I HAD what I thought was an excellent plan to return to North Yorkshire on the August Bank Holiday weekend and squeeze more walking into the gap between the summer’s blistering heatwaves and the cold wet weather brought by autumn. The weather, wilful as always, immediately tried to disrupt my plan by developing a forecast for mostly rain right after I’d made all my bookings. And then, when that failed to dissuade me, it tried another sneaky tack…
Tag: clock
CCLXVII – Hartlepool to Redcar
ON THE final morning of my March 2026 trip, I alighted upon the platform of Hartlepool station with a spring in my step and a rumble in my belly – I had skipped breakfast in order to get an early start. This proved something of a self-defeating effort as I delayed that start in Hartlepool in order to silence my body’s demands for fuel.
A short while later, both fed and provisioned, I returned to the station for a not-quite-so early-but-still-earlyish-I-guess start…
Continue reading “CCLXVII – Hartlepool to Redcar”CCLXIV – Tynemouth to Newcastle-upon-Tyne
TOWARDS the end of March 2026, I headed north from London to Newcastle-upon-Tyne at a fairly ungodly hour, arriving at the latter sometime mid-morning. I promptly left it again via the Tyne & Wear Metro, returning to Tynemouth, where I last left off. From there, I planned to trek back up the River Tyne to Newcastle. So, that’s what I did.
CCLXIII – Newbiggin-by-the-Sea to Tynemouth
THE final morning of my August 2025 trip saw me stagger bleary-eyed from my overnight accommodation to the end of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea’s High Street, ready – for a particular and very approximate value of ‘ready’ – to start the day’s trek, which would end in Tynemouth. Well, hopefully not actually in the mouth of the River Tyne, but in the town situated next to it.
CCLXII – Alnmouth to Newbiggin-by-the-Sea
AS HAS become my autumnal tradition, I was distracted from the write-up of my summer walking trip and thus it’s now a quarter year since the actual walks took place. That being so, I suppose I had better get on with it.
The fourth day of my August 2025 trip found me up and about at an early hour wandering the streets of Alnmouth. Well, one of them, at least…
Continue reading “CCLXII – Alnmouth to Newbiggin-by-the-Sea”CCLIV – Leith Walk & Edinburgh Loop
TOWARDS the end of August 2024, I returned to Edinburgh to continue my coastal adventure. The first day of the trip, I intended to do two walks, the first being a stroll up Leith Walk into the centre of Edinburgh, and then an ambling circuit around parts of that city centre. The second was to take me out of the city along the John Muir Way to Prestonpans but, as I looked out at a misty, grey morning, that part was definitely for later. So, Edinburgh in the rain, then…
CCXLVIII – Dundee Loop
ON THE second day of my April 2024 trip, I did not one but two walks, although one was much shorter than the other. For the first, I arose well before breakfast and went for a wander around Dundee, which I would be leaving later. Ordinarily, I would roll this into the following walk but I quickly realised that there was enough to be seen to make this its own thing. And so it was…
CCXXXII – Dingwall to Inverness
ON THE Fifth of May 2022, I breakfasted in Dingwall in the small but splendid hall of Tulloch Castle Hotel after a night quite unhaunted by the ghostly Green Lady, for whom the hotel bar is named (well, that is where its spirits are found). Indeed, the only tortured soles causing me apprehension were those on the bottom of my feet, which were making a valiant effort to inform me that my hiking shoes needed replacing. Not tomorrow or the next day but today. And yesterday would have been far better.
CCXXIX – Berriedale to Golspie
I HAD a problem on the second day of May, which was that I awoke in Helmsdale, exactly where I had planned to be. How is this a problem, you might reasonably ask? Because it was not where I needed to be – my plan had failed to come to fruition and I had curtailed my previous walk some eight and a half miles short of Helmsdale. I thus needed to get back to Berriedale, if I were to pick up where I left off. Somehow.
CCXI – Dundonnell to Ullapool
THE seventh and final walk of my April 2019 trip was faintly momentous in that it marked the first time since Gravesend that I’d walked seven days in a row (I had taken a seven-day trip way back in Cornwall but had spent the sixth day as a rest day). My legs didn’t feel quite as fresh at the start of Day Seven as they had at the start of Day One but neither did they feel like they were made of lead. I was game…