A New Challenge

In 2017 - I know, that's a long time ago now - we were unable to go on our usual holiday due to personal circumstances. We needed to be closer to home that year, instead of all the way up in the far north of Scotland. So instead, we chose to walk Hadrian's Wall, the official National Trail path.

For the first two days we returned home at night, which shows how close it was, but after that, we took the motorhome and stayed overnight. We had hoped there would be a bus from the end point each day back to the vehicle, but sadly that didn't materialise. So a compromise was in order: OH dropped me off at the start each day, he then drove to the end and walked back (complete with dog) to meet me. This had the odd effect of me walking the whole way and him walking half of it twice - once in each direction!

Nevertheless, we completed the trail in eight days, ending on July 20th 2017.

Me, at the end of the walk

20th July 2017

As a teenager, I had wanted to walk the Pennine Way and begged my father to take me, complete with tent. At that time, there were no other National Trails, the Pennine Way was the first and was put on the list in the mid 1960s. When you consider that we didn't own a tent and that tents in those days were made of heavy canvas, not to mention the food we'd have to take, it was not really a surprise that we never managed to do it. I think Dad hoped I'd forget about it, but it is now definitely on my bucket list.

Between completing Hadrian's Wall in 2017 and late January the following year, I had the bright idea that I wanted to walk not just the Pennine Way, but all the National Trails. There are 15 of these, or nineteen, depending whether you count the four original trails in Scotland. In alphabetical order, these are:

·        Cleveland Way in England

·        Cotswold Way in England

·        Glyndŵr's Way in Wales

·        Hadrian's Wall Path in England

·        North Downs Way in England

·        Offa's Dyke Path in Wales and England

·        Peddar's Way and Norfolk Coast Path in England (treated as a single National Trail)

·        Pembrokeshire Coast Path in Wales

·        Pennine Bridleway in England (bridleway)

·        Pennine Way mainly in England with a short distance in Scotland

·        The Ridgeway in England (mostly bridleway/restricted byway/byway)

·        South Downs Way in England (bridleway)

·        South West Coast Path (South West Way) in England—the UK's longest

·        Thames Path in England

·        Yorkshire Wolds Way in England

The four Scottish walks are: 

·        The Great Glen Way

·        The Speyside Way

·        The Southern Upland Way

·        The West Highland Way

I have already completed the Great Glen Way (twice, in fact - once in 2004 and once in 2006). Interestingly, if you like collecting badges and certificates, both are available from the National Trails organisation (https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/) for each of the trails. And there are other certificates available from the Long Distance Walkers Association too (https://www.ldwa.org.uk/). You do not have to be a member to collect these but you do need to apply on their official form. They cluster the walks and award bronze, silver, gold and diamond lever certificates for completing five, then, fifteen and nineteen trails respectively .The nineteen obviously includes the four walks in Scotland. So far, I have completed four so I'm well on the way to obtaining my bronze certificate - shame I can't add them to my CV, as a CV is somewhat superfluous when you don't work for an employer.

There is one other trail to be added and indeed parts of it are already available - Britain's Coastal Path. It is 2,800 miles long and I'm not sure I will ever manage to do that one, but as it wasn't included when I decided to start this challenge, I won't feel too bad about not including it in my walking list.

Finally, while I really want to do all these trails and earn my certificates, it does not mean my walking will be confined solely to National Trails. There are plenty of other long distance walks to do - just see the LDWA Handbook for a long list of what's available, not to mention shorter walks that might take a day or two to complete. I don't intend to neglect these while doing the others!

In 2018, I set off in early February to tackle the Cleveland Way, again keeping close to home for personal reasons. Day one was beautiful. I set off from Helmsley in lovely sunshine and arrived at the Visitor Centre at the top of Sutton Bank in equally lovely sunshine.

The little market town of Helmsley where the Cleveland way officially starts

12th February 2018

The next day was completely different - we arrived at Sutton Bank to find it was snowing heavily! What a difference a day makes! Having asked advice from the people at the Centre, we decided to abandon the walk for the day, or until the snow stopped and cleared. After all, the path wended its way along a cliff top and the wind was blowing from land to the open space over the edge of the cliff.

And therein lies a long tale. It was nearly two years before I got back to it, due to those same personal circumstances. Eventually, in 2020 I was ready to start again - then lockdown happened. At first it was all confusion about whether you could travel for a walk or not. That was clarified with 'yes you can, as long as you walk for longer (in time) than you drive'. Well that was a green light then - drive an hour, walk for five or six! But with more lockdowns looming and work commitments limiting our time, it was a bit hit and miss. I finally finished the whole route on May 29th 2022! A whole four years and four months after starting. 

The end of the Cleveland Way

29th May 2022

The route had been a walk of two halves - the first part across the actual Cleveland Hills, the second part being along the coast or rather, along the "roller coaster" of a trail. There were steep descents followed within feet by steep ascents to regain the top of the cliff. And they were frequent. Honestly, I was glad to finish as the last part had been a long slow slog. It didn't help that I had caught Covid in January and seemed to have several residual effects from that - lethargy, tiredness, racing pulse rate for not much effort and so on. I'm still having issues with my sense of taste and smell - not that that had any bearing on the walking, but the tiredness and racing pulse rate did. Doing the walks did me the world of good health-wise.

However, if I take four years for each walk then I'm not going to complete the list of National Trails till I'm over 120! Now fully recovered from Covid, we decided to get on with it and on June 1st, OH asked if I wanted to start the Yorkshire Wolds Way the following day. Having just completed the Cleveland Way the previous weekend, I hadn't expected that suggestion, but I jumped at the chance. So the first walk recorded in this blog/diary will be the Yorkshire Wolds Way, from Hessle just on the outskirts of Hull, to Filey Brigg - a total of 79 miles.