diversion Archives - helpful mammal

CL – Cairnryan to Girvan

WITH wonderful synchronicity my one hundred and fiftieth walk also included my two thousand five hundredth mile. The objective for the day was to walk from Cairnryan to Girvan, which I made to be twenty-three miles.

CXX – Southport to Preston

ON WHAT would turn out to be a bright but breezy day, I sacrificed any hope of breakfast by rising around dawn in the hope of maximising all available daylight. I planned to walk to Preston by a slightly meandering route that totalled 25½ miles. The question was, would I make it there before dark?

XCVIII – Pwllheli to Aberdaron

TOWARDS the end of May, with a weather forecast of ‘heavy showers’ interspersed with ‘heavy rain’, I returned to that part of Gwynedd that used to be Caernarfonshire to embark upon a challenging couple of walks. The first, from Pwllheli to Aberdaron, was about 25 miles, which promised to be hard going in the expected rain.

XCV – Friog to Harlech

I AWOKE from a deep and restful sleep to discover that the electronic beeping I could hear was not in fact a bumblebee reversing — it’s funny how something that makes perfect sense in a dream makes none at all when you wake up — but rather my alarm clock telling me that it was an hour that no sane man should see.

Given the bumblebee thing I probably deserved it.

XCIV – Aberdovey to Friog

ONE problem with the increasing distance from my home of these coastal walks is that I now require so much longer to get to the start and back from the finish that I essentially lose whole days just travelling. I was quite keen to minimise that on my most recent trip so I endeavoured to return to Aberdovey as early in the day as was possible in order to get some more walking in from the very moment I arrived.

LXXXVIII – Cardigan to Tresaith

THE end of November 2013 saw my first walk in six months, a period of perambulatory abstinence that was by no means voluntary but which came about because midway through June I ran for a bus.

Well, I say ‘ran’… what I actually did was take about four steps and crumple like a rag doll, screaming something like ‘HnnnghhhrrrARRGHohdearGod!’ which is how one says ‘my knee’s not quite right’ in conversational Agony.

LXXIII – Llanrhidian to Llanelli

HAVING had a three-month break in my coastal perambulation forced upon me by various factors including but not limited to biting financial constraints and, thanks to the wettest summer in a hundred years, much of the country being inconveniently underwater, I firmly resolved to begin walking again as soon as was feasibly possible.

LXVIII – Merthyr Mawr to Port Talbot

I WOKE up early on Sunday morning, stretched, yawned, turned off my alarm and got out of bed, ready to do some more walking. As I stood up, I almost swore under my breath but I didn’t, mostly because that breath had just exhaled itself involuntarily. I had, it turned out, most definitely got blisters on the balls of my feet.

Clearly I wasn’t going to be walking all day. Or if I was, it was going to be with pain accompanying every single step. And that would just be silly. Right?

LVIII – Minehead to Combwich

MY CUNNING plan for the middle of last week was intended to involve my catching an overnight coach to Taunton and to grab a short nap in the process. It was a good plan. It was also a simple one.

And yet Von Moltke was still right.

LIV – Westward Ho! to Barnstaple

LAST Monday, I awoke bright and early, stretched out in an enormous bed in a rather large room and, for a moment, didn’t feel like getting up at all. But the lure of walking beckoned, so I arose and performed my ablutions before pausing to look out of the bedroom window at a view across the River Torridge.