This is one blog to cover the next twelve days walking in the Land's End to John O'Groats progress north.
Between July 25 and Aug 6th I walked another 180 miles from Garstang, just north of Preston to Auldgirth, north of Dumfries. This brings the continuous line from Land's End to over 750 miles, and most importantly I have 'finished England'. The route went Garstang - Morecambe - Milnthorpe - Kendal - Tebay - Appleby - Penrith - Carlisle - Gretna - Annan - Dumfries - Auldgirth. For this stage I was joined by my (2nd) cousin, Hugh Turner, breaking a thirty year habit of only meeting at funerals. Most enjoyable.
The weather was not so dry - or hot - as last year, but even so we only got wet briefly, and never drenched - though I was happy to observe two sessions of very heavy rain in the evenings, when I was safely indoors. The length of walking days was mainly 14 - 16 miles, though the first day was a 21. I had planned in three short days of about 10 miles, though one of these became a 15 because of a last minute cancellation by one of the hotels. My pack was slightly lighter than last year. I also changed my route from that planned last year to avoid rigorous climbing in the Lake District - we cut east from Kendal and then went up the Eden Valley, avoiding the Lakes proper, but still experiencing some great scenery, especially between Kendal and Appleby. This more cautious walking meant I had no recurrence of my foot trouble
A few highlights were: the statue of Eric Morecambe in Morecambe (he as born there and took his stage name from the town - his real name was Eric Bartholemew);
Carnforth Station (the setting for Brief Encounter);
the Shakespeare Inn in Kendall, where my room (the 'Hermia' Room) opened onto a cobbled courtyard;
the recently refurbished 'Breasthigh Road' from the southern of the two Borrowdales;
reaching the Scottish border;
Haggis at some meals; walking by the Solway Firth. A lowlight was the very busy road south of Gretna, which looked on the map a very minor road, but was far from it - no pavements and lots of traffic dodging.
The further north I came, the less the rule about cheaper hotels being better than expensive ones seemed to apply - though Premier Inns do not provide biscuits in your room! One curio was in relation to the electronic keys - these you put in the slot in your room to activate the power, the point being that when you go out you take the key and cannot accidentally leave lights on (good idea) - in two of the hotels they gave people two copies of the key, so they could leave one in the power slot and take the other with them - negating the purpose of the whole system!
Another little curio was the fact that we walked out of Kendal initially by the River Mint - think about that for a moment (!). And most curious of all was two miles before the end of this year's journey, there was a red corrugated iron church. The only other time I have seen a red corrugated iron church was two miles before the end of the walk last summer!
I will not be able to continue the walk in October, and it will be too far to travel just for a day or two in the new year as I did this year. So it will be at least Easter before I progress north of Auldgirth. I probably have about four to five weeks left to do, and this may be possible in 2025. We shall see. Thanks to everyone for their continued interest and support.
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