2024 Planning
Retrospective Looking back over my shoulder, to the year behind us, I see a bit of a mixed back of walking achievements. I had a good first half of the year and fairly mediocre second half, with almost no proper walking taking place after mid-September. I blame that decline on a combination of consistently poor […]
Ravenber Way – Day 1
7th July 2019: Dufton to Garrigill – 15.5m I knew I wasn’t fit, but today exposed that as one of the understatements of the millennium! I’m in my B&B in Garrigill now, and my feet are quite literally singing, my calves are tight and sore and my thighs feel like they’ve been beaten with rubber […]
Pennine Way 2010
Introduction This is the start of my Pennine Way 2010 Journal. It will cover the planning stages of the walk initially and then be expanded later in the year to include my completed travelogue. I’ll be blogging along the route again, using my iPhone and taking advantage of the increasing number of Wi-Fi hotspots available. […]
The Pennine Way Process
It was now or never really. I’d been waiting until as close to deadline as possible to conduct a comprehensive village survey for the Pennine Way guide book update. I figured that there was no point doing a survey months ahead of the publication, as B&Bs close, new businesses open and the information needed to […]
Page 1 Completed!
I had an email from Bryn at Trailblazer Guidebooks last night – he hadn’t received any photos from me for the book yet and he needed something to put in the new catalogue they were having printed. He was going to go with a temporary photo for the purposes of getting the catalogue sorted out, […]
Burnhead to Sycamore Gap
I’d requested an early breakfast for this morning, despite it being Saturday and feeling a little selfish at asking Dave and Christine to get up even earlier to provide for me. However, I wanted an early finish as I had about 2 1/2 hours in the car at the end of the walk. I was […]
Knarsdale to Burnhead (on the Wall)
The wind has been the dominant factor for the last two days of this walk. The cold has been as a result of the wind for the most part, but today was the sort of winter day I look forward to. So few of them coincide with a day that I can walk too. But […]
Garrigill to Knarsdale
If I’d started this walk today, I would almost certainly either have had to cancel it, or I’d be dead on the summit of Cross Fell, having been blown away by the reported 112 mph winds that were recorded by the weather station located at the radar station on Great Dunn Fell. I consider myself […]
Appleby to Garrigill
If I had to use just one word to describe today’s walk from Dufton to Garrigill along the Pennine Way it would have to be “gruelling”. There was a point when I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it all the way to the end. I stood gasping in the lee […]
Langdon Beck to Appleby
Well, if I’d thought I was knackered ta the end of yesterday, then today I was double knackered with knobs on! The wind was relentless and biting cold too and by the time I stumbled into Appleby it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. I arrived on […]