I’ve been thinking about doing something different on this one and I was thinking about the Naked Rambler. You know the bloke – walks all over the UK with his tackle out. Anyway I thought what’s he got that I haven’t got? 

I’m sat in the clubhouse of the Sango Sands campsite with a beautiful beach and headland out of the window. 

I’ve got my boots, hat and shirt on a radiator. It’s a long story.

It was ok in Inverness last night. I went to a pub looking over the river and had a beer and a plate of haggis with neeps and tatties, with a rich whisky sauce. It doesn’t get much better. Then I walked round the old town, small and with lots of rundown pubs but a couple of lively joints. I went back to the b&b for an early one, passing a chippy on the way that did fried haggis for £2 so I got a takeout. There aren’t many places on this walk so I’m stocking up on the carbos and fat. It’s a strict regime. I watched The Island in bed at the b&b and saw the state of the lads who hadn’t eaten much for a week so I’m making a pre-emptive strike on starvation. 

What a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast. I got the 10.40 train up the coast, passing lochs with gas or oil platforms.

The train stopped at hundreds of stations, well at least 10, and the two just before Lairg were described over the tannoy as ‘request stops’. I’d no idea how to request a stop but it stopped anyway and the bus to Durness was waiting in the car park.

I’ve never been on a bus before where one of the three passengers , an old lady, can request a 12 mile detour to go to a ladies toilet! That’s customer service. The road was single track for forty miles through the glens, and I passed some of the routes that I was going to take.  

When we got to Durness I felt that we were at the northern limit. It’s beautiful mind but savage in one go. I found Sango Sands, pitched Wilson and took my fishing rod down the cliffs. I’d casted my line three or four times and one of the biggest waves in recent history bashed against the pillar of rock I was stood on and absolutely soaked me head to freaking toe.

I’ve got my boots, hat and shirt on a radiator. It’s a long story.

I hope the ferry’s operating in the morning.  According to the bus driver the military were still on manoeuvres yesterday and there were a few RAF planes zooming over but as we passed the ferryman’s van was out and about. We’ll see. Night night.

Well I’m here in Inverness after changing trains twice and spending an hour wandering up and down Princes Street in Edinburgh. What a place. I didn’t realise that it was so beautiful. Edinburgh that is, but Inverness as well. Coming out of Waverley station, snuggled deeply in the valley running under the castle, it’s absolutely stunning. The blossom and flowers are out in Princes Park and a piper plays in the warm distance. The sun shines through a thin haze and the world is relaxed. My pack is comfortable on my shoulders and back – at 16kgs – and I’ve kept most of my weight off so I’m carrying nearly 15kgs less than when I started the South West path.  Here’s Princes Park this lunchtime.

The castle still broods in the sun behind this statue of the painter Allan Ramsay. 

Sir Walter Scott loafs around underneath his monument.

And the Firth of Forth shines forth.

Past Pitlochry the first snow shows itself in the mountains.

I’ll sleep well tonight and look forward to getting a big step closer to my starting point tomorrow.

Night night. 

I will blog mid-next week when I’m in/on my way to Bonnie Scotland. I’m spending next Wednesday at a B&B in Inverness then taking the train up to Lairg and a bus to Durness (only one a day). The next morning I’m getting the ferry across the Kyle of Durness and a bus across MoD land to Cape Wrath to start my walk. If the ferry is out due to bad weather (quite frequent) then I’ll have to walk round and stay overnight in the cafe on the Cape, open 24 hours 365 days a year. The RAF is on manoeuvres and currently dropping 1000 lb bombs on the Cape – the only place in Europe where bombs of that size can be dropped – but the lady at the MoD reckons they will finish early. Hope so otherwise I’ll have to wait another day.

The first day I’ll get down to Sandwood Bay and camp on the beach. Then it’s a nine day slog across mostly wilderness until Andrew joins me at the first rail station en route – Achnashellach. I’ve had a cold so not doing any training at the moment but did walk 11 miles the other day with Antonia up Pen y Ghent and on to Ribblehead. I like it round there. It keeps drawing me back.

It was Antonia’s 22nd birthday last week. Old Git.

Pity she’s up to her eyes in MSc otherwise she might join me. Still, great that Andrew’s coming. Should be near Fort William when Andrew goes back then I’ll do the West Highland Way up Ben Nevis and down through the Great Glen to Milngavie where I get a train home on 19th May. I’m hoping to take Wilson if the weather isn’t looking too cold or windy and stay some nights in bothies in the back of beyond and maybe one or two B&Bs. I’ll be doing 320 miles but the problem is that there isn’t much of a path from Cape Wrath. I’ve bought a GPS so that’s good, I should be able to locate where I am even in zero visibility. I’m travelling light so no room for clothes.

I’ll stay on this blogsite but sometimes there’s no signal for days so blogs may be intermittent. Apologies in advance.

Excited and wary. It’s billed as the toughest long distance walk in the British Isles, that includes Attercliffe Common to Wicker Arches so it must be tough.

For my Gashead mates there’s a ditty to the tune of Home, Home on the Range (which mimics a Blades song) for your delectation and delight.

No S*** fans in town,                                                                                                                                                          

Ashton Gate has been washed out to sea,                                                                                                                              

Danny Wilson is dead, and the (shi) Teds have fled,                                                                                                              

And the year is 1883.

May my coarseness bring you pleasure. Please don’t go the play-off route. Blades doing it will be bad enough.

Laters.

There is a mountain behind Benidorm called Puig Campana which, as you can see from the photo below (taken from the internet), can even get some snow coverage. It’s 200 feet higher than Ben Nevis. I wanted to climb this beauty and one of the waiters in the hotel, Xabi, said he’d come with me. Sadly our chosen day was a washout with torrential rain which would have made the whole ascent very iffy.

A couple of days later the weather cleared enough for me to drive up to the springs of Moli, beautiful fresh water pouring out of the mountain at hundreds of gallons a minute, and park the car. Xabi was off that day but I couldn’t get hold of him. We’ll walk it together next year. There is a route which goes up to the left of the mountain, as you look at the photo above, skirts up to a ridge at the back and then it’s a steep slog up tracks, scree and rock faces to the summit on the right of the photo. It’s not difficult it’s just hard going.

On the top of the peak to the left if you look closely you can see a chunk taken out of the top. Legend has it that Roldan, a local giant, had a lover Alda who was fated to die when the last of the sun’s rays shone on her. Roldan cut out part of the mountain so that the sun would take longer to set and give Alda a few moments longer to live. The chunk was kicked out into the Mediterranean and became the island off Benidorm which appears in my last blog. I love that story. It must be true. Only the power of love could make a bloke that strong, even if he’s a giant. It’s like women capable of lifting trucks off their children.

It reminds me of the legend of the origin of Lough Neagh, a huge lake outside Belfast near where I worked in Lurgan, which was allegedly formed by a legendary Irish hunter/warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill (or Finn MacCool). When he was chasing a Scottish rival from Ireland’s shores he lifted a huge lump of soil and rock and hurled it at his retreating foe. The soil was thrown so hard that it landed in the middle of the Irish Sea and became the Isle of Man, while the gaping hole left behind soon filled with water and formed Lough Neagh. It’s true. Pat Mallon told me.

When I left the car the mountain was brooding in the clouds.

The walk was fantastic with great views inland and when I finally rounded the back of the summit there were thin patches of snow in the sheltered northern gullies.

The climb up to the col between the left and right summits was tough but the last few hundred feet was an easy walk following the yellow and white stripes, which had disappeared halfway up the mountain but now reappeared as if by the magic of Roldan the Giant. I think the stripes disappear just before you’re going to get to a difficult section so that the originator can’t be sued for leading you to your death.

The view from the top was masked by thick, freezing cloud.

However the cloud parted to the north east giving me a brief glimpse of the view past my old mate Serra Bernia, past Altea and on to the highest cliff in the entire Mediterranean next to Calpe – Ifach, seen in the distance as a stand alone tower of rock. At 1000 feet high it looks huge from below (and even bigger from the top of the cliff) but it is actually dwarfed by Puig Campana, as I was standing at 4,600 feet.

Coming down the stripes disappeared and I went astray, coming down to a 30 foot drop, which I managed to get down by clinging on to a tree growing next to it, and then boot-skiing down a long scree slope. At the col I turned right, instead of going back the way I had come, going 360 degrees round the mountain back to Moli. The views below the cloud line were great and I came upon this pine tree, being the only one I’ve ever seen with an Afro.

I drank stacks of water from the springs at Moli, sweet as a mountain stream. Well, actually it was a mountain stream. Sweet anyway.

Cheers me dears. Laters. Blog from England next on my plans.

I have to say that Maggie wasn’t to blame for my eviction over the drunk in the car episode. She has put up with a fool for years and has the patience of a saint. Thank you darling. I brought it all on my stupid self.

We love Spain at this time of year. It’s full of oranges in orange trees, lemons in lemon trees and both oranges and lemons in a halfway house.

Over the past forty years we’ve come to different parts of Spain in December, February, March, April and May, from Madrid to Majorca to Mojacar to the Costa Blanca. We’ve eaten some of the world’s best seafood in places where the toilet is a hole in the concrete floor and you squat to release your doo dah on to the mountainside below holding on to crates of San Miguel for support. Sorry – that’s a bit graphic for tea time but we just love places that you wouldn’t normally consider going to. This year we returned to a favourite of ours, driving inland over the mountains to a place called Parcent where there is an out of town restaurant called La Piscina. So called because it has a Piscina (swimming pool) full of mud coloured water, lilies and big fish. The starter is in the back room, a big help-yourself salad buffet in a huge open-topped fridge. It’s heavenly. I always have rabbit with garlic for main and Maggie usually has lamb on the bone. Thanks Martin and Linda Baverstock for letting us stay at your house in Calpe over the years. It’s beautiful and we enjoyed seeing you in Leeds this weekend. One of Martin’s nicknames is Bear – we’ve seen your bar in Beni mate!

This year we’ve eaten some great meals at very cheap prices. Thanks exchange rate! We’ve found a real gem, Isa and Toni’s place at Sella in the main village square. The food is traditional country Spanish and it’s great. Today we stayed in Benidorm and wandered around the old town. To our astonishment and delight we found the Calle de Santo Domingo, a street specialising in tapas joints which rival those we’ve come across in Madrid and elsewhere. The middle of Beni and it’s a centre for the real McCoy!

We went to one place for a few bits and pieces, then next door for a bowl of snails in chili sauce and then down the street for a plate of fried quails’ legs and a bowl of baby eels (sort of) great, great, great.

Problem is Benidorm sets itself up by being so commercial in half of it, and summer will be unbearable. But where can you find a seafront restaurant charging £8 for a four course meal including wine and with a view like this?

We’ll be back same time next year. No problem. Maybe same apartment in the hotel with this view.

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.