End — to — End, Walking across the UK Part:4

Sometimes you can be a little bit to prepared…

Now… I know I have written before about packing a little bit to much.

Something I believe most backpackers do on their first outing.you have to carry all the rubbish to realise you don’t really want it.

But right now I want to discuss useless gear.

I have been speaking to a lot of people over the last week about the things they have come across in outdoor goods shops that are just downright bizarre.

Some of these things granted I could make an argument for, Items that you may wish to take if you were going on a family holiday and not really looking for that ‘outdoor’ experience that others want, this could include a portable oven, and no, If you think I mean portable cooking stove on a large scale. I mean a full fledged oven.

But ok… maybe you like to cook?

Maybe your going away for a week and your staying in the same place and your a person who enjoys the luxury of an oven, Fine.

And maybe you also need that solar powered fridge. Ok.

You go do you ;)

However…

A collapsable flower vase?

Doggy sleeping bag? (By the way… good luck with that endeavour)

Water bottle shower converters?

The outdoor vortex blender?

Folding camp stove toaster?…

Solar powered hats complete with fan?

Collapsable shot glasses…?

Flashlight can cozie? (because your beer needs light to??)

And my personal favourites (which I didn’t believe existed until I looked it up for myself) a Butane powered Hair curler… and last but certainly not the least bizarre… Hiking heels. Pretty self explanatory but let me give you a picture.

You may at some point in your life have worn hiking sandals? Comfy with good grip and nice to wear when its hot. Now imagine those but as a stiletto heel… I know I’ve been missing that from my life. Am I right ladies ;)

I wouldn’t call myself a high fashion kinda woman, But damn them shoes are ugly.

And a good way to break you ankle.

In the images on the sellers website you have women in shorts pushing wheelbarrows around wearing stiletto hiking sandals…

Huh.

I’m just not quite sureI understand.

Whenever I’ve gone camping- Even if lets say I’m not going walking. Just going for a week long camp somewhere. I never thought ‘oh damn what about my curlers?!’

This was something that I imagined I would have to do without… though now that I think about it I’ve never actually curled my hair. Perhaps these items at simply not meant for me?

I am clearly not the marketers audience.

Either way I found all these things to be so useless and so hilarious that I thought I would share my findings.

Picking up from part 3, I was on the Offas Dyke path with my brother. We were sitting in a charming pub called The Hunters Moon Inn.

The food there is brilliant and it was a welcome break after a rather steep climb. Along the trail, notices lead you to the pub, you can’t miss it.

I got talking to the bartender who, oddly enough, had just graduated from Bangor University, near to my home in Wales. Apparently another bartended, who wasn’t currently at work that evening, was about to go to Hereford College of Art to study the same photography degree I did a few years earlier. Small world. The bartender asked me what the course was like and I told her it was brilliant. I loved my time in Hereford.

We ended up drinking a little bit too much and eventually decided to call it a day. The pub allowed us camp outside on a bit of green and in the morning made us a wonderful breakfast.

We only walked 4 miles that day, not a great walking day but it was good to relax and enjoy the sun. We stopped for the night on the Black Mountains, Black Darren to be precise, about 9 1/2 miles from Hay-on-Wye. As camping spots go this one had good and bad points.

Good — in terms of beauty it’s absolutely fabulous. The view of the hills is stunning and the sky so clear we could see for miles.

Bad — it’s a little windy up there. Well, very windy. So windy in fact that I was sure my tent wasn’t going to be there in the morning. It was also a tad on the cold side.

Despite this, it was still a lovely night and I can’t say I regret camping there. We spent the night talking and eating our dehydrated food packs. It’s funny what tastes good when you’re hungry.

I made a note in my journal about my ankle hurting again. But otherwise I ignored it like a trooper.

We had decided to stay in a campsite in Hay-on-Wye and although we’d only booked in to stay for one night, we loved the place so much we stayed an extra day. We had fun relaxing in our tents and exploring the small book town. We also found a pub (the Three Tuns) that did the most amazing vegetarian pizza with spinach and chickpeas. I didn’t make a note of the campsite’s name, which was a shame; it was also eco friendly, complete with compost toilets. They gave us free wood for our fire and we had great conversation with the campsite owner about her hiking adventures in Scotland.

We also met a hiker called Sid. He had recently finished his second year at university and didn’t have anything to do for the summer so had packed a bag and gone for a walk. He was still walking some time later and seemed to be having a great time. He joined us by the fire for a while and told us about the cows that had troubled him that day. Both his father and grandfather had apparently had near death experiences involving cows. So he was right to be wary of them and was sure that this was how he was going to eventually meet his end. By now, he told us, the cows will have perfected their technique and he’d stand no chance.

We ended up camping just outside of a place called Burfa. It would be my last camp in Wales for my end-to-end trip. Tomorrow I was heading into England.

The place we pitched camp looked like a welcoming bit of forest in the dark but in the light of morning we realised it was someone’s garden and hastened on our way.

We made it Knighton two days later and my brother left me to get a train home. I had enjoyed having someone with me but I was also looking forward to being back on my own, though not just yet.

After I left him, I got on a train and doubled back on myself to go and see an old friend in Hereford. I released many bugs into her lovely clean house, watched a few romantic comedies with her, talked about life then left to return to the trail, starting early the next day to walk to Wenlock Edge, just outside Craven Arms where I set up in a quiet camping spot.

If it hadn’t been for the mass of flies it would have been perfect. There were so many of them that I didn’t dare cook my dinner. I considered lighting my stove in my tent but the thought of my loved ones hearing that I died in such ignominious fashion seemed too ridiculous. I ate some oat bars instead.

I finished reading Peter Pan that night, reflecting that reading this book had destroyed a large part of my childhood. It came up as a suggestion on my Kindle and I’d thought it would be light reading. But from Tinker Bell stumbling home after attending an orgy to Pan killing off the duller members of the Lost Boys, these once-beloved characters were forever changed. In what world, I ask you, is this a children’s book?

I walked to Ironbridge and sat in a café that didn’t seem to want to serve its customers. I had found a great camping spot that was so hidden I felt confident enough to leave my camping gear there and have a wander into town.

Ironbridge reminds me of my childhood, untainted by Tinker Bell’s orgies.

I lived in Birmingham from the ages of 4 to 11 and we used to visit the industrial revolution museum here on family days out. It’s a charming place. Someone I got talking to at the cafe asked me where I was headed next and said he would give me a lift. I turned him down, saying I wanted to walk it the next day and explained what I was doing. He told me I would never make it.

I camped about a mile outside of Youlgreave. There weren’t many good-looking camping spots but I crossed over a small river and found a bit of flat ground surrounded by trees. I was almost in Edale; the start of the Pennine Way, and the trail I was most excited about in England.

The Pennine Way is a national trail in England, with a very small amount in Scotland. It opened in 1965 and the entire trail runs for 267 miles from Edale to Kirk Yetholm, just inside the Scottish border. Although it is not the longest trail in England, it is the toughest and best known. It gets a lot of international traffic, which I was also excited about. All I had to do was walk the small distance from Youlgreave to Edale. Easy enough.

So… I got a bit lost.

The trail I wanted to walk to get into Edale had been closed. So I walked along a road for a while and then found a different walking path to lead me to Edale. The path I was looking for seemed to disappear after a very short while, after which I’m pretty sure I was just trespassing on farmland.

Now here’s where it gets fun. I was trying to get out of the farmland and back onto the road. I don’t enjoy road walking but I thought that I could get to my destination relatively quickly this way. I was only 5 miles from Edale, which I could easily do in 2 hours walking along the roadside.

As I was walking out of the farm I stepped in what I thought was just another patch of mud. It turned out to be a puddle of what I hope was at least 60% mud and only 40% manure. It went right up to my knees. But luckily a rock that cut open my arm nearly the whole way up broke my fall and stopped me falling in completely (I still have a scar). An open wound is just what you want when you’re covered in manure. My trousers were coated with it, especially my right leg, where it I’d been submerged up to my hips, and it had splashed all over my pack. My right arm was also covered as I had tried to catch myself as I fell. My left arm was a little bit better off, but you get the idea…

The fact that my knee and arm were bleeding wasn’t a happy thought but, honestly, the smell was the worst part. It was so bad I wanted to throw up. I used three litres of water to clean myself up as best I could. I concentrated on trying to get my cuts cleared of the stuff; I didn’t want to get an infection.

I needed a shower.

And I needed to wash my clothes.

After pulling myself up I started to walk again. The road walking was easy and there was a small town just up ahead. I needed to buy shampoo as I had long since stopped bothering to carry it (at a campsite I just asked to steal some from other people or used good old fashioned water) but this occasion called for a good clean. I also needed some antiseptic cream. I’d originally had some but had given it to another hiker a few days before. He had an infected blister and needed it more than I did.

The town looked like a relatively small place on my map so I was confident that I could slip in and out with ease.

My confidence was somewhat shattered when I got there.

I felt like I had just walked into a black and white ball in a lime green dress.

I walked into town and into the middle of some sort of festival: one of those very proper town festivals with local cider and women in white dresses. They even had a parade with a children’s beauty pageant, which I found somewhat more repulsive than the manure I was covered with. To say I got a few ‘looks’ would be an understatement.

But such is life.

I walked into the shop, got my shampoo, antiseptic cream and a bottle of water. I had forgotten while trying to get clean that 5 miles is a long way to walk with no water on such a hot day.

Then I went on my way.

I had phoned the YHA hostel in Edale to make sure they had a room and booked myself in.

When I got there I signed in at the desk and asked if they had facilities for people to clean their clothes. The guy at the desk said that they didn’t: the closest launderette was a 20-minute train journey away. Not impossible but not ideal. But he told me to wait and came back to say they could make an exception. He showed me where the laundry room was and said he would leave it unlocked for me to use when I was ready. I went to my room and peeled off my clothes. The muddy manure mix had dried and was crumbling all over the bathroom floor.

I got into the shower, feeling like I could do this for eternity; this was never coming off. When I got out, I lathered my cuts in the cream. I didn’t get an infection, which I’m glad of, but I did keep a close eye on it for the next few days, making sure to clean in a couple of times a day.

When I was finally clean(ish) I went to the laundry room to put my clothes in and headed for the town. There was a pub there that I absolutely had to go to. It was a 2 mile walk but I had been reading about it for far too long to let the distance get in the way.

The Nags Head.

The official start of the Pennine Way.

I had read 5 different books; accounts of people walking this trail, and all of them mentioned this place. I had to go. It had amazing food and amazing beer. The beer made the pain ease a little. It was a quiet night but a lovely end to a… not so lovely day.

I felt thoroughly cheered by the time I wandered back to the hostel.

I slept like a log that night..

Miles walked 499

778 miles to go.