Category Archives: Walking

John O’Groats to Lybster

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Today started with breakfast and picking up our packed lunch and we said goodbye to the Seaview Hotel. Just about to start walking and the rain started – so on with the waterproofs. Luckily the rain didn’t last for long but the cold wind persisted so the waterproofs stayed on for a while longer. Eventually the sun put in an appearance which was most welcome.

The road was reasonably quiet – bursts of traffic on the other side which we presumed was traffic from the Orkney ferries. We kept walking, through Freswick and Auckengill with some wonderful scenery to keep us company.

Next up was a ruined castle – Keiss Castle which stands on sheer cliffs overlooking Sinclair’s Bay. The castle was built in the late 16th century by George Sinclair, 5th Earl of Caithness. The large house in the picture is Keiss House, a category B listed baronial mansion that is in private ownership and not open to the public

Continuing on our way, through Reiss and into Wick. Noticeable along the way were the numerous memorials to fallen soldiers. Lunch stop in Wick, in the salubrious surroundings of a Poundstretcher car park and then off again for the second half of the days walking

Past Thrumster and Ulbster, finally the sea was in view again and we could see the Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm dominating the horizon

The Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm is in the Moray Firth and 13km off the coast. This is the fourth largest offshore wind farm in the world and cost approx. £2.6bn to build. It has 84 turbines and generates enough power for 450,000 homes.

More scenery, many more fields of sheep, cows and even Llamas (or Aplaca – who knows) and through Mid Clyth, Occumster, passing a very lonely cemetery and finally into Lybster and the Portland Hotel.

Today was a long day – 49.2km and over 56,000 steps but good to get day one under our belt. Being Sunday, breakfast isn’t too early tomorrow, so probably setting off for Brora (approx. 53km) around 0830 in what will be an even longer day.

At time of writing, total donations are at £29,105 – thanks to all who have donated.

And finally, thanks to Phillip Leigh and Pop-Up Property, for kindly sponsoring todays leg

A morning of “mosts”

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Here are some photos from when we arrived in John O’Groats last night.

Today is our final day of rest before starting out tomorrow morning.  Interesting how hotels interpret Covid regulations – we ordered breakfast (ticking items of a list) the night before and it was all set out on our table at 7:30 this morning. Given that we have another 29 hotels to stay in on the walk it will be fun to see what they all do for breakfast.

The day started out with nice sunshine but a very cold wind so we headed off to see a couple of Lighthouses.

This is Duncansby Head Lighthouse – built on the most north easterly point of the British mainland in 1924 by David A Stevenson (of Robert Stevenson decent) – it stands only 11 meters high but is 67 meters above sea level. This is one of 200 Lighthouses located on Scotland’s wild coastline.

Then we headed west to Dunnet Head Lighthouse – built on the most northerly point of the British Mainland in 1831 by Robert Stevenson – it stands 20 meters high but is 105 meters above sea level.

On the way back to John O’Groats we passed by the Castle of Mey. It, and its gardens, were closed so just a couple of long range photos. The castle was built between 1566 and 1572 by George Sinclair the 4th Earl of Caithness. The castle was used as an officers’ rest home during the Second World War and by 1950 only the tower was inhabitable. In 1952 Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother purchased the estate. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall usually stay there at the end of July, otherwise it is open to the public during summer months.

A need for some coffee and cake took us into the metropolis of Wick where we found Wickers World and a large selection of cakes.

Currently our sponsorship total stands at over £28k which is an amazing total. Hopefully more will flood in as we progress south!

The day before the rest day

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Today was an reasonably early start at Gatwick for our Easyjet flight to Inverness. There was an Impressive amount of hand sanitizer stations at Gatwick. The flight was very full, probably because BA had cancelled our flight from Heathrow a few weeks ago. 

Flight was very uneventful and thankfully all bags arrived on the carrousel in good time. As part of being good corporate citizens we are going to take a photo of ourselves outside HSBC branches wherever they are on our route. The Inverness branch is the most northern so we ticked that one off the to do list.

Then the long drive from Inverness to John O’Groats along the A9 (looks like some scary walking moments coming up on Sunday/Monday) and then the A99 (not quite so bad) and arrived at the Seaview Hotel.

The hotel is clean, dinner was very nice and the view from the dining room of the Orkneys is spectacular (Pictures in tomorrows blog entry). Interesting sign on my bathroom door! Then I just had to try the local brewery ale – a very nice drop it must be said.

Snowdon Horseshoe

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Final day in Snowdonia and the plan was to do the Snowdon Horseshoe – often described as the best ridge route in Wales.

We (Tom Lawfield & I) took the bus from Nant Peris to Pen-y-Pass and started up the Pyg Path to where it splits in two and then started the ascent of Crib Goch (923m) – a lovely climb made all the more fun by feeling like we were ascending a waterfall it was that wet. Once past the summit the Arete begins – not difficult at all (grade 1) but not for the faint hearted! Unfortunately it wasn’t a day for “action” shots on the Arete due to the rain and clouds and potentially slippery rocks!

Once past the first tower on the Arete we descended and took a path along that took us just below the summit of Garnedd Ugain (Crib-y-Ddysgl – 1065m) And joined the top of the miners path which took us to the summit of Snowdon. As per every visit of mine to the summit – wind, rain / snow and no view!

From here we descended a decent portion of the Watkins Path until it was time to leave the path and head up to the summit of Y Lliwed (898m). George Mallory undertook many of his early climbs here. It was also the site of considerable training activity for the 1953 British Everest Expedition. From a view that looks very imposing in terms of reaching the summit it was actually a relatively easy scramble (maybe grade 0.3!) to reach the top. We then carried along the right to Lliwed Bach (818m) before heading down (sometimes steep, sometimes slippery, sometimes both) to the Miners Path and exited out back to Pen-y-Pass

Now I’ll rest until Thursday when we fly up to Inverness for the start of our great adventure

Fruit and Nuts

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Today was our final training walk and our first back-to-back walk since Lake Zurich last September. 40k yesterday in light drizzle was followed by no rain at all and no sun but the humidity was definitely draining. 40k today was our target, starting from Hutton and wandering the country lanes via Ingatestone, Stock, Doddinghurst and Mountnessing (there are many more I missed). Amazing the sheer variety of fruit, nuts and berries in the hedgerows (again more but forgot to photograph them).

Plenty of traffic out today with the vast majority very polite and giving us plenty of room. There’s always a few who decide the road is for cars only and give no space at all – kept us amused with swear words and hand gestures!

Finally as we passed Buttsbury ford (where a local was bathing/swimming his horse earlier this year on a previous walk) a local taxi driver obviously didn’t believe the “deep water” signs!

Anyway, 40k done today, no bad aches or pains and we’re in good shape for the adventure to come

Final Buckinghamshire Training Walk

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Feels unreal that in 2 weeks time we will have completed the first leg of our epic adventure!

Today’s plan was 40k around Gerrards Cross and surrounding area with a view to going over to Brentwood tomorrow morning for the final final training walk and do another 40k.

Started out raining and had an hour or so of rain / no rain take coat off / bugger its raining again – luckily after that it stayed dry for the rest of our walk.

Our route took us through Gerrards Cross for a Nero coffee then down to the newly pedestrianised Lower Road to Chalfont St Peter and then back past Denham Golf Club to the A40. From there through Hedgerley, Stoke Poges, Fulmer and back to Gerrards Cross.

Owl’s Hoot Farm

Paul catching up after pee stop

Hedgerley

River Misbourne

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

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Today we continued our training for the big walk. We knew the weather would be hot so was a good chance to test our endurance.

Paul, Mike and I started from Hornchurch and walked through St Andrews Park 7.5 acres which won a gold award in Park of the Year, London in Bloom 2019.

Next up was the ex-RAF Hornchurch which was operational 1928 to 1962 and is now Hornchurch Country Park – numerous pillboxes, command bunkers and gun positions still exist. The airfield is said to be haunted and was the subject of a paranormal investigation in 2004

 Over the Rainham Marshes, via the Concrete Barges. These are concrete, iron-rod reinforced boats from WWII. Apparently these were made because steel was in short supply and were towed across the channel to create artificial harbors for the Normandy landings – each one weighed 160 tons! In 1953 they were used to shore up the flood defenses in the Thames estuary and have remained there ever since.

 The building on the other side of the river is the Dartford Creek Barrier. Paul and I discovered this on a walk last February. There is no bridge on the creek so it requires a detour of almost 6km to a bridge and then 6km back to the other side of the creek. As it was very windy and wet it was an interesting detour. Today we just looked at if from afar!

End of the outward leg was the RSPB nature reserve of nearly 5 sq km (an ex Ministry of Defence test firing range). It did seem though that all the birds (thousands of them) were in the river rather than the reserve!

Then back the way we came taking a detour through Upminster and skirted a cricket pitch which was in use.

Finally back at the start where the words from Noel Cowards song “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” were never more relevant as the day was, according to Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam, “Hotter than a snakes ass in a wagon rut”.

But 39km done in 30+ degree heat was very satisfying, if draining.

Less than 3 weeks to go now.

Training walk – double Box Hill

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Given that some of our proposed days en route from John O’Groats to Lands End are quite lengthy with significant ascent and descent profiles we decided that doing the Box Hill circular walk – https://www.walkingclub.org.uk/walk/box-hill-circular – twice would be good practice. So we set out from Box Hill & Westhumble station on Saturday to do just that. Paul Turrell, Mike Palfreman and myself were joined by Nick Smith, Helena Beddoe and Greg Steel for the first loop.

Welcome sign at the station
Map of the route

Having done this route many times before we knew what to expect – beautiful scenery and some sharp (but mercifully short) ascents and descents and this time we had plenty of rain showers to contend with as well.

At the bottom of Box Hill Paul, Mike & I said goodbye to Nick, Helena and Greg and then turned round and walked straight back up the hill again.

We finished off back at the train station some 6.5 hours after starting off – tired but pleased with our current fitness levels. 32km walked, 1075m of ascent (a full Snowdon worth from sea level!) and approx 37,000 steps. I also burned about 3000 calories (well according to my Apple Watch) and managed a peak heart rate of 169 in places!

5 weeks to go until we start our epic journey from John O’Groats

Box Hill Walk

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Paul, Mike and myself socially distancing at the top of Box Hill on a recent training walk. Helena was with us but was playing photographer that day. In a few weeks we will be doing Box Hill twice back to back in each direction – will be extremely challenging

Crantock Beach Walk

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Was very nice to finally get back to Cornwall after the long lockdown. Crantock Beach looking lovely in the sunset and with the tide on the way out. This was at 8.30pm.