Journeys by hiking, running, cycling and touring
This morning, the following photo popped up in my Facebook memories: ...and gave me the idea for this post. Yes, this was my first wild camp. Only 8 years ago, but it seems like longer. I'd intended to camp wild as early as 2007 when I went on my abortive tour of the Lakes. Back … Continue reading An Anniversary
Week 6 of lockdown, and things have settled into a pattern: alternating frenetic bursts of exercise with doing absolutely nothing. Whilst we see in the media images of people acting like twats and abusing the lockdown, the reality here is much more mundane. People are generally distancing pretty well, and most incidents of near misses … Continue reading Deferred Gratification – Part 2
A few weeks ago, I was inwardly bemoaning the fact that my calendar for 2020 was looking a bit sparse in terms of backpacking trips, with just the TGO Challenge and one long weekend on Dartmoor, inked in. No trips to the Lakes, no section of South West Coast Path. Nothing that would involve taking … Continue reading Deferred Gratification – Part 1
**I've had to re-write this post a couple of times as events have moved faster than my speed of write-up. This walk was undertaken at the very start of March, when the "plague" referred to below had reached the UK, but had not escalated to the stage it's at now. It would be totally irresponsible … Continue reading Don't Make Me Go South of the River (Jubilee Greenway Part 2)
A grey Sunday morning at the start of February, and as if I can't get enough of the place, I'm taking my usual walk to work, or at least the first part of it, around the corner to The Narrow pub. Here set into the pavement opposite, and lying unnoticed by me for several years, … Continue reading Don’t Let Them Touch Your Vibrations (Jubilee Greenway Part 1)
2017: I'm only going to do this once. 2018: Oops, I did it again. That's probably it though. 2019: Several routes planned a week after getting home. 2020: ? In my house there's a sort of informal rule: do something 3 times and it becomes a tradition. This is why I always go to Dartmoor … Continue reading I have to do it – it’s a tradition!
This year I only managed 18 wild camps (plus an additional 4 tame camps on the TGO Challenge) against a loose target of 24, falling short largely because I shelved plans for weekends away in September and November due to indifferent weather. In any case, 24 would have been well short of some yearly totals, … Continue reading Camp of the Year 2019
How have art and the outdoors overlapped this year ? 2018 was all about my debut solo show in a London gallery, and I was painting furiously for that. This year, though, I've slowed down a bit, but not been short of ideas and have a huge queue of possible paintings. The prime targets this … Continue reading Art Roundup 2019
August, three weeks after my weekend in the Arans, and another trip. Another short one, as I had to be home to go away on a "proper" holiday. But just time for a couple of camps. Having walked all these hills before, I didn't put myself under any pressure to bag anything particular or to … Continue reading Return to the Big Hill
In need of a weekend in the hills, after much tossing up between an attempt to move my Cambrian Way marker forward by a couple of days and the idea of going somewhere new, I eventually fixed on a visit to the Arans. This came out of my research for the optimal way to get … Continue reading The Arans
The train dropped me at Ravenglass at lunchtime, and with a pub practically on the platform it would have been rude not to "fuel" for the rigours of the arduous trek that lay before me. Suitably fortified, I sallied forth and set off past the Roman Bath House and down to the Esk. A delightful … Continue reading Ravenglass to Coniston
2018's section of the South West Coast Path never happened, the year being taken up with a combination of art exhibitions and the asthma-y aftermath of the TGO Challenge. So it was 2 years, almost to the day, that Dad and I returned to Bude for the 60 mile (or so) section to Barnstaple. What … Continue reading South West Coast Path 2019
If you made it through the 7 part story of the Quest for the Shirt of Destiny, well done. Even more well done if you kept up with it, and could follow where we were at any point. I thought I should put something together that reviews this year's Challenge in plainer, more everyday, terms, … Continue reading TGO Challenge 2019 (or The Shirt of Destiny)
I wake, if indeed I slept at all, and I don't feel good. There is rain in the air -Â it is clear both from my lungs and from the recent advice of sages, that it is coming. Our luck with the weather has come to an end. We stow our bundles and return to … Continue reading The Shirt of Destiny – Part 7: Doom, Gloom and a Room
Beer barrels clatter close to our chamber at the inn and sleep is fitful. I wake feeling unrefreshed and earlier than I’d like. So we are away early in search of food to break our fasts. Light rain falls on us as we head into a Great Forest. The sort that feels like nothing but … Continue reading The Shirt of Destiny – Part 6: The Red Mountains