Almost the very end of 2023, and a quick moment of reflection. Anyway the weather is currently so miserable I really have nothing better to do…
After the summertime trek the weather played an increasingly important part. Big family events in July and August were blessed with warm sunshine, likewise a sentimental return to Venice in September. Then it all began to slide. October was a mixture of brilliant blue sunny skies and miserable greyness. November was, well, November. It rained. When it didn’t rain it drizzled. And when it couldn’t decide it turned the forecast of “<5% chance of precipitation” into a sudden downpour. November passed seamlessly into December, with little change, and suddenly here we are bumping up against 2024.
All of that played some havoc with walking, of course. I had set myself a target to achieve 3,000 miles for the fifth year in a row, but for various reasons I got off to a slow start. By the summer I was catching up, but rain and mud threatened to scupper everything. A last-minute surge helped me over the 3,000 mile line only yesterday. Yes, yesterday, 29th December! Perhaps Year 5 will go better. Three thousand miles is an average of just over eight miles a day, every day, so it needs a lot of active days to compensate for the more indolent times.
Strangely mud is less of an issue this winter on several of my favourite routes. The local authority made efforts to lay some gravel on some of the worst patches in the spring, and some stretches of path have been completely replaced with gravel. While it can be a total eyesore for the months it takes to bed in, at least that means the routes are usable year round without going up to the knees in mud. I’m still scratching my head to know why, with all this effort to make paths more accessible, nothing has been done about the very worst short stretches, sections of only a few hundred yards which turn to quagmire between November and March. Oh well.
I should note a tribute to the Merrell Moab 3 GTX shoes I used before and during the big walk back in the summer: they are still going strong more than 1,500 miles later, with several hundred miles left in the soles and no loss of waterproofing. They’re just no longer presentable for marching into smart hotel reception areas.
Of course there are some plans for treks next year, health and weather permitting. A couple of my options start and finish a long way north of home, and include some more serious ups and downs, if no more miles than this year. They are not the only choices, several more are to be evaluated. The main problem now is accommodation. There are now fewer pubs open with rooms, some small hotels went during the pandemic never to return, and – as I discovered this year – what were once budget hotels have generally become ridiculously expensive. Route planning is more dependent now on where to lay my head each night than on the paths I want to follow or the places I want to visit, which is a shame.
We shall see…
