IT HAS taken me a while to get around to writing up the last day of my April 2023 trip (over four months, in fact) but that delay should not be in any way taken as a commentary on the experience. On the other hand, it is very much an indicator of my propensity to get distracted by stuff and things since then. On the day, 19 Apr 23 yielded a very pleasant stroll along a sandy beach. A ten-mile stroll, plus a few extra miles on each end. And they went something like this…
Tag: seal
CCXXX – Golspie to Tain
A LITTLE over two months ago, as I write this, I awoke in Golspie (Goillspidh) and was pleased to realise that I was now back onto what passed for my plan. By adding extra distance into the day before, I was back to being where I had intended when I had intended. But would things stay that way?
CCXXVII – Wick to Lybster
THE last day of April 2022 began with my awakening early enough to be downstairs and ready to eat the very moment breakfast service began in my hotel. Then, pleasingly filled with both bacon and enthusiasm, I headed outside to walk through Wick and then southwards to Lybster, the name of which I had as yet no idea how to pronounce (it’s ‘libe-ster’ not ‘lib-ster’).
CLIX – Kilcreggan to Arrochar
WHAT was originally meant to be day four of our November trip turned into one of on/off drizzle in which it would have been dismal to walk. Consequently, we jumped into the Lemming’s car and did a ridiculous but enjoyable circular drive through a sizeable portion of Scotland, ending up in Arrochar and yet another hotel. Having thus, amongst other things, discovered how eerily orange Glen Coe is during autumn, we resumed walking the following day when the weather was altogether more clement.
CLIV – Largs to Greenock
I HAD planned to return to Largs in September but the weekend I picked turned out to be the wettest, windiest, most miserable weekend for months. That threatened to fail the all important ‘is this fun?’ test and so I deferred to the start of October. For that weekend, the forecast was more promising but I didn’t dare raise my hopes too high; autumnal Scotland was hardly likely to offer up blue skies and sunshine. Or so I thought.
CXLIX – Portpatrick to Cairnryan
THIS year has been shaping up to be my least perambulatory year since I set off from Gravesend, with less mileage achieved than even the year that I injured my knee and couldn’t physically walk. Partly this is because of bad weather earlier in the year and partly because of distractions. The logistics of actually getting up to Galloway have also presented some challenges but at the start of August I was able to do so and get in a couple more walks. This was an opportunity I grasped with both hands — with my hand-eye coordination, I’d only have dropped it otherwise.
XLVII – St Ives to Portreath
LAST weekend, with the Met Office promising snow for much of the country, was obviously going to be dangerously unsuitable for walking further along the coast.
Or was it?
Continue reading “XLVII – St Ives to Portreath”XL – Par to Boswinger
ON THE Sunday, after rising early and obtaining a hearty breakfast from Cap’n Jaspers on Plymouth Barbican, I caught a train back to Par and began my next walk. In the rain.
‘It’s the West Country,’ I told myself, ‘it always rains.’
Continue reading “XL – Par to Boswinger”XVIII – Bosham to Emsworth
FRIDAY’S walk was mostly enhanced by the colour yellow (narcissi, celandines and gorse flowers) and the smell of coconut (gorse flowers smell of it. Although, since gorse is native to Great Britain and coconut is not, surely from a British perspective coconut should smell of gorse?) Less delightful ‘enhancements’ involved becoming festooned with the webs of what seemed like every single spider in West Sussex, the occasional aroma of decomposing seaweed and an extremely unwelcome case of sunburn.