Drawn (badly) to the North

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.