Dalesway Postscript - Gear Review

Just ask my wife Christine: I'm not what you would call an adventurous dresser.  When we met 30 years ago, my uniform was jeans and baggy grey jumpers; now it's jeans and a t-shirt. She ventures out now and then to buy things to sharpen up my look, but they stay in the cupboard. My tendency to wear the same thing all the time was reinforced when I won a Berghaus competition just before doing the 5000km E4 hike across Europe. I ended up with (amongst other things) 8 blue 'Argentium' t-shirts made of polyester and completely indestructible.  Blue quickly became my signature colour, and with 8 I had enough to last a lifetime.

My complacency was challenged when I did the Dhaulagiri Circuit last year.  Some of my fellow trekkers had taken the 1 colour t-shirt a big step forward and were making do with just one t-shirt.  The claim was that merino t-shirts don't smell, and because you don't need to wash them just one will do.  Being so well endowed in the t-shirt department I had somehow missed this mega marketing message, but the advantages seem pretty profound if you're carrying everything on your back and want to reduce the load (and washing effort).

The Dalesway

Every May come rain or shine - usually rain- a group of grey haired men descends on some undeserving part of the UK and attempts to drink their way along a long distance path.  This year (the 20th year) the treatment was dished out to the Dalesway and for my money, a large amount of which was spent on some truly excellent beer, it was one of the best.  If you want a gentle walk through some pleasant countryside then the Dalesway has a lot to recommend it.

The Dalesway

The Dalesway goes from Ilkley in Yorkshire to Windermere in Cumbria.  It's an easy 80 mile walk that follows the River Wharf up a valley to northern England's main watershed and then descends down to the shores of Lake Windermere.

Seaford to Eastbourne

I hesitated about including this walk in my list of "walks from Brighton" - it's so famous and so obvious that it doesn't really need another plug.  On the other hand, it must rank as one of the best bits of coastal walking in the country and it's just a local bus ride away from my front door.

20km - Seaford to Eastbourne

It was an easy but a last minute decision to do the walk.  Roger, a friend from London, rang me the day before, pointed out that the weather forecast was great and said I should stop writing about the GR1 and go with him for a walk.  We met on the platform at Lewes (my walks from Brighton rule - public transport only - is now even easier to comply with as we have sold our car) and got the train to Seaford to start the walk.

Boutique Hotels and Walking? - Try the GR1

I get funny, sometimes critical, looks when I'm on a walk plugged into music or whatever.  It's as if I'm not showing 'respect'.  This is the countryside and you shouldn't mute its sounds with blather from the city.  Maybe. But when I'm on my own (Christine objects to me plugging in when I'm with her) I enjoy having a soundtrack attached to my walk - and the distraction makes the 9-10 hour walks I sometimes inflict on myself a lot easier.

I'm not a 'back to nature' walker - I enjoy my comforts. Call me a southern wuss (and a Spurs supporter) but my style of walking is not exactly hardcore. Yes, I managed to walk from one end of Europe to the other, but apart from one night, and that was an accident, managed to avoid the nocturnal outdoors and found a bed every night.

A third visit to the GR1 Sendero Histórico

This my third visit to the 1000 km GR1 Sendero Histórico, a trail which crosses northern Spain from the Cantabrian Mountains in Asturias to the Mediterranean coast in Catalonia.  I walked it last March (knee deep in snow in parts), persuaded Cicerone that it was worth a guide book and then committed myself to another two visits.  I did the western half again in September and have just walked most of the eastern half.

Leaving Riglos on Day 1

Final Visit to the GR1 Sendero Historico

Writing the guide for the GR 1 has been a mega winter project.  I've completed a first draft but now there is a ton of checking and gap filling to be done, and pulling together all the maps and photographs is taking forever. With plans for other walks coming up fast and furious, the challenge is to sustain the enthusiasm needed to finish it.

A ready source of motivation is the prospect of another visit and a walk through some of the best bits of the whole GR1.  From the 11th to the 27th of April, Christine and I are walking from Riglos in Aragon through to L'Espunyola in the heart of northern Catalonia.  My Spanish friend Juan Holgado has booked all the accommodation so all we have to do is put one foot in front of the other.

Cycling in SW India - A Review

My blog is called ‘johnhayeswalks’ so how come it’s got a description of a cycling holiday through SW India in it?  Well, this ‘old dog’, although suspicious, is not quite past learning a few new tricks. With escaping a wet English winter a guaranteed reward, it wasn’t too difficult to persuade me that a trip to part of India completely new to me might be a good idea.  It was, and although I’m not ready to change the name of my blog, cycle touring is definitely something I want to try again.

My introduction to cycle touring involved a fully supported (organized by Exodus, 10 days on a bike - 3 rest days) journey through the Indian States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.  There were 13 of us in the group, all in our fifties and sixties, and we cycled along mainly country roads for about 500km. It was fully supported with a guide, a back-up guide and a mechanic who followed us in a minibus. In terms of the Exodus grading system the trip was classed “moderate/challenging” with the challenging element concentrated on going up 1600m and down 2000m in the Western Ghats.