HAVING sat out the winter weather, I was as delighted to see the arrival of spring as one can be when blossoming trees are trying to have sex with one’s nose. One of the best ways to avoid involuntary pollination is to go where that is less likely to be an issue, namely the coast (where a breeze off the sea should be safe to inhale). And so for the first time in 2017, I made my way back up to Scotland, ready to continue my chosen hobby of putting one foot in front of the other a lot.
Tag: mud
CXLVII – Drummore to Port Logan
AFTER a day and night of continuous rain, I was unsurprised to find the sky grey but delighted that it seemed to have temporarily run out of water to drop on my head. I came within seconds of missing the bus by dint of waiting at entirely the wrong bus stop but the driver took my stupidity in his stride. It was only after the bus was underway that I realised that my stupidity extended further than that — I had left my delicious packed breakfast in the fridge at my B&B. Still, at least this meant I couldn’t sit on it.
CXLII – Gatehouse of Fleet to Newton Stewart
ON THE second day of my recent Galloway gallivant, I decided to consider my options carefully. I planned to walk from Gatehouse of Fleet to Newton Stewart and three possible routes presented themselves. I could stick to the coast and dodge lorries on the A75 for fourteen miles or I could head inland and follow one of two alternatives, namely National Cycle Network route 7 and an old military road. It was time to consult the self-imposed rules by which these walks are governed…
CXLI – Kirkcudbright to Gatehouse of Fleet
I RETURNED to walking after a five month gap, the delay having come about on account of being a bit under the weather. Not me, you understand, but south west Scotland, which had spent much of the winter assailed by flooding and storms. Since I planned to go walking, not wading, I patiently waited this out until the first signs of impending spring brought calmer, warmer and — most importantly — drier weather. And then I got sunburnt. In Scotland. In March. It’s like my special super-power.
CXXXIX – Southerness to Dalbeattie
I AWOKE in Southerness to find blue skies and warm sunshine. It was almost as if the weather had forgotten that this was October in Scotland. Still, I was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially if it was pulling the chariot of the sun.
CXXXVIII – Dumfries to Southerness
WITH autumn racing past apace, I thought I’d better get some more walking in before short days and bad weather complicate things too badly. With this in mind, the second half of October saw me return to Scotland, ready for three day’s walking in the approximate vicinity of the Kirkcudbrightshire coast.
According to the Met Office, I had three clear days before the rain swept in so that would work out nicely. If they were right.
Continue reading “CXXXVIII – Dumfries to Southerness”CXXXVII – Annan to Dumfries
ABOUT a week into September I stumbled out into bright morning sunshine in the town of Annan. Surely this couldn’t be Scotland? Where was the rain and the snow? But a search of my pocket revealed unfamiliar banknotes for north of the border was indeed where I was.
CXXXV – Bowness-on-Solway to Carlisle
I HAVE had many alarm clocks over the years and, given time, I can learn to sleep through any of them. But a faceful of blinding solar emanations is always difficult to sleep through, which how I came to be up and about and haring for a bus on the third and final day of my mid-August trip. I made it to the bus stop with just minutes to spare and mentally thanked the great, glowing orb in the sky.
CXXXII – St Bees to Maryport
IT WAS my intention to awake bright and early on the last day of my early August walking trip. And technically, I succeeded. I awoke bright and early, turned off my alarm and promptly went back to sleep. As you do.
It was a couple of hours later that I actually surfaced, roused by the persistent sunshine that was streaming in through my hotel room window. I decided to take the sun’s subtle hint — one ignores a thermonuclear fireball at one’s peril — and was soon kitted up, checked out and ready to perambulate. I would be starting my day with north-west England’s one and only proper set of sea cliffs: St Bees Head.
CXXXI – Ravenglass to St Bees
ALTHOUGH there is a certain purist joy in staying overnight at the start and end point of each walk, so that all the travelling that you are doing between places is on foot, there is a whole different kind of joy in starting the day already ensconced in a hotel at your end point. This kind of joy entails the ability to dump all your heavier things in your hotel room, safe in the knowledge that you’ll walk back to them later. It is a ‘travelling light’ kind of joy.
This was, of course, what I was doing when I caught a train from St Bees to Ravenglass in order to spend the day walking back to St Bees (the railway version of the journey was around sixteen times faster).
Continue reading “CXXXI – Ravenglass to St Bees”