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The Plan Every year from 2008, my Dad and I have walked a section of the South West Coast Path (SWCP), taking 4-5 days per section, and walking anywhere between 40 and 60 miles, depending on the terrain and logistics. Some years my brother has also joined. Having decided to do the SWCP the "wrong … Continue reading South West Coast Path 2013
It will be clear from the last post that the trip didn't go quite to plan, as I stopped short of my intended end point of Llandovery. But that's not to say it was a failure, and I'm looking at it as simply having altered the plan further as I went. Nevertheless, there were some … Continue reading Cambrian Way Phase 1 – Post Mortem
Every year on the weekend nearest to my birthday I go away for one or two nights with the tent. Whilst it's good to get out, the main driver is the fact that my daughter's birthday is 3 days after mine and she somehow manages to pull rank when it comes to any parties scheduled … Continue reading A Birthday Camp
Ok, maybe the title is a bit dramatic. It wasn't anything like a complete failure, unless you only measure it against the original plan to walk as far as Falmouth over 7 days rather than to Par over 4. Indeed, the irony was that in some ways this trip was the best of the 5 … Continue reading SCWP 2012: Post Mortem
This has been a bit of a strange trip, and I have to say after 15 trips to the Lake District, I didn't expect to still be learning lessons about my walking capabilities. This trip was really two in one, and if I'd just done the first, longer, part it would have felt about right, … Continue reading A Lakeland Round (2011): Debrief
Planning Although we've done a chunk of the pub for the last 3 years, this year's ultimately turned out to be the hardest to arrange and felt really expensive too. And there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly as we get further west, travel time to the south west gets longer and also … Continue reading South West Coast Path 2011 – Debrief
We stayed in the following places this year. This was probably the hardest year's planning due the need to find accommodation in places that fitted with the distances we wanted to do, how we wanted to cross the rivers (especially the Erme) etc. We found ourselves going over our budget per night cost on a … Continue reading SWCP 2011 – Accommodation
On this trip I stayed in two places: YHA Snowdon Ranger. When I found I couldn't book the B&B for all 7 nights, I went for the obvious option for the first night. It's just down the road from Beddgelert. Unlike recent experiences though, this time I had to share a room but I did … Continue reading Snowdonia 2011 – Accommodation and Meals
A week after the end of the trip, I can now look at what went well and what didn't..... The route Overall, I did all of the key elements that I had planned except Black Fell and Blencathra & co, both of which were abandoned due to conditions. Although at the time I wrote that … Continue reading Cumbria Way – afterthoughts
Friday 28 October 2005 - Skiddaw Yesterday was such a frantic day, that it was good to finally get out into the hills today, even though it certainly wasn’t the weather we would have wished for. At least I took a day off work to prepare – I hate to think how bad it would … Continue reading A Wet Weekend in the Lakes