Decisions, decisions, and a plan for a new trek for 2025

 

Naturally since I returned from the last walk, friends and family have been asking me what I would do next? That can be brushed away with a “No idea” until January comes, then it’s suddenly time to do some real planning.

This time I started with four options on my list.

I reconsidered an idea from 2024 of a personal “Coast to Coast” walk, from, say, Morecambe to Scarborough, west to east over the Pennines, across the flatter lands to the Cleveland Hills, and so to the coast.

I could take on a rather tougher challenge and do all or part of the Offa’s Dyke Path, perhaps between Abergavenny and Prestatyn, south to north mostly along the Welsh border.

I thought of Memory Lane, repeating, with variations, part of the original walk to Wales, reducing it by starting at what was the end of Day 3.

Or I could come south and start somewhere in Dorset or Wilshire, adding some miles before heading along the South Downs Way to its end in Eastbourne.

The Coast to Coast option fell out because of accommodation problems. At the The return to Wales looked feasible until a crucial pub in Herefordshire suddenly popped up as permanently closed – this is happening quite a lot in the UK now. From the remaining shortlist of two it was really hard to choose, but I settled for the southern route.

Even on the plans for that from the beginning of January I had to make changes, as another pub with rooms right on the South Downs Way disappeared into permanent closure.

So on July 2^nd, after much detailed planning, I’ll take a train to Sherborne in Dorset, chosen, like Lichfield last year, only because it has a station. From there I’ll travel via Shaftesbury and Salisbury to Winchester, where I pick up the South Downs Way National Trail. Various stops along the way include Midhurst, Arundel and Lewes, with a final flourish along the chalk cliffs to Eastbourne and a train home, in time for dinner.

These routes are planned by drawing successive lines on computerised maps, starting with broad outlines, then a rough idea of stopping points and a check to see what might be available, and so on down to a very detailed route for each day which can be shared with my phone for use along the way. Not every stopping point will be available or reasonably priced eery day, especially not at weekends, so there are lots of iterations to decide which dates might work

The training thus begins, although I’ve decided to make a separate description of how I approach that, just in case it’s of use to any other septuagenarians who might be tempted to go off on solo long treks. To follow.

In the meantime we wait for the mostly miserable brown grey and very wet winter world to start turning green and happy.

Notes from the year end 2023

 

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, 29^th 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…