Lycian Way Day 1

I'm in Turkey and the plan is to spend the next 8 days walking from east to west along the Lycian Way. After flying into Antalya yesterday I stayed at Göynük last night and today walked inland up a gorge. So far so go. Today was a lot tougher than I expected, partly because I spent an hour trying to find the hotel at the end and partly because it was my first big walk this year. 25kms and about 2000m of climb took 9 hours and I was glad when it was finally over. Tomorrow's another big walk but it's downhill back to the coast.

The walking was good rather than spectacular, in a gorge and mainly in trees. The path was well marked and generally easy to follow. Apart from the last bit I had the route plotted on my GPS but I hardly ever had to use it.

Today the weather was perfect for walking. Clear blue skies but warm rather than hot. The forecast for tomorrow is not so good.

Another way to Lewis

There are lots of ways to walk from Brighton to Lewis.   You can take a short route and get there in time for lunch or take on something longer and reward yourself with a dinner.  Either way it's a perfect destination and the public transport links back to Brighton are brilliant.

This walk is a short 12km get there in time for lunch trip.  When we did it the weather was poor, it had been blowing a gale for months and we wanted to stay on top of the Downs for as long as possible to avoid the mud.  Getting to the start was particularly easy with the No 12 route from Churchill Square in the middle of Brighton providing a really quick exit.

Backroads of Sri Lanka Cycle Trip

It's 2 weeks since I got back from my 'Backroads of Sri Lanka Cycle Trip' and although the tan is beginning the fade I am already missing the sun.  Breaking the winter up with some cycling in southeast Asia has now become a habit.  Sri Lanka was different but just as successful as the trips to southern India in 2014 and Myanmar in 2015.

Cycling in Sri Lanka

The holidays had essentially the same format.  Instead of sitting in a tour bus and travelling from one local cultural highlight to another we made the journey by bike.  It was a 2 week trip and included 9 days cycling and for most days we were on a bike for between 5 to 7 hours.

Wild Camping on the GR1

I'm getting lots of questions from potential GR1 hikers about wild camping in Spain. I've tried to answer as best as I can but because I haven't done any wild camping I can't claim to be an expert.  Having explored various forums it's clear that most English hikers are confused about the legal status so I decided to do the thing I should have done in the first place and ask a Spaniard.

Juan Holgado is not, of course, any Spaniard, but an expert on all things to do with walking in Spain.  I met him by chance on the third day of my trip from Tarifa to Budapest and since then he has become my Spanish walking mentor.  He provided invaluable input into my Cicerone GR1 guide and his website is a go to place for anyone planning a walking trip in Spain.

The E4 revisited - my journey in GPX

Although it's five years since I started on my trek across Europe on the E4 from Tarifa in Spain to Budapest I still get lots a questions about the journey.  The most common and in some ways the hardest to answer is 'what route did you take?'.  Although there is lots of information in the blog the route is not defined in a way a potential E4 walker could adopt. The reason of course is simple - I didn't plot it and given the number of times I went wrong, revealing the precise journey would be just a bit embarrassing.

I've started so I'll finish

This blog will put that right and now, if you have six months to spare, you can follow my route (roughly) from the southernmost tip of Europe through to Hungary's beautiful capital.  I say roughly because I've ironed out the mistakes I made and in one or two places improved the original route I took.

Munich to Venice - an Australian's Experience

Guest blog from Sean Paul.  Sean is a 19 year old Australian who completed the hike from Munich to Venice in 2015.  Although keen on the outdoors, this was his first trip to the Alps and the first time he had hiked for more than 4 days. 

Australians by nature tend not to be mountain faring folk. Whether it be our generally flat geographical disposition, our love of the beach and open plains, our laid back and easy going temperament or a combination of all, we are just not that suited for the mountains. Maybe I am over generalising, although the Germans, Italians, Israelis and even other Australians I met while away all seemed to look at me with the same slightly confused, slightly amused look that you would give a ski instructor at Bondi beach. But there comes a time in every boy’s life when he wants to do something that blurs that line between adventure and foolishness, for me that was to hike from Munich to Venice by myself with the assistance of a German guidebook.

Some GR1 Q & As

Thanks Stephen for your questions - I hope you don't mind me sharing them alone with the answers.

1 Cows. You mention that walkers on the GR1 will see herds of cows. My wife and daughter have been known to refuse to walk through a field of cows in this country. (My wife and I got charged by a herd once in Cornwall, and the three of us had a fairly alarming experience on the Black Isle a few years ago.) It may be that faced with the necessity of reaching somewhere to spend the night, and no obvious way of giving the field a detour, they will be prepared to take a few more risks. I just wondered, did you ever find yourself being followed around by a field-full of over-excited cows? Or did they tend to be the uncurious/docile type?

Cows - I've never had a problem.  The big difference between Spain and the UK, certainly in the mountains, is that they don't have fields.  This might sound bizarre but it's non the less true.  Cows and more often sheep are left to graze in unenclosed open spaces, often with a shepherd in tow who is helped by the huge Spanish sheep dogs.  Unlike the UK, with its field system,  it's unusual to find yourself in a confined space with cows.