Journeys by hiking, running, cycling and touring
Various stuff and general musings
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
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
Before you get too worried that I'm about to bombard you with loads of pictures and ask you to buy them, I'm not. I'm just going to pick out a few instances where the outdoors and art overlapped this year. Increasingly my hikes are geared around the search for subject matter to paint. Of course … Continue reading 2018 Round-Up Part 3: Art
This is nothing more than a selection of pictures to show what happened this year...
Persistent readers will no doubt be aware that for the last few years, I've had a camping out competition with my daughter, who does quite a few camps due to her involvement in several sections of the Scout movement. We did it again this year, but with 2018 being A Level year, it was pretty … Continue reading 2018 Round-Up Part 1: Camps
Through a gap in the trees, I catch my first glimpse of the end of the loch. At the head of the glen, rises the Mountain, for the moment innocuous amidst its neighbours, happy to take a back seat for now. The path weaves a seemingly random course through the wood, one moment going up … Continue reading The Mountain
This is just a selection of a few favourite memories and pictures from what's happened this year.
After last year's formal camping out duel between myself and my daughter Rebecca, we decided to give it another go this year. Both of us enjoyed taunting each other about the race, and for my part it did help motivate me to camp out with fair regularity. A slight tweak to the rules this year … Continue reading The Camping Duel 2017
We trudged through hop field after hop field, along shady lanes and even a bit along the road. Barely noticing our surroundings and wrapped up in our conversation - a conversation that had been going for several hours now. Frequent breaks, hidden stashes of sweets, Special Brew and Benson & Hedges. A burning hot day … Continue reading The Power of Nostalgia
Our annual Easter break saw us head to Northumberland this year, our choice of cottage heavily restricted by the requirement to fit in 3 families and 3 enormous dogs. We headed there with a plan to spend a couple of days walking in the Cheviots - enough to bag all 6 Nuttalls, and fill the … Continue reading The Grim and Distant North
I had an email today from the marketing department at Trespass telling me I've been shortlisted in the Hiking/Walking of their 2016 Blog Awards. Now I know some people can be a bit scathing about these things, and the chances of me winning are slim anyway - whenever I've been nominated before for something like … Continue reading Recognition
Stood at the sink washing up one night in September last year, it suddenly occurred to me to add up the number of camps both I and my daughter, Rebecca, had done so far that year (I think of a lot of odd stuff like that while washing up). I realised with all of the … Continue reading The Great Camping Challenge 2016
I've been out and about quite a bit (for me) in 2015. This has quite a lot to do with the goals I set myself at the start of the year: Spend more on walking and less on gear: Sort of Achieved - a shaky start as the end of year sales usually sees me … Continue reading 2015