, I'm rather glad there wasn't a room available for us in Barnetby last night. Whilst staying there would have avoided the wet kit we incurred, I'm not sure I would have fancied an extra 4 miles on today's walk. Happily, I've just totted up and realised that (based on where we actually finished today) tomorrow is 1.5 miles shorter than I had it on the itinerarararary :-)

(Conrad - we too stayed at Holcombe Guest House when we passed through on our E to W and it was the fact that it offered such good value for money that lured us into trying to get a room yesterday. It's no doubt the same reason it was full!
Martin and JJ - thank you for the further weather reports. We particularly like ones which feature the word dry ;-))

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A Milestone

Unless I've got my mental arithmetic wrong, I do believe that as of some time this morning, I have now walked more miles in 2014 (in 98 days) than I did in the whole of 2013 (which was 666 miles).

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Day 7 - beyond Walesby to vaguely near Elsham

7 April (0810-1715)
Distance: 18 miles (tot: 120.5)
Fitbit steps: 43200
Weather: rain to start, epic rain to finish, but mainly dry in the middle
Number of fine tea-rooms frequented: just one, but notable for serving liquorice and peppermint tea :-)

It wasn't the dryest of starts to a walking day, but, counting our blessings, the rain was not heavy and the wind was from behind. Even so, we lived in our own little worlds of Underhood for the first couple of hours for the day, and the rain had removed all views from the escarpment along which we walked.

I blame the rain and the hoods being up for us merrily following a clear line through some fields and completely missing the gate where we needed to switch sides of the hedgerow. The first we became aware of the blunder was when we reached a multi-stranded barbed wire fence at the bottom of a large field, with no way for us to exit. It transpired that the only way to put ourselves right was to backtrack, uphill, to the originally-missed gate.

The second backtrack of the day wasn't really our fault, and was not large. Some wag had switched a sign-post to show the Viking Way going in a direction it didn't, and we merrily followed it for a handful of paces before both agreeing that the direction didn't feel right. A quick check of the map confirmed where we really needed to be.

Churches (all in fundamentally the same style) were a significant feature of the day. I can't think of anywhere else I've been in the country where there are so many village churches in such close proximity to each other. From a noticeboard at the church outside of which we lunched (Somersby, I think) we learnt something of the finances of these churches, thanks to last year's financial statement being displayed. We also learnt that church only holds four services a year (raising £311 in collection money last year, y'know).

It was also as we lunched that our presence horrified and embarrassed a couple of young teenage girls who came squealing down the churchyard steps on their bikes, not expecting to round the corner and find two (apparent) vagrants sitting there. Their total embarrassment amused us no end.
It wasn't much after lunch that we reached Barnetby. There we picked up our parcel from the Post Office (the Post Master had, until Mick's phone call last week, never heard of the Post Restante service and was expressively disgruntled not knowing how he was going to get paid for holding our box for us). As we were unpacking our goodies outside, we decided to cut short our day (or rather, return it to its originally planned length) and stay overnight at the Guest House across the road.

Alas, there was no room at the inn, so instead we added the weight of four litres of water to our resupply, and toddled off up the road.

The potential stealth-camp spots never looked great on the next section, and the place we ended up was dictated by the ridiculously heavy rain which started to fall. Unfortunately, when it started, I was taking a wander (without my pack) to scout out a pitch. More unfortunately, I wasn't wearing my overtrousers at the time. I wasn't gone more than a couple of minutes, but when I got back I was soaking. We threw the tent up where we stood and in all our years of inner-pitch tenting, this is the first time that we've had the inside get signficantly wet in the pitching.

If the rain lets up at any point, we may move a little - just to somewhere slightly less lumpy...

(Thanks everyone for the weather forecasts. Martin - yours was certainly detailed, and involved some sums to convert windspeeds in m/s to a scale I understand! Conrad - you (and Louise) achieved the level of detail I was expecting.)

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Day 6 - Nettleham to beyond Walesby

6 April (0920-1645)
Distance: 18.5 miles (Tot: 102.5)
Fitbit Steps: 41000
Weather: dry but overcast. Breezy
Number of offers of tea I declined: 1

I did something unforgivable this morning: whilst Mick was a distance away, having a shoe faff, I turned down a cup of tea and plate of biscuits! I was standing in a church yard when the offer came, and ordinarily I would have no hesitation in accepting such a kind invitation. But, we'd had a late start, had only been going an hour, and had already had four cups of tea before the offer came, so I thanked her kindly but declined. Of course, later in the day I would have jumped at the opportunity to drink more tea, but even though we loitered outside another couple of churches, we remained tealess for the rest of the day.

Going back a little in time, before the tea-refusal incident, we had walked out of the door of our B&B this morning just as the rain stopped. In spite of the forecast, and with the exception of a few drops early on, it stayed dry all day.

The earlier rain had, however, wetted the fields of rape through which we had to walk, which made it all the more unfortunate that the paths hadn't been reinstated. The one I've photographed above had an obvious trodden line; the first one we crossed was more of a wade. Curiously, in between the various fields of rape, very wide and well-defined paths had been cut through the fields of wheat.

In between stints across farmland (where many hares were seen), sections of lane were used and the amount of tarmac was rather more than I would prefer - about 8 or so miles in total. At least the lanes were quiet. In fact, everwhere was quiet today. The only person we saw out on the footpaths was a chap and his German Shepherd, for whom he had laid a scent trail. He was most eager to check that we hadn't interfered with it by straying across its path.

It was probably a combination of the late start and the amount of road-pounding that made the day seem much longer than it was. By the time we got to Middle Rasen Plantation we were both ready to stop, and Mick was yet to find himself disappointed when he found that I had understated the distance we still had to go.

Even so, when we got to our intended night-stop and found that it wasn't very nice at all, we both found the energy (having naughtily stolen some water from the campsite tap) to continue up the hill. The hill actually worked wonders; suddenly my pounded feet felt so much better.

Our pitch tonight appears to be pretty discreet (although recent evidence suggests that I can misjudge these things!), but to achieve that we're a bit slopey. We're also rather exposed to the wind, which is fair blowing just now. Hopefully it'll drop later...

(AlanR: Good suggestion - give me a nudge if I don't continue to remember to give the running total.
Conrad: Our easterly trend is now giving way to northerly progress. The question is, do you want an outline of our route, or do you want to continue guessing?)

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Weather?

Would someone who watches the Countryfile forecast tonight be so kind as to give us a synopsis later, for the north east of the country?

Moreover, is this wind going to drop tonight?

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Day 5 - before Thorpe-on-the-Hill to Nettleham

Saturday 5 April (0725-1020, then another hour or so spread over the next 6 hours)
Distance: 12 miles
Fitbit steps: 30500
Weather: dry, with some bits of blue sky

It turned out that our pitch last night wasn't as discreet as we'd thought when we pitched. Rather, we were perfectly visible to anyone coming up a track from Thorpe. We know for sure that we were seen, but nobody challenged us and, aside from the constant hum of the A46, an undisturbed night was had (four nights in and three so far have had a constant hum!).

For a day that saw us walk into a city, it wasn't a bad morning. One nature reserve of flooded sand and gravel pits, and one country park, featured. As pleasant as were our surroundings, things didn't go entirely smoothly through the nature reserve, where the public footpath crosses the railway line.

It was a good lot of paces before we got there that we saw the big barriers, and had our hearts sink. The signs weren't official footpath closure notices (with attendant diversion route); they were simply telling us that the level crossing was closed from early Feb till Christmas due to the building of a new bridge. There was no sign of any building works, but there was an old bridge, equally obstructed by barriers.

Our reading of the situation was that the old bridge has long been closed due to rot, and the level crossing has been the sole way for pedestrians. It has now been decided that it's too dangerous for pedestrians to cross the tracks, so rather than build the bridge and then close the level crossing, they have simply closed the level crossing too, leaving no way of crossing until a new bridge is instated.

Given the state of the bridge, the safest way of ignoring the closure notices would have been via the level crossing. Unfortunately, the only obvious way we could clamber past the comprehensive (and well-secured) barriers was on the bridge. We crossed the spongy old structure with extreme caution and, in my case, a small amount of terror.

A while later it looked like we were on a run of bad luck when a road closure barred our route, complete with two workmen ensuring it was enforced. Happily, there was a way through for pedestrians, so I didn't have to bat my eyelashes and plead.

Once in Lincoln the top priority was Mick's new shoes and in search of the Lincolnshire Runner we looked at the numbering on the road, saw which way it numbered, and accordingly walked all the way up to the top of High St. We then discovered that it's a strange street in that it numbers up one side of the road and down the other (so our object, no 115, was opposite something like no 400). All the way back down to the other end of the road we went, a detour of over a mile, and new shoes were obtained.

Then, back up the hill we went, past the cathedral, the castle and lots of other history. It's an interesting city is Lincoln, worthy of more than just a quick walk-through.

The rest of the day was spent on the run from autograph hunters, although they did eventually track us down and stalk us for the rest of the day. Actually, it was lovely to see friends Lucy and Allison, who came out to meet us to obtain my signature on some paperwork and, having chased us through Lincoln, joined us for a pub lunch once we reached Nettleham.

There's no illicit camping going on tonight. We're in a B&B, where our room is so festooned with kit and drying washing that I really hope the owners don't have any call to pop by our room!

As for today's photo, it illustrates that with the number of people around, Saturday wasn't the best day to be trying to negotiate Lincoln whilst wearing backpacks and carrying walking poles!

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Day 4 - beyond Fiskerton to by Thorpe

Friday 4 April (0720-1645)
Distance: 18 miles (ish)
Fitbit steps: 44800
Weather: Drizzling start, along with the murk; murk gradually lifting with some sun breaking through this afternoon.
Number of kingfishers seen: 1

Whilst I knew our tent would be seen by many people on the recreational paths on the opposite side of the river last night, I hadn't considered there may be people on the river. At about 7pm the splosh-splosh of oars was heard, swiftly followed by a loud exclamation of "Someone's camping there!", followed by "Hellooooo! Anyone in?". The wind direction meant we were facing away from the river, so we didn't see them as they carried on past, nor the other oars-people who rowed on by during the next twenty minutes. Then all was quiet ... except for the noise of the nearby power station, which continued all night.

Even though it rained early on in the night, the tent was almost dry when we packed away, but the moment we picked up our packs, the drizzle started.

It had dried up by the time we reached Newark, which we approached via the Trent Valley Way, which wanders around the houses (to find a bridge) to get there. If only we could have nipped over the railway bridge, a much more direct route could have been taken.

Newark saw us side-tracked for quite a long time in Morrison's cafe, and whilst there I took the opportunity to nip into Specsavers to see if I can sort out my contact lens issue. They were perfectly willing to be helpful, but scuppered by a lack of stock.

Eventually we left civilisation behind, and back to the river we went, where after a lovely walk along the flood defence, long, wet grass saw me squelching.

When I planned the route I had intended us to continue a few miles further north up the river, before heading due east into Lincoln. Last week, I plotted a more direct route, with the added bonus of avoiding 7 miles of flat, ex-railway line (fast, but exceptionally dull, I expect). Unfortunately, I forgot to print the new route, so we did briefly wander off our map today.

We did so without mishap (the joy of electronic mapping on a mobile phone :-)), and in the process discovered that the bit where two footpaths inexplicably ended in the middle of nowhere have been joined up by a permissive path. That was a relief - I expected to have to trespass!

Alas, the re-route meant there would be slimmer pickings for a good, discreet pitch tonight, and I made a meal (and walked quite a way, which (along with the Newark errands) explains the Fitbit steps far exceeding the day's distance) in trying to find somewhere I would be happy to pitch.

As for the day's surroundings, as the day went on and the murk lifted, we did get to see them (even a glimpse of Lincoln Cathedral in the distance towards the end of the day), but aside from the river and a pleasant ex-sand-pit-nature-reserve, I'm afraid the surroundings just weren't as interesting today as on previous days. The stretches of farmland were mainly inoffensive, but equally unremarkable.

More remarkable has been the outgoing friendliness of the people we've been meeting in these parts. Never have we had so many people chat and ask us what we're doing.

(Martin: I'd put money on you getting the better weather, based on past performance!

Louise: Words with Friends)


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Odd Things

Never seen one of these before. There's nothing in the snap to give a sense of scale, but the horizontal brush was about the height of a cow's back. A tube went from the blue container into the horizontal brush. It was in the middle of a very large field.

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Day 3 - Holme Pierrepoint to Beyond Fiskerton

3 April (0855-1840)
Distance: 17 miles
Fitbit steps: 38650
Weather: heavily overcast and very misty, dry until a few moments before the flysheet went on
Number of times I was surprised by the direction of flow of the river: embarrasingly, several

With a wild-camp planned tonight, and thus a reasonably late finish required, we were in no rush to cover the miles and therefore we had a lie-in and dawdled over packing away. With the overnight showers having apparently abated (and with Mick having completely unpacked his packed bag in search of the missing tent bags which it turned out I had accidentally left in a pocket of the tent - ooops) off we went to continue along the Trent Valley Way.

I had no idea such a Way existed before planning this walk, and unlike so many of these local 'long distance' paths (the ones marked with pink diamonds) it's pretty well waymarked. That's quite helpful on sections like this morning's, which (due to the lack of a path by the river) wander around farmland.

Having passed the most impressive skate-park I've ever seen, an equestrian eventing course and (most excitingly) quite a few contour lines (after two days of none), we rejoined the river at Gunthorpe.

Eight miles had been covered before stopping for elevenses on the pier of the old toll bridge at Gunthorpe (first toll bridge in the country to be replaced with a free bridge, in 1925, so the information sign told us), meaning we needed to slow down if we weren't going to arrive at our night-stop too early.

We did that quite effectively, for having walked a whole five minutes from our elevenses spot we found a cafe, and after cups of tea we spent a long while chatting to two ladies outside. Then, after a gloriously grassy riverside path, there was the Canal and River Trust man at one of the locks with whom another long while was spent. Then there was the pub in Fiskerton, where we drank more tea, chatted to the bar man and obtained water for tonight's camp.

Having walked on a while we found what appears to be a good pitch (although I'll reserve final judgment to see if we get through to tomorrow morning undisturbed). Hidden behind the river embankment, on the edge of the water, we're only visible to people on t'other side of the water - and we're a long way from a bridge.

As for today's scenery: I'm sure that on a clear and sunny day there would have been much to recommend it. In particular, as we climbed high above the river (high being a relative term in these flatlands) at Radcliffe-on-Trent, I'm sure there would usually be excellent views. All we saw all day was murk. We understand that along with this murk, air pollution levels in some areas of the UK are right at the top of the scale. Let's hope it clears soon (although hopefully not to wind and rain!).

(AlanR: in the flat, level, grassy camping field, there was nothing to make any spot better than any other, which made it all the more perplexing that he chose to be our close neighbour.
Martin: if you want firm proof that this isn't an elaborate hoax then you're welcome to come and join us! As for the Fitbit, it's an electronic pedometer with bells and whistles. The on-line 'dashboard' provides graphs showing the number of steps per quarter hour throughout the day, distance, calories and Very Active Minutes, and you can join friends and/or strangers in league tables for a bit of motivation or friendly competition.
Louise: the problem with the horizontally-zipped quilt will come if we want to use a bunkhouse at any point. We'll find ourselves both squeezed onto a single bunk!
JP - A missing bridge is far more troublesome than one which is unexpectedly present!
Laura & Carol: Hello! Nice to hear from you both <waves>.
Anyone else: sorry if I've missed you! It wasn't intentional.)


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Day 2 - to The National Watersports Centre

2 April (0745-1425)
Distance: 15ish miles (maybe a bit less)
Fitbit steps: 39000
Weather: persistent mist and quite cool; the vaguest hint of the sun trying to break through as we arrived at our destination was swiftly followed by rain.

It was a damp start today. The mist had come down in the night, there wasn't a breath of wind, and Susie had become 'condensation central'. With the new quilt being synthetic, there was no fretting about the dampness we were suffering.

Talking of the quilt, all went well on night 1 (not that a warm night was the most rigorous test), so much so that it was hard to extract ourselves this morning. However, I did come to realise that a change in routine is required. Usually I would pack all my stuff away whilst Mick's stays snug in his sleeping bag. That's not possible with a quilt which zips in half horizontally.

Even with the difficulty in dragging ourselves out of bed, we were away at a reasonable hour, and immediately set out upon what transpired to be an unnecessary half-mile detour. All my internet research (including aerial photos) told me that a bridge we needed has long been missing. Accordingly, we detoured, only to find a new bridge most clearly in evidence. Hey ho!

Having joined the river, we followed it for most of the morning, leaving it only when the path took us instead along small sections of canal which short-cutted the river (originally built to avoid shallow or tricky bits of river which threatened the viability of the waterway as a trade-route). All the way there was plenty to see, with lots of boat life, interesting buildings on the opposite bank ranging from shacks to modern houses on stilts (but mainly tending towards the former), a fine weir, and some huge areas of wetlands around Attenborough.

The only negative of the morning (aside from the cool, dull weather) was the going underfoot. It got notably worse when we hit the (very popular) wetlands area where 'improvement' works in 2012 saw the path tarmacked. It may be fast, but it's not my favourite of walking surfaces.

Mick's feet, in particular, did protest at the hard, flat surface and he concluded that he had made the wrong choice of footwear for this walk (it's always one of us!). So, rather than follow our intended riverside route all the way to the end of the day, when we reached the A52 we scrambled up a bank and altered our direction to go via a sports shop in West Bridgford. Alas, they didn't have any suitable trail runners for Mick, so on we continued, along our new route to our night-stop by the National Water Sports Centre at Holme Pierrepoint.

The first thing we did on arrival was to set everything out to dry. The second thing was to call a running shop in Lincoln to arrange for a pair of Mick's favourite shoes to be in stock when we pass on Saturday. Then, late this afternoon (in the rain - boo hiss), I took myself off for a walk to have a look around the Water Sports Centre, where there was lots of activity, on dry ground, on the lake and on the white-water course.

I got back to the campsite to find that having left our tent on its lonesome amongst acres of empty grass, whilst I was gone someone else has come along and pitched right next to us. Why, oh, why, do people do that? There's nothing about that spot that's any better than the other acres around us. I do hope he doesn't snore. (And, if he thinks he's getting a lie-in in the morning... Mwah ha ha ha.)

('Fraid I forgot to take a blog photo today, so you'll have to make do with this one I took with Conrad in mind. I think it shows how murky the day was too.)

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Day 1 - Along the canal

1 April (0740-1600)
Distance: 22 miles
Fitbit steps: 48500
Weather: cloudy morning, sunny afternoon, warm
Number of tiny ducklings seen: 2 broods

We stepped out of the front door this morning, onto ground significantly wetted by last night's rain, took a suitable start photo, and off Mick strode to the north. That may have seemed entirely reasonable and appropriate given that we're headed to Scotland, but I called him back and re-directed him south, for a slightly shorter route to the canal.

The canal was the overwhelming theme of the day, as we followed it all the way to its end, where it meets the River Trent (which will be our main theme tomorrow).

The notable points of the day were:

1) My vision issues! After faffing around with my contact lenses and switching them from eye to eye, trying to work out why my left eye was blurred, I gave up at elevenses and resorted to my glasses. I'm still none the wiser as to what's awry with the left eye, but I do hope it sorts itself out! In all my years of contact lens wearing, I don't recall ever having such an issue before.

2) There were plenty of craft about, as I've noted to be the case on my canal walks over the last couple of weeks. We seem to have hit the start of narrow-boating main season.

3) Not sure how the craft got on with the lock which was under repair. It was one of two places where we met barriers today, although happily there were no closure notices and there were Canal and River Trust (as British Waterways now is) staff there to halt the works and see us past the machinery.

4) Lots of bird-life too, including the first ducklings we've seen this year (absolutely tiny, they were).

As you may notice from the stats, it was quite long, as first days go. There were two reasons for the length, the main one being that it brought us to a campsite (although there were plenty of places on the way where we could have stealth-camped). Tow-paths are always hard on the body, I find, as their flat-and-level nature means your feet always land in the same way, but my limbs were quite happy until lunchtime, which was only 7.5 miles before the end of the day.

The last 3 miles were more of an effort - so much so that we called a cake-break with only two-thirds of a mile to go. It was a lovely sunny afternoon for sitting around, and we had plenty of time to get to our destination.

Arriving at the campsite just a few minutes before 4pm, Susie* was pitched for her first outing in 2 years. It will be an interesting night tonight, as we have with us two untested pieces of kit: the new quilt and my new Thermarest X-Therm. I'm hoping I don't come to regret not even testing the latter for leaks before we set off. The quilt is a complete unknown. I'll report back tomorrow.

(*For those unfamiliar with our tent collection, Susie is a Terra Nova Voyager Superlite (2008 model))

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Essential Numbers From March

It’s the last day of the month, so I’ll just throw together a few numbers to summarise how it went. A bit brief, because there are still a few things to cross of the ‘to do’ list, and they must all be completed before bedtime.

I predicted that the miles would drop off in March, but I was wrong:

I did slacken off a bit, only walking on 27 days of the month (and some of those walks were very short indeed, taken purely to keep my Fitbit stats above my daily target).

The daily average is still looking pretty healthy:

And, I’ve managed to plank on every single day of the month (in fact, I’ve only missed one day of the year, and I was so annoyed when I realised I’d forgotten).

All being well, April’s stats should look pretty healthy from a mileage point of view. I’m not sure how feasible it will be to keep up the planking in the tent…

Getting Creative

Last evening, with 60 hours remaining before we set out (on foot) for Scotland, and having finally got all my gear out and had a practice pack, I decided that I’d quite like a new stuff-sack to go with the new quilt (the quilt being bulkier than my down bag and thus it’s a squeeze to get it in my usual stuff sack). Not having time left to source one, I went and dragged some fabric out of the cupboard and got creative.

A while later, I had produced this – a square-bottomed stuff sack, weighing 21g:

I stuffed the larger half of the quilt in to check it for size…

…and decided that it was a bit too long and thin.

So, I measured, marked and cut some more fabric and returned to the sewing machine. A while later, I had a mis-matched pair, both weighing in at 21g, but one being shorter and fatter than the other.

As it goes, the second one is a bit too short and fat, but I haven’t been moved to make an inbetweenie.

Continuing the stuff sack theme, this morning I returned to the sewing machine with the ‘kitchen’ bag, which got gnawed by a rodent on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2012. If I continue to use it in its holey state then the spoons are bound to fall out unnoticed sometime, and that would not be a happy scenario.

The bag was duly patched (perfectly functionally so), yet I then decided to replace it instead. An old silnylon stuff sack was canibalised for the fabric and, for this one, I simply duplicated the design of the old one:

Old one (patched and inside out) on the left; new one on the right

I’ve not sewed a round bottom into a stuff sack before. It probably gets easier with practice, but I found that three hands were useful to get it into position. I’m rather pleased with the result (even if I did get one accidental pleat underneath, thanks to a small mis-sizing of the base).

With time having been frittered away making a bag that wasn’t strictly necessary, I finally turned my attention to the final sewing chore, which really did need doing. With our switch to a quilt, I thought it would be wise to make a couple of insulated hats. The problem is that I don’t have a pattern and I’ve never made one before, so it deserved a little bit of thought (not a lot, mind, what with time marching on!).

My old Paramo Velez (with detachable hood) provided a rough pattern and a couple of hours later Mick and I were both looking truly ridiculous modelling this exceptionally warm head-gear:

The second one (the one I’m wearing) was a better design than the first. If I was to make a third (which I’m not planning on!) then it would be even better. As it goes, they may not be works of art, but they are functional.

I think I ought to go and put the sewing machine away now, before I decide to make something else!

Dehydrating

A comment on my previous post asked what meals we have in our dehydrating repertoire, and I thought it a question which deserved a post of its own.

First though, I need to start with a confession: I may have been misleading when I said that we have eleven varieties of meal. It’s an entirely true statement, but of those five varieties are for me and six are for Mick, so we do have a lot of repetition. Happily, we can both live with repetition. We do it at home all the time (fish pie for four consecutive days anyone?!).

The menu as it now stands has been developed over a number of years. I got my first dehydrator in 2006, supplemented by a second one* in 2008, so we now have eight trays of capacity across two machines, and having cooked and dehydrated (and rehydrated and eaten) hundreds of meals over the intervening years, we have (through a process of trial and error) pretty much settled on what works for us.

This year has been pretty relaxed, with just 76 meals to prepare. We peaked in 2008 when 130 meals were cooked an dehydrated at a time when we only had three trays of dehydrator capacity (looking back, my hair is standing on end in fright at the very thought!).

Anyway, our current list of tried-and-tested dishes are as follows:

Gayle’s Meat-less** dishes:

Veggie Pasta Sauce (tomato and onion base (usually with carrots and celery grated in to bulk it up) with diced courgette, mushroom and pepper - served with pasta)

Veggie Chilli (onions, garlic, tomato, green pepper, continental lentils, kidney beans, various herbs and spices - usually served with rice)

Butter Bean Curry (onion, tomato, curry paste, mushroom, green beans, butter beans - usually served with cous cous, unless I have a surplus of rice)

Chick Pea Stewy Thing (onions, celery, leek, peppers, aubergine, chick peas, various spices - usually served with quinoa, except this year I’ve not got any, so it’s going with instant mash or cous cous)

Lentil Stew (onion, continental lentils, celery, carrot, parsnip/swede, butternut squash, spinach – always served with mash)

 

Mick’s dishes:

Beef Chilli (I’m sure I don’t need to describe what we put in one of those – served with rice)

Thai Turkey Green Curry (onions, turkey mince, Thai green curry paste, coconut milk powder, courgette, carrot and mushrooms – served with rice)

Turkey and Butter Bean Madras*** (same as my Butter Bean Curry, but with turkey mince – usually served with cous cous)

Pork Bolognese (same as my veggie pasta sauce, but with minced pork – served with pasta)

Lamb and Root Veg Stew (onion, celery, carrot, parsnip, swede, tomato, chilli, minced lamb – served with mash).

Lentil and Sausage Stew**** (same as my lentil stew, but with the addition of sausage – served with mash)

Shepherd (minced lamb, onion, peas, carrots, lamb stock – served with mash)

The menu is now reasonably stable, although I do try something new every now and then. Other things have been tried and ditched. I used to have risotto and a couple of fish dishes on my menu, but the risotto came back a bit mushy, and never felt like a filling meal, and the fish got dropped because of issues I had with getting the fish to rehydrate fully, although I do intend to supplement my veggie pasta sauce with fish bought as I go along this year.

As for our rehydrating technique: we boil some water, add the meal, leave it for half an hour in a pot-cosy (an hour for Chick Pea Stewy Thing if I want the chick-peas to be crunch-free), add the rice/cous cous/pasta and leave for another ten minutes, then eat. Mash doesn’t need any more standing time.

 

(*I’m still grateful to Dawn for more than doubling my dehydrating capacity by gifting the second machine to me :-)

**It’s a common misconception that I’m vegetarian. I’m not. I just don’t tend to eat meat, hence Mick and I have separate meals.

***This one came about because a few years back the quantities cooked left us with a half serving of Mick’s turkey curry and a half serving of my butter bean curry. We mixed them together and Mick discovered that he rather liked butter beans in his turkey curry.

****This one didn’t get made this year, purely because the quantities worked out such that we hit 38 meaty-meals before this one was cooked.)

How Much?

Whilst playing with the StoCAN* itinerararararary spread-sheet last night, I did a quick tot up of how much I thought the accommodation bill (be it campsites or B&Bs) was going to be. The number up with which I came struck me as being higher than I would have expected, particularly bearing in mind how many nights I have us pencilled in for free camping.

So, instead of doing something fruitful and useful with the next hour (like sewing a foot-box into the quilt), I trawled back through my cost records for all of our UK walks of 10 days or longer (except for the English C2C, for which I haven’t got records to hand) and did a few sums. The walks in question are:

• Land’s End to John o’Groats – 2008 (12 weeks)
• TGO Challenge – 2009 (2 weeks)
• Kent to Cape Wrath – 2010 (8 weeks)
• East to West – 2011 (6 weeks)
• TGO Challenge – 2011 (2 weeks)
• Length of Wales – 2012 (2 weeks)
• TGO Challenge – 2012 (2 weeks)
• TGO Challenge – 2013 (2 weeks)

For each of those walks, I looked at both the overall average cost per day (i.e. all costs for the entire trip, divided by the number of walking days in the trip) and the average cost of accommodation per day. The overall average misses out a few things, such as the home dehydrated meals, but should be fairly accurate. The accommodation costs should be entirely accurate.

This is the graph which resulted:

All of those numbers are for the two of us, not per person

I’m not sure what conclusions I draw from the result (other than that the TGO Challenge tends to be an expensive affair for us), but thought I’d share the information anyway. It should go without saying that it would be perfectly possible to do those trips with a lower budget – and it would also be very easy indeed to spend much more.

 

(* StoCAN = Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut Walk)

Random Thoughts With One Week To Go

It’s one week until we set out for the start of the TGO Challenge. For those of you familiar with the event, you needn’t go and check your calendars in a panic, or get in touch to tell us we’ve got the wrong month. This year we’re starting from Torridon, and with public transport into Torridon being in short supply, we thought we’d answer the ‘how to get there’ question by simply walking the whole way (accordingly, I’m dubbing this the ‘Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut Walk’).

Hence, our journey to our start point will start next Tuesday, so that we can cover the 625 miles in time for Friday 9 May.

As you might expect, preparations have been in progress for some time and Postie has been delivering various parcels (today we went to the Post Office to pick up Mick’s new shoes; whilst we were there we missed delivery of some insoles. Always annoying when that happens). I finally sent my delaminating Thermarest NeoAir back to Cascade Designs, and they sent me a X-Therm in return. I’ve thought about getting all of my other kit out, in a move towards packing, but haven’t yet got that far down the to-do list.

Otherwise, there’s been a bit of this:

Some of this:

Resulting in one of these:

Which is a two-man quilt, complete with draft-stopper and Gorget, made (more or less) to the Ray Jardine pattern. The YouTube ‘video’ of the original Ray Jardine quilt I made (for Weird Darren) has proved to be remarkably popular, so we took photos of the whole process of making this quilt too, which I will try to make into a similar YouTube snippet later in the year. In the meantime, I still need to sew the foot-box.

There’s also been much cooking and dehydrating. This morning our living room carpet looked like this, as seventy-six meals were laid out in neat lines of eleven varieties:

Then, armed with a copy of the detailed plan, they became organised into individual food-drops, like this:

(Yes, those are all Roses tins. No, we haven’t been eating a lot of chocolates. I would recommend that if you’re in need of Roses tins, then a care home around Christmas time is a good place to ask.)

There’s also been much playing with the itinerarararary over the last couple of weeks. I came up with the route last year, and tweaked it to my satisfaction in February, but somehow omitted to complete my research and the detail of the spreadsheet until this week.

And, of course, there’s been a bit of walking going on, but I’ll reserve comment on the numbers until the end of the month.

Pen-y-Ghent and Helwith Bridge

The main event, and driving purpose behind this weekend away, occurred last night (Saturday 15th) when we went along to a fund-raiser at Horton School to hear John Manning talk about his 2004 Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hike.

It was an excellent night, both for John’s entertaining presentation (the time flew by!) but also for the hospitality laid on by the school.

With that event having placed us in Horton overnight, we were well-placed to take a walk up Pen-y-Ghent this morning, and leaving Colin at 9.30am we found it to be not a bad morning. The cloud base was sitting at about 450 metres or so, but beneath it, visibility was pretty good:

Alas, the good visibility didn’t last for ever. By virtue of Pen-y-Ghent being nearly 700m, we were soon up in the cloud, and by the time we got to the top it was cold, very windy and mizzling on us. However, it wasn’t as miserable as Ingleborough on Friday, and Pen-y-Ghent was only a small portion of this walk, so we were looking forward to dropping back down below the cloud.

Lending more evidence to my theory that in a few years’ time the Pennine Way (PW) will be a surfaced path the whole way from Edale to Kirk Yetholm, we could see from the summit shelter (per the photo above) that the PW path up to the top will soon be flagged.

Not long later, a huge digger emerged from the gloom…

… and the other side of that digger was a laid path.

Now comes the first of two rants. I know that Pen-y-Ghent is a popular hill, but its popularity seems to be at silly levels just now. One side effect of that is the quantity of banana skins that litter the place. There are dozens of the things. As if the wet, worn-to-a-shine rocks aren’t hazardous enough, there are now banana skins to slip on, and marring the landscape into the bargain.

The second rant concerns large groups and hill etiquette. On our way down we passed two very large groups on their way up (the backmarker of the first group told us it was a training outing for a group intending to do the 3 Peaks Challenge later in the year). I can live with people studiously ignoring our cheery greetings, but it does irk me when groups barge past, walking three or four abreast, shoving you off the path with an apparent presumption that all others will naturally move out of their way.

The queue for the ‘step’. “I didn’t know I had to do rock climbing” said the one woman as we passed

I suppose it could have been worse. We could have been stuck behind them.

Thankfully, once we passed the path up from Horton, solitude reigned. In fact, the whole way down to Helwith Bridge we didn’t meet a soul, and only two were met between there and Horton.

It seemed to take forever to drop below the cloud and, disappointingly, when we did, the visibility wasn’t fully restored and the mizzle didn’t stop. Even worse, as we made our way along the riverside we had to conclude that it had transformed into a persistent light rain. Again, the sort of rain that gets you really wet (sigh…).

Gloom, even down by the river

We arrived back to the shelter and warmth of Colin (for a cooked lunch and copious amounts of tea :-)), having covered just shy of 9 miles, with 1700’ of ascent.

Meanwhile, I see that a number of friends on Facebook have been posting glorious blue-skied photos of the weekend. Harrumph!

Hangers-on with the Outdoor Writers’ Guild

Ten members of the Outdoor Writers’ Guild (plus Tilly the dog) met at the Pen-y-Ghent Cafe on Saturday morning, where we just happened to be enjoying a pint of tea. “They won’t notice if we tag on behind them” we thought, and thus after they were done faffing in the car park, we surreptitiously followed them up the road, across the foot-bridge over the Ribble to follow the river downstream.

One of the group, David, is a veritable mine of information about the National Park and all things natural, so various stops were had along the way as we learnt about a large variety of features of the area. You don’t get that on just any walk!

Having left the river and crossed fields..

…and having passed a farm with a large array of tractors and machinery in varying states of decay…

We took to a lane for a short while before peeling off to pass Feizor Woods (highly recommended by David, but time constraints/hunger didn’t allow the group to go exploring on this occasion) on our way to the hamlet of Feizor, which is the home of a popular and busy tea room.

Handily, there were a couple of spare seats at the table booked by the group, and Mick and I managed to sneak in at opposite ends of the table without anyone rumbling us as interlopers.

Food eaten and vats of tea drunk, we expected an equally gentle bimble back up the valley. But, no! After sufficient gentleness to allow the food to digest a little, suddenly we peeled off and up became the theme for a while:

The top of the climb was marked by a narrow, steep stile, missing a rung on each side (the remaining rungs weren’t that healthy either). It was a challenge for those of us with little legs, but even more of a challenge for the one with four legs.

Until now the day had been pretty fine. Overcast, but with the cloud base much higher than the previous days. Alas, as we ascended, so the cloud descended to greet us:

Learning about (amongst other things) burial mounds, the plant life in the grykes and the dying juniper bushes as we went, decomposing limestone pavements were crossed…

…to pick up a right of way which took us back down to Horton, where the path leading down to the level crossing proved to be the most dangerous part of the whole walk. If anyone made it down that polished-stone-set-in-concrete surface without slipping, I’d be surprised. Even though I hung back to warn those behind me, I heard a variety of ooohs of slipping-surprise as I proceeded down with utmost caution.

Arriving back in Horton some seven hours after we had left (it had been a long lunch and there had been many informational pauses), we had covered 11 miles with 1300’ of up.

Thanks go to the members of the Outdoor Writers’ Guild for allowing us to tag along with them (particularly to John Manning for inviting us). They were a very nice and interesting bunch of people with whom to spend a day.

Here’s the route we took:

The big splodge in the bottom right of the route is where I forgot to stop the Garmin Gadget when we went in for lunch, meaning that it added on half a mile of wandering whilst we were indoors!

Ingleborough

With a big area of high pressure sitting above the UK this week, we were looking forward to a fine day today for a walk up Ingleborough (approaching from Clapham – a path we’ve not before taken). Based on the last weather forecast I saw (yesterday morning), which showed a foggy start giving way to sunny intervals in the afternoon, and without the hint of a rain drop, I had opted to bring my not-proofed pair of Paramo trousers with me. Mick very nearly went out without a waterproof jacket at all.

As you may guess, from that preamble, we didn’t enjoy good weather today. Visibility was 100 yards or so when we set out, but at least it was dry.

By the time we were out the other side of Clapham, and starting to gain a little height, visibility was down to less than 80 yards, and the clouds were mizzling upon us.

By the time we were climbing steeply up Ingleborough, that mizzle became a persistent, wind-blown, heavy drizzle. The type that makes you really wet. We still couldn’t see anything.

By the time we got to the top, visibility was so bad that we were taken entirely by surprise to find ourselves on the top. We only saw the (sizeable) summit shelter 18 paces before we reached it.

The only other person we saw on the top was a mountain-biker who joined us in the shelter. He wasn’t looking forward to the terrain of his descent, even without appreciating that he was going to get the freezing, wind-blown drizzle straight in the face on his way down to Ingleton.

Towards Ingleton was the direction in which I had intended us to head, except that the prospect of: 1) not being able to see anything no matter which way we went; 2) having the rain hitting us head-on; and 3) having to trudge across fields to get back to our start point, without the advantage of being able to see the stile/gate on the other side; made me conclude that a better plan would be just to head back the way we’d come.

It wasn’t an exact repetition. At Clapham Bottoms we deviated from out outward route and by doing so we passed some geological features which it would be good to revisit in better conditions.

It was definitely one of the most miserable days I’ve been out walking this year, only surpassed by the day in the Cairngorms when we turned back because it was so horrible.

Unsurprisingly, the cameras stayed mainly in pockets (not that they stayed dry even there), but I did take this one snap early in the day:

The stats for the day were 12.2 miles walked with 2500’ of ascent.

(As I sit here typing this, Colin is being rocked by the wind. I do hope some nice weather is going magically to materialise by morning!)