Day 6: 1200 mile walk from Cornwall to Caithness, UK.
Day 6 of trekking the famous Lands End to John O' Groats challenge is upon us. I notice reading back that I thought I'd passed the 100 mile mark on this day whereas in fact I'd passed 100 miles late on day 5. I remember arriving at the end of the day in Great Torrington, a small town that looked like it had its hey day back in the industrial past. There was nowhere close by to camp and I was getting worried about being out in a strange town late in the evening when people were starting the weekend pub rituals and I'm there in all my walking gear. These small country towns can get rough at these times, having grown up in one I know. Luckily I managed to find a bed and breakfast upstairs in one of the pubs and felt a lot more comfortable after bathing and eating. A pint at the bar and an actual mattress to sleep on finished the day wonderfully! Here's the blog that I wrote from my phone whilst trekking:
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Two milestones were passed today, I left Cornwall behind and entered the rolling countryside of Devon, and I passed the 100 mile mark. There's not a great deal to say about today except the sun shined wonderfully all day, a bit too much on my shoulders, and the scenery was pleasant if unremarkable. Most of the day I walked quiet country lanes with hardly a car passing each half hour. After a foundering start this morning where I backtracked more than a mile to find a shop and an inexplicable awful nights sleep I ended up making good progress heading east from Bude and finishing in Great Torrington. A cheap B&B and a big rice and chicken dinner at an Indian restaurant will hopefully set me up for another good day tomorrow. I have a theory that last nights poor sleep and my lethargy this morning were down to undereating so have eaten like a horse all day. We'll see tomorrow if it helps!
Daily stats
Start - Bude
Finish - Great Torrington
Mileage - 20.5 miles/33km (excluding shopping detour)
Sleeping - B&B in the upstairs of a local pub
That's all folks ;-)
if you want to see the original blog it is here but I rather hope you choose to follow me instead. Thanks Steemians!
wow, Interesting journey so far! I'm enjoying the read. That's a good deal of millage per day you put in. Is it a once in a lifetime endeavor or is it somewhat regular for you to walk an entire country? also, wow much did your gear weight? I'm sure that long of a journey needs supplies adding to the task.
I'm glad your enjoying the journey! there's plenty more to come and, in my opinion, it gets more interesting and scenic later on. This was definitely not normal for me, it was life changing. This was a real departure from the norm for me, it was time to stop doing what people wanted and expected of me and do something because I wanted to even if it made no sense to family and friends. I immensely enjoyed the experience overall even though it was tough at times.
My pack was about 24kg at the start if I recall correctly... I soon learnt that I didn't need everything and weight was my enemy. Slimmed it down to 18kg after 1 week!
haha 24 kg that's heavy...I guess it teaches a lesson on extra baggage in your life afterwords too. Sometimes we do things that doesn't make sense to the ones around us. Nobody understood why I moved across the country and went the path I did. They don't have to understand, it's your journey!
Great. Thanks for sharing. I'm starting to follow you.
That's great, thanks for reading