I woke up the next morning feeling tired, poor sleep, but I wanted to beat that ridge above Sella. I was late setting off, about 10am, and didn’t hit the track until nearly 11. I took the same route but this time after a quarter of a mile I noticed a faint path up to the right. No yellow and white stripes though. After a climb of a few hundred feet I saw the first sign. This was the route I should have taken yesterday! The path broadened to a track and the signs started again.

It was another cloudless, hot day in mid-March! Everything went right; I found the road, I found the path up to the ridge and, after a few dead ends, I found the summit and the spectacular views from the five mile length of the ridge.

On the top I came across this fabulous fossil of a shell, thinking that this was a distant cousin of the fossilised shellfish I’d come across round Lyme Regis six months before. Then I saw these prints in the hard earth, which must have been mud at the time the beast ran over it. Wild Boar or wild goat? An hour later I spooked a herd of wild goats and they leapt spectacularly over a ridge between two gorges on the mountain side. I’m blessed to be able to afford to come here and spend time to get in the mountains and to see such beautiful sights, and to have such a lovely wife who understands and supports my need to do it (when she’s not kicking me pissed out of the car!).

I really enjoyed the ridge but getting down was more problematic. Over the back the mountain drifted down through terraces full of flowers and almond trees in blossom. Piece of (almond) cake.

However I needed to come back down to Sella and it was late afternoon so I needed to find the scree slope down the eastern side, which was much steeper. I walked over the sharpest limestone pavement I’ve covered in my life, and the boots Adam gave me stood up to this toughest task. Then I found the route through to the 2,000 foot scree slope which tumbled down to the road to Sella. The photos don’t give a clear impression of the steepness of these rock walls and scree slopes, but they’re lovely anyway!

If you ever do this walk don’t rely on the yellow/white stripes. They stop halfway up and halfway down, and they’re neither up nor down – boom boom! Seriously, the stripes leave you having to climb down quite intimidating rock faces which for experienced climbers are a piece of cake but for people like me who walk, they’re much more difficult. But what a great day and what a fabulous experience.

Me and Maggie came to Benidorm on 26 February, staying in a great Aparthotel on the Platje Poniente side of the resort and out of the way up the hill a bit. We’re lucky to have chosen this place. We’re even luckier to have chosen that date for our holiday from a weather point of view. The first two weeks were beautiful, up to 27c, and we loafed around in the sun and ate well in the hotel and in restaurants in the hills and down in town. It’s great this time of year, without the crowds and the hotel being mostly empty.

Maggs went home for a week and I got the opportunity to walk up into the higher mountains. My first walk was from Sella, a small village clinging to the side of one of the highest and longest ridges in the region. I intended to climb up it and walk the length of it along the top of the ridge.

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The sun was hot and I had enough water to manage the walk. I followed the way marked path up a valley but the markings, usually a yellow and white painted stripe, disappeared. The path ended up at a deserted house and then petered out. I knew I should be over hills to my right to regain the route but the ancient terraces on the hillsides were high and difficult to climb up. I wondered why the Moors who built the terraces 600 years ago didn’t build paths to let farmers access each terrace easily. Later in the day I saw farmers carrying light ladders made from tree branches. So that’s how they do it!

The route I chose seemed to steer me West when I wanted to cut up North. When I aimed North there always seemed to be a barrier of gorse or pine trees clotted together so thickly that I couldn’t get through. I finally ended up on a col looking down towards Alicante and back towards the hills above Benidorm. Stunning views from alpine meadows with almond trees in blossom on the terraces.

I had veered off course a lot and scrambled up and over the crest to the North, climbing over farm fencing on the terraces to finally make it to a road that I should have hit a couple of miles back. Nevertheless the views had been worth it. I dropped down to the bottom of the ridge that towers above Sella and tried to reach the top, but again the way markings disappeared and I ended up forcing my way through thick pine forest and gorse which tore at my legs and arms. At least the forest gave shade from the scorching sun.

I tried for three hours to get through, until the sun was falling. Again when I could get to the edge of the rising ridge the views were fabulous.

Reluctantly I turned round, scrambled down the way I had come and made for Sella. En route I found the elusive path and made a note for another day.

The next training session was a walk from Lodge Moor on the outskirts of Sheffield over Stanage Edge to Hathersage in the Peak District. I got the train to Sheffield and walked up to my sister Deb’s (aka Che) place. She’s Che because I had a Che Guevara T shirt in the 60’s and she nicked it and wore it so much that folk called her Che. She couldn’t wear it now due to slight expansion in the arse and belly departments but nothing too drastic.

The three of us me, Che and her dog, got a bus up to Lodge Moor and set off to walk over to Stanage via Wyming Brook and Rivelin. It bucketed it down and to say I was not sufficiently prepared would be an understatement. I got soaked as did Che and pooch. We struggled on for a bit but it was getting worse and wetter so we turned back to Lodge Moor and The Three Merry Lads, which looked inviting in the bleak surroundings.

There’s a long-standing family connection which I was unaware of that my paternal grandfather supped here when the family lived at Ringinglow over the moors and in very poor conditions in the city centre.

We felt the warmth of the welcome with a sign indicating that a single brandy was £2.60 and a double was only £2.00. We drank a bit and had a laugh before getting the bus down town and carrying on drinking in the Grapes on Trippet Lane. To tell the truth I don’t drink spirits much and I got well oiled.  Che walked with me down to the station where I’d arranged to meet my daughter Juliet, who looked horrified to see me. She helped me to the train as I tripped a few times and fell asleep next to an old dear in an aisle seat, opposite one of Juliet’s University chums. Jet told her mate I’d been to a party – it was 5.30 in the afternoon.

Maggie picked us up at Leeds station and dropped off Jet at her boyfriend’s place before getting frustrated with me being drunk and obnoxious and chucking me out of the car. I was still sozzled with no money (I’d left it in my rucksack in the car when I huffed off) and five miles from home. I stumbled into the night through Hyde Park to the Hyde Park pub and off down Melville Road and up through Buslingthorpe Lane to Scott Hall Road. It might not mean owt to out of towners but in the dark these places can be quite intimidating to the faint-hearted and as a staggering late middle-aged man I would represent a helpless victim. Doesn’t it brass you off that when you’ve had a few the pavement moves up and down? You step down much further than you thought it was, and stumble forward, or the pavement zooms up to meet your foot, and you fall back a bit. I had my German penknife in my pocket that the German MD gave me at my leaving do last year so I felt confident. A ridiculous old fart in a ridiculous state with a ridiculous sense of invulnerability.

Meanwhile Maggie had felt sorry for me and was combing the streets in the car, looking for a stumbling bundle of drunkenness. She didn’t find me, neither did Georgie and Adam who also drove around on lookout duty. I got home and tried to keep my dignity. Long lost at the bottom of a bottle.

My second bout of training was taking a train to Sheffield, on to Edale and scrambling up Kinder Scout in the snow. I stayed overnight wid kid so I had an earlyish start. I’d bought some snow grips for my boots and they worked a treat. Two geysers went a pisser on the way down but I overtook them with ease. I only saw eight walkers all day.
It was tough getting to the top and for those who don’t know it the top is a plateau of 12 square miles of unspoilt wilderness with deep canyons winding their way through peat making navigation without clear sky or compass difficult. There are Arctic Hares on the top which change to pure white in winter to camouflage themselves in the snow. There are bits of planes dotted about the plateau that have crashed there over the last eighty years, including the remnants of a a US Superfortress that crashed with 13 crew on board in fog. No chance for the poor little buggers and when you stand in the middle of chunks of metal on a bleak day looking across the moor towards Glossop you really wonder what the point is. Only young Yankee kids carrying mail home. Well it didn’t make it and neither did they. Neither did three Boy Scouts on 15 March 1964 when the weather turned bad. It’s an unforgiving place but I love roaming over it. It’s got summat.

I wanted to cross the plateau to Kinder Downfall, a 30 metre waterfall that ices into an amazing Leviathan in winter, but the snow was very deep on top. I thought I could walk up the canyons with the streams being frozen, giving a solid surface, but there were too many deep drifts in the way.

I tried for four hours. I found somebody’s tracks and tried to walk in them to stop plunging up to my snowjones with every draining step. They were a few days old but were the only sign of anyone getting across. I just couldn’t do it. The tracks kept disappearing and I was beginning to get concerned about the light as it was afternoon by now and 4pm was shutdown for certain. I turned round and thought if I aimed for the sun it would bring me to the plateau edge just west of where I needed to be at the top of Grindsbrook. I wasn’t worried, just being wise for a change. It was a right trek. As on the back end of Ingleborough I ended up swimming on the top of the snow for part of the way to avoid sinking in.

I was glad to get to the edge of the plateau and have footsteps to walk in. It’s difficult but it’s lovely you know.

I dropped down Grindsbrook and made it before dark to a pub by the station in Edale that I got chucked out of 44 years ago for singing ‘the Red Flag’ on a Sunday. They didn’t recognise me so I got served and then got the train home to a warm fire and a warm missus. Retirement’s alright you know.

Hello dear family and friends, I’m sat in an Irish bar in a soaking wet Benidorm looking through my Southwest blog with misty eyes and itchy feet. I’ve been thinking about another walk since the last one finished but I’ve prevaricated between Spain, Corsica, Southwest England -again- and Scotland. I’ve been told since I was a kid that my blood on both sides of the family went back to a white diagonal cross on a blue background and the sound of bagpipes (perhaps as a consequence) has always brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. Cyclops. So it’s Scotland where I’m bound and I might even get myself a kilt. I’m looking at getting a train, bus, ferry and 4×4 bus to Cape Wrath, the most northwesterly point on the GB mainland, and walking 300 miles through the highlands down to Glasgow, getting a boat to the Isle of Man and walking 100 miles round that before coming home. This covers some of the most remote places in the UK. Thankfully Andrew is going to join me for at least a week so if I conk out during that time at least someone knows where the body is.

I’ve done a bit of training. Early in February I took the train to Ribblesdale and did two of the three Yorkshire Peaks. I got to Ribblesdale station at about 7am and found it deserted with a heated waiting room. The snow was a foot deep and I hadn’t slept well so I got my head down on a wooden bench and slept for an hour. Setting off through the snow I made it eventually up Whernside, it’s fearsome reputation being fully earned under snow that my feet would sometimes float across and on occasions sink into up to my cojones. Early on my feet sunk down to an under-snow stream and my boots filled with freezing water.

Ingleborough was a swine. Without ice grips on my boots I was slipping all over on the climb up and the snow was so thick I had to swim down the other side to avoid the exhaustion of continuously dragging my legs out of deep snow. I loved it.

I began to make progress toward Horton in Ribblesdale and got a great view of the awesome Pen Y Ghent on the skyline.

Twelve hours after setting off I finally rolled up at Horton station. A great walk. Loved it but my feet were still soaking and freezing and it took a couple of hours in front of the fire to get them back. Great training.