An English Lakeland Summer

Helvellyn from Striding Edge

 

On the way to Great Gable near the fell known as Brandreth

 

Scrambling up the screes of Great Gable

 

The English Lake District has been well and truly on the tourist path for the last 150 years or so, yet although as a teenager I spent long expeditions collecting the area’s numerous waterfalls for a youthful (and finished but never-published) book documenting the complete waterfalls of England, last week was the first time I’ve ever climbed any of the peaks in the National Park. The extraordinary beauty of this area has been well documented since Tennyson’s time, of course, but in fine, sunny weather, and with the company of a few like-minded hikers, considering the tremendous rewards to reaped for relatively little effort, the Lake District’s peaks simply can’t be beat in my book. It’s simply fabulous up there!

Land’s End to John O’Groats: Across England, Wales and Scotland on Foot (1)

It’s been 12 years since I did the Big Walk (in the year 2000), but while at my other home (in England) over the Christmas holidays this year, with little to do but practice my (electric) piano and eat far too much junk food, I’ve been trying to keep busy by looking back through my old photos and journals. While Christmas shopping I also found a gadget to digitize all my old color print negatives, and so have spent much of the last week converting all the photos into Jpegs. That handy little negative scanner also finally allowed me to get some of the gumf I collected in preparing for my cross-Britain walk into an on-line version, in case it’s of interest for anyone else considering doing all or part of this epic walk.

Land’s End to John O’Groats (2)

On the Shropshire Way near Wen, (day 39)

Mow Kop Castle (the Old Man of Mow), a folly on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border

   One of the things that especially amazed me during the ‘End to End’ walk was how very beautiful the whole of Britain is. Although a few days stand out as highlights (a couple of stretches of the Southwest Coast Path, the Cheviot Hills in the far north of England and a day or two along the West Highland Way) I don’t have a single favorite part of the route. It’s all constantly interesting, varied and often absolutely enchanting. So I’ve no idea why, after a clutch of lovely photos along the southwest penninsula (the original prints look a lot better than the scanned versions!), it now becomes much harder to find photos that give an idea just how lovely the countryside and the old towns and villages are. It’s just as wonderful, though, and every bit as worth exploring as the southwest coast.

Offa’s Dike Path near Knighton (day 36)

Little Moreton Hall (day 42)

Wednesday 12th July: Day 35
Knighton, Powys (Wales): Distance walked to date: 443 miles

Before starting this walk I bought a pair of “1,000  Mile Socks” which are supposed to last a thousand  miles of walking, and more importantly are guaranteed  to prevent blisters.  The socks have already worn through at the heel after just 400 Miles,  but wearing these and other socks I have at least had very few  blisters!  

Land’s End to John O’Groats (3)

The impressive Hull Pot, a pothole in the Pennines, day 53)

The Pennines are waterfall country, and this the highest single-drop one in England (although others are a lot higher), Hardraw Force (day 54)

It’s often very tempting on such a long walk to ‘cheat’ and take the bus over a boring bit, or during bad weather, but realising that even a small ‘help’ would have ruined the whole trip kept me on the straight and narrow all the way. The only exceptions were when I had to leave the route to find accommodation in a nearby town or village. Most of the time these were close enough for me to walk along the road or a connecting path and back again the following day, but in Scotland (such as in Glencoe) the distances were sometimes so far that I had to get a bus; mum and dad even had to come to the rescue a couple of times during the final days in northeast Scotland (when they acted as a back-up), as there wasn’t any public transport at all! Rejoining the route after taking transport to the nearest town became an obsession though, so much so that if I got off the bus in a different point from where I’d got on it the evening before, I found myself backtracking to the exact point where I’d left the walk, just to be sure I tramped every single meter of the route!  

Land’s End to John O’Groats (4)

The finish line of the Land’s End to John O’Groats walk at John O’Groats pub (day 97)

Near the beginning of the West Highland Way (day 79)

Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle (day 88)

A decade ago, prices in Britain (for accommodation at least) were fairly reasonable, and I rarely paid more than twenty pounds for a night in a bed and breakfast (you’ll have to pay at least twice the price to stay in most simple B&Bs now); hostels were cheaper of course, but by the turn of the new millennium the good old days when most of those staying there were walkers and interesting, friendly people with a story to tell  and time to talk had already long since gone, and much of time my companions were families on holiday, or school groups, neither of whom had any interest in talking to me. If I ever do a similar trip across Britain again, I’ll be camping, with a tent on my back, although of course there’s Couchsurfing as well now. Walking every day for three months  across a place with a  highly uncertain climate like Britain, the simple pleasures of the night’s accommodation are sometimes the main thing that keep you going. Accommodation lists are all over the Web now (on the Ramblers Association, local Tourist Info sites, and on the official Long Distance Path websites) and although many of the prices (£50-70 or more a night!) are nothing short of ridiculous, there are a few reasonable bargains still to be had.

Edinburgh Castle (day 72)

Loch Lomond at Rowardennan

On the Great Glen Way above Loch Ness (day 88)

Tuesday 22nd August 2000: day 76

Milngavie, near Glasgow: distance walked to date: 1,010.25 miles

I have always assumed that although England, Scotland and Wales are technically separate countries, the distinction in everyday life was purely a technicality, but almost as soon as I stepped off the end of the Pennine Way north of the border, I was made to think again. An innocent cyclist arriving from the south, pulled into Kirk Yetholm just 2 miles over the Scottish border and asked the youth hostel warden, if he was still in England. The friendly Scottish warden politely put him right, saying he was “definitely in Scotland”.