Moffat-Peebles 2011

I’ve just sent out an email to severalteen peeps about the Moffat to Peebles walk , aka Big Jugs Monthly Challenge 2011.

This is by invite and will take place from 15 to 18 April 2011 starting wiht a small celebration in the Bridge Inn in Peebles.

If you would like to enjoy this particular torture, which involves walking 35 miles over Scottish Border Hills, two nights wild(ish) camping and some carousing, and you haven’t already had an email, then let me know – preferably before 15 April.

At the moment , we have about 12 participants who say they’re coming. This means six or seven will actually start out, so there’s probably room for one or two more……

It’ll be fun. Don’t hold back. Bring pies.

 

On The Bench

Not doing very well at the moment as far as actual walks are concerned. I’m just recovering from man-cold-flu-pneumonia-pestilence and following a specially energetic and extended game of Peggle De-Luxe on the computer Saturday night, I found that my right knee has completely seized-up like an unused handbrake and refuses to move very much from the “leg fully extended” position. Any attempt to persuade it into any other position results in much bad language and some screaming. So I’ve learned not to try.
My GP says that its either inflamed or the inevitable result of not drinking enough whisky and doing foolish and over-energetic activities such as washing up, talking to the dog and trying to remember other people’s birthdays.

So, I have to rest the knee for a week and I’ve got some lovely new tablets to go with all the others I take every day.
Various appointments and meetings have been cancelled.
If the car would start (it won’t , due to not being used for two weeks), I wouldn’t be able to drive it anyway. I am soothed somewhat by the thought that the petrol in the tank increases in value exponentially with each day that passes and, that at some point, I’ll be able to sell the stuff back to Saudi Arabia and buy a wind-generator/power station to be built in full view of Holyrood…..
Hopefully, it won’t be too long before I can return to the hills, but In the meantime, I am doomed to fester with Radio Newcastle in the background.
Another game of Peggle, I think……

Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases

There has been a small hiatus in blog postings. This is because I've spent a few days drinking cough medicine, spreading vick all over myself and sleeping.  It got so bad, I cancelled my trip to Galloway for this weekend. Probably just as well as I'd have infected everbody and I'm not sure if I can walk up a big hill just yet.

Here's a little relevant instructional video



And...ah....ah.....another....



I may go and say hello to some Exmoor ponies later on. This little gang are performing a winter grazing task on some lank grasses in a meadow just up the hill from here.

Planning the Unplanned High Force to Malham

Whenever there’s a bit of a hiatus in the walking exploits, the mind inevitably turns to things that could be done.

One thing that I’ve been thinking could be done is a walk from Malham to High Force based on an idea in AJ Brown’s 1931 book Moorland Tramping about which this blog has already touched upon.

I was thinking that AJ Brown seems to poo-poo the idea of heavy use of the map and compass, so I wondered if this journey could be completed without either – and no GPS or anything like that. Just, in fact, with the sense of direction.

It seems to be around sixty of your Queen’s miles from one place to the other and, it seems true that the entire journey could be completed by following the Pennine Way. Now the Pennine Way, in my umble opinion, could probably be very easily followed without a map or compass or, indeed anything which infallibly points in one direction. So this wouldn’t do. A more direct line is called for.

So, the plan is to set off with a tent and a large supply of scoff and walk between the two points in as direct a line as is feasibly possible. It seems highly likely that any route will coincide with the Pennine Way for a chunk.  I will not plan where my overnight stops will be but will listen to my body. When the corpse says its time to stop, then I’ll stop. If it says go, I’ll go.

I’ll follow bits of the Pennine Way, but also cut off corners and loops and, from Tan Hill, I’ll follow the Durham/Cumbria County boundary across the tussocky flat desert of Stainmore. This will be fun. I may visit Great Knipe.

I may go North to South because:

1) High Force is much easier to leave at than arrive at if you haven’t got anything to navigate with.

2) Its not far from home and I might be able to get a lift

3) I might get a nice tan by heading into the sun, as opposed to a burnt neck.

4) There is no 4.

The only question is “when”?   I fancy the summer. I might have to postpone something else already planned.

June would be good – lots of daylight, skylarks,  a fresh, blue breeze… beautiful Pennines. Four or five days should do it.

This is the plan. There is not much more to it. (I have to choose the food and buy the gas…)

 

Limitless Undying Love