Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Walking

  • Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 2 – Summary

    Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 2 – Summary

    [originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

    DAY TWO – Kirkbymoorside to Thirsk

    27.2 miles

    The first day was tough going and the second day was even tougher going. We’ve now walked just short of 60 miles over the two days, which is very brave indeed. How our feet will cope with tomorrow’s 26 miles I’m not entirely sure…..

    Today started with a breakfast at the hotel which was very nutritious and healthy, and we made sure that we got some chocolate from the Spar. Liam irritated me with his entire lack of bedside manner to my toe. He was meant just to put a dressing on it, but instead he prods the toe hard and yanks a bit of bandage clumsily around the toe. To be honest, he seemed entirely  uninterested at my predicament. I hid my mood very well.

    We got walking and Liam’s expert navigation soon found us in a wooded bog. We discovered that the ford couldn’t be traversed as it resembled the River Thames. I could see Liam looking at it deciding how we were going to cross, but I just looked cross and so we decided to take a detour. This detour involved going up “a small slope”.

    To define what we climbed as a “small slope” was nothing short of ridiculous. It would have been easier to climb the bloody Eiger than what Liam defined as “easy”. On this occasion I didn’t hide my anger and made quite clear that this was bloody impossible. Liam tried to calm me down by offering to carry my bag. I accepted this offer, although was still grumpy at the whole set of arrangements which had led up to this.

    After 90 minutes I had calmed down and we walked alongside a lovely main road for an hour. That was delightful. We entered the town of Helmsley which was rather lovely, and I treated myself to crisps and a Dr. Pepper. That Dr. Pepper was my treat throughout the afternoon, a few small sips at a time.

    We then had an afternoon walking through the forest, which was a bit never ending. We walked by some stepping stones where Dylan and Leon had been, which made me feel like they were there. i then had to climb over a gate as the ground was boggy.

    We then we into Bagby, which is important to me as it’s where I stopped when we tried this walk before (the other way round, so from Morecambe to Scarborough). So from thereon in, this is all territory that I’ve walked. A friendly guy with a kid asked us about our trip, no doubt curious why two people were marching into Bagby as it was getting dark (by marching I mean more shuffling in at 1.2 mph).

    The walk into Thirsk took bloody hours, and we finished quite a chunk behind when we ideally wanted to be. It’s a night in a Wetherspoons and the hotel is lovely, the room huge and it’s a delight to be back in the warm. Not sure that I’ll want to leave the room in the morning.

    So tired there are no photos for today, I’ll try and upload those in the morning. I hope though that this blog inspires other people not to try such bloody stupid challenges.

     

     

     

     

  • Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – King’s Head

    Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – King’s Head

    [originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed. I apologise for my youthful inability to detail with more information what real ale I had, but since this is before my Untappd stage I’m not able to check what I had. Also, I realised that I had forgotten to add the photo of my fish and chips. I fully accept that aside from my two loyal blog readers (who I didn’t have at the time) a photo of food is already of limited interest, but a photo from years ago where I’ve forgotten everything about it is of even less interest…. However, for my own archiving purposes I felt the need to add this]

    We decided we’d try somewhere to eat on the evening of day 1 in Kirkbymoorside, and we went to the King’s Head which is an historic former coaching inn. There was a friendly welcome from the member of bar staff and she politely mentioned that we only had a short time to order food.

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    Liam often orders the ridiculously expensive pint of orange juice and lemonade, and although the member of bar staff offered an alternative he wasn’t having it. He wanted half a pint of orange juice and half a pint of lemonade mixed together, and that was what he expected to get.

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    I got a pint of real ale.

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    For food I had the fish and chips, a choice that I often make, whilst Liam had some sausages and mash with lashings of delicious gravy. The food was of a great quality, whilst the prices were very reasonable so it we felt that we chose well.

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    It’s quite rare for the owners of a building to really explain its history, so I was particularly pleased to see this. It helped put the building into some sort of context, and it’s strange to think that the current entrance to the building is where the horses used to come through.

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    [I’ve added this over four years on, so I can’t remember what it was like, looks good though!]

  • Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – Some scenery photos

    Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – Some scenery photos

    [originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

    Some photos of the varied scenery, we’ve had sea, forests, dales and moors today.

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  • Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – Fox and Rabbit

    Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – Fox and Rabbit

    [originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

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    Our lunch stop was at the Fox and Rabbit pub, although we limited ourselves to health drinks and packets of crisps. Hydration and salts, very important in this walking thing. They kindly gave us a jug of iced tap water so that we could refill our water bottles.

    There’s a photo of me that didn’t upload, I’ll have to try to upload that again later, but in the meantime everyone can look at pictures of Liam.

    The prices were a bit expensive (although that’s probably Liam and his premium price orange and lemonade drink) but there’s not much else in the area and it was a delight to have a little sit down. We stayed for around 40 minutes in the end, a bit longer than we had anticipated…….

  • Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – Scarborough Greggs

    Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – Scarborough Greggs

    [originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

    We thought that we should get some snacks for later on in the day. So this morning we went to Scarborough Greggs. The staff were delightful, the food and drink was great and the shop was clean. Top rated!

  • Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – Summary

    Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 1 – Summary

    [originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

    DAY ONE – Scarborough to Kirkbymoorside

    30.1 miles

    The first day was certainly a challenge, taking us 11 hours from leaving Scarborough to arriving at Kirkbymoorside. The weather was favourable to us though, just a little bit of rain at the end of the day.

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    The beginning of the day started with Liam inspecting which bits of the lifeboat station he built have fallen down. I noticed a pile of rubble outside, but apparently that was a seat Liam had constructed. I didn’t say anything.

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    We dipped our feet into the North Sea, but it’s a long time until we see sea again…. (there’s a photo of Liam here that didn’t upload first time, will try again). I realised immediately that my boots aren’t waterproof.

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    All this walking (we had gone around 250 yards) made us hungry, so we had a Wetherspoons breakfast. Pastrami bagel, best food on their menu!

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    Two miles in my lace broke. I decided that this needed an engineer to fix….

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    When we were crossing the railway line we were slightly attacked by three dogs. I bravely protected myself and tried to get the dogs to attack Liam instead. When we crossed the railway line a local resident called out and asked her to take her stone for a walk. Obviously we thought that seemed just a little strange, but it’s one of those stones that people paint and see how far they go. We’ll keep the web-site updated so that the person who painted it sees how far it went.

    The whole walk got quite tiring by the 20 mile stage, and the next few hours weren’t the easiest. We decided to do the last two miles by road, so that we could speed up a little bit and get into the hotel by 20:00. We arrive at 19:59 and were pleased to check into a warm room.

    We have popped to the pub and the food was fantastic, just what we needed. More on this, and other news from today, will be uploaded in separate posts on Tuesday morning  🙂

  • Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 0

    Coast to Coast 2 [2018] : Day 0

    [originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

    So it all starts here!

    Today was the day of getting to Scarborough, with Liam coming from Norfolk and me coming from Ramblers General Council in Bangor. It was an interesting weekend in Wales and there was lots of gossip and news that I found out.

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    Richard’s flap was loose and didn’t shut, causing some regular stopping to resolve. It caused some issues when his car keep issuing him alerts about his loose flap.

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    I had the delight of Richard driving me across the country to meet up with Liam, which was a lovely journey.  Richard cut up about 40 cars and caused a very angry driver to stick his fingers up at him, so an entertaining little road trip. Above are Richard and Liam at the meet up point with Richard still wearing his Ramblers name badge so that people at the car park could know how important he is.

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    Greggs stop! It would be great if there were more Greggs on the route, but there are at least outlets of this fine dining chain at Scarborough, Thirsk and Morecambe. The chicken bake was delicious but was unfortunately not hot, but still a lovely way to start the week.

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    Liam at the meet up point. He might not look this happy in six days time when we’ve hopefully finished the walk.

    We’ve had our evening meal in Scarborough, after stopping off at Greggs, and now we’re ready for an early start tomorrow (Monday morning). We’re staying at the Premier Inn in Scarborough, a full hotel but it’s centrally located and near for our JD Wetherspoon breakfast stop in the morning.

    I didn’t finish this trip when we did in 2016 due to a blister, but Liam did. This time we’re going from Scarborough to Morecambe, so what could possibly go wrong?

  • Norwich – 2021 Hike Norfolk Christmas Party at St. Andrew’s Brew House

    Norwich – 2021 Hike Norfolk Christmas Party at St. Andrew’s Brew House

    We didn’t get to hold the Hike Norfolk Christmas party last year due to national restrictions, even though of course Downing Street managed to do so. But anyway, we won’t get dragged into politics here. The Hike Norfolk event was being held at St. Andrew’s Brew House in Norwich, formerly Delaney’s and now operated by City Club. I won’t linger on the beer brewed here as it’s some of the more pointless that I’ve tasted in terms of flavour and taste (we’re not talking Goose Island), but it’s well kept to be fair to them.

    There was a mix-up or something with rooms, but Steve was in charge of that and the venue gave us a perfectly good space so all was well. We also had a private bar which was handy, although I ended up drinking water as the service downstairs was all over the place and the beer selection was weak. I won’t linger on the service though, it’s Christmas, there was a home match for Norwich City and there are national staffing shortages, so these are difficult times and it doesn’t feel very festive to be negative. The staff were helpful throughout as well, so the ambience was all comfortable and relaxed.

    Liam looking at the arrangements in the private room before the masses came up. There were crackers and I of course promptly lost the hat as I don’t like frivolities.

    There was an awards ceremony for later on in the evening, which Steve and I had written in the afternoon. It’s an important event in the Hike Norfolk calendar and we couldn’t let it not happen. Here are the eight trophies carefully lined up.

    Richard waiting at the bar in his Christmas jumper.

    The starter of ham terrine was really rather good, I liked this.

    The turkey main course was less exciting and the pub didn’t burden themselves providing the promised stuffing and pigs in blankets. It was adequate though and all hot.

    The Christmas pudding in brandy sauce was also perfectly acceptable. Portion control across meals was a bit all over the place as well, but the service was efficient and seemed well managed.

    And then came the awards ceremony that Steve and I presented and is evident from this photo (look at that trophy!), I’m delighted to have won the most prestigious award which is “Bravest Walker”. That was for my very brave walking the 100 that I’ve hardly mentioned this year…… I’d add that I didn’t write that award, although I too would have selected myself as the winner if I had of done. I was very pleased that Susanna didn’t get annoyed at me for her very special prize, so that was a result. It was good to look back on the year and the camping weekend in the Peak District of course gave us many happy memories.

    After Steve and I had done our amateur bit of presenting the awards and taking quite a while over it, Rachel took over to be rather more professional. Rachel presented the awards for distance walked during the year on Hike Norfolk walks and to be fair, mine was a little limited since I’ve been away so much. Although I was also distracted photographing my trophy which I shall be finding a prime spot for. I think we had 29 people at the event and it all went well, so here’s to a year of walking with more gossip and stories ahead…. And thanks to Steve to organising the event.

  • Hike Norfolk – Social Day

    Hike Norfolk – Social Day

    Last weekend was one of the most important dates in the Hike Norfolk social calendar, the annual summer get together. Richard’s house has been replaced with a more decadent affair this year, adding extra excitement to the mix. There’s usually a walk to go along with the social element, but I couldn’t be bothered with that. We can go walking any day after all.

    I decided to put myself in charge of the catering for the event, which was handled very professionally I thought. I was fortunate to have Bev come along to Morrisons to assist with the purchasing of essential supplies, which was rather useful. I let her push the trolley as it’s important to involve everyone in the project. We were going to start with purchasing bread, but noticed that the fruit and vegetables were being reduced in price. I thought getting this at a bargain price was a very good idea, I begrudge spending money (albeit not mine) on fruit and vegetables.

    I got bored of the fruit and vegetables quite quickly. The kind man at Morrison’s also didn’t seem annoyed that he had to place six loaves of bread in the big cutting machine, so that was helpful and saved some cutting later on.

    And a behind the scenes photo of the food preparation arrangements, with strict food hygiene procedures in place. I spent most of the time supervising arrangements, fortunate to have Richard buttering bread, Bev neatly arranging salad around sandwiches, Dave slicing things and Susanna putting the filling in to the bread. A very handy little team. It was also apparent that we had purchased too many 25p bags of salad, a reminder that it’s best to buy it when cheap to avoid expensive waste.

    Crisps and fruit, what more could people possibly want?

    And the sandwiches all neatly compiled, collated and ready for service. I have to say, I’m really very good at this food organising I think. I mentioned that to numerous people. We had a whole Smörgåsbord of sandwich options, including cheese & pickle, cheese & onion, ham & mustard and beetroot salad. Despite Bev’s best efforts to make the beetroot salad sandwiches look tempting, they were the least popular which is no real surprise.

    We were lucky to have some members bring their own cakes, including a Victoria sponge, a meringue and numerous other delights. And they were all excellent, much appreciated by everyone in attendance.

    And the party in full swing. Well, the photo that I can safely upload anyway, it’s fair to say that some members of the group are quite rowdy and so photos later on wouldn’t be appropriate to post. There was plenty of gossip and I thought that it went really well and we received some lovely feedback after the event. Which means that there seems to be more than enough demand to do all of this again. Anyone interested in attending just needs to join Hike Norfolk   🙂

  • Ramblers – September 2020 Legstretchers Walk

    It was a delight that Maria led the first Legstretchers walk as we returned to walking longer distances. And not only did she lead the September walk, but she’s leading the one in October as well.

    Just photos here….