18.... ....14.3.... ....150

I went on a walk today. 


Last night I packed up my rucksack with everything.  That's it - everything that I planned to take on TGOC 2012 with me.  I weighed it and no matter how many ways I hung it from the luggage scales it was HEAVY - 18kg!


18 is just a number after all so I thought it best to test the number on the trail.  So I got my walking machine pal Den out of his box, dusted him off and we headed into the East Anglian countryside once more.  Day one on the challenge for me will be at worst a 15-miler so I thought I had better do a bit of a comparison.  I roughed out a circular route from Kirtling which was about that - 14.3 miles if you are interested.


At 0730h I picked Den up and we drove to our start point, parking just outside some houses in Kirtling village itself, wanting for a better spot to leave car, but the side of the road it had to be.  It was cold, and the wind didn't make it any better.


I forgot to take any pics on the first section of this walk, but I managed to drag the camera out of its pouch as we entered some paddocks.  Here is an uninteresting shot, but it is a shot of where we walked nonetheless.

Some paddocks not far from Kirtling

My pack felt very heavy on my shoulders, and my back was protesting.  Not a good sign, but I persevered.


The paddocks finally allowed us to squeeze from their grip and we popped out into the open.  Den was sporting a very nice bobble hat which he assured me was keeping him very warm.  It's one of those hats that is so wrong, it was swinging back to being right again.  A real hum-dinger.

Bobbles, and a Spyder

My pack was still feeling heavy, and not all that comfortable.  I made some adjustments, and it instantly felt better.  I forgot about it for a while, which was a better sign.  
Some shenanigans with OFFICIAL PATH EXTINGUISHMENTS got our goats up a wee bit - as is increasingly typical with the footpaths round our way.  The signs only seem to be obvious on the side from which we are NOT approaching!  Nevertheless a quick alteration to our route allowed the new footpath to spit us out onto the road about half a mile back from our intended point.  Cussing the now extended road section, and moaning about the failed promise of wild animals (see photo below) we marched on regardless through the lanes until the little green sign showed us back to the field margins, and on to Back Street where we stopped for an early bite to eat, and a brew.

Wild Animal?

Me having tea.

If I have a favourite place to walk in East Anglia, it has to be the narrow hedgerow-lined avenues.  Wooded either side, and leafy underfoot at this time of year - lovely.
Shortly after we set off, we agreed to make a note of the wild camping opportunities that we came across during the day.  These little avenues offered the greatest opportunity, and we knew that in summer we would be able to nip into the spinneys and copses to camp unnoticed by passers by.  In total, we counted six great spots in fourteen miles, plus a couple of questionable pitches, which would go at a push.  Not a bad result and worth noting for those of you who live near the National Parks but want to try a long-distance walk somewhere completely different.  I recommend it thoroughly having done several myself.  So long as you are canny, considerate, covert and stealthy and are willing to hang around until dusk before you pitch, and can be away at dawn, all will be well.

One of those wood-lined paths, wildcamping opportunities aplenty.

We managed few wildlife encounters, with raptors leading the count, seconded by winter thrushes and then finches.  Several Buzzards, a couple of Kestrels, and a Sparrowhawk followed by countless Fieldfares and Redwings in the treetops.  The finches were mainly Goldfinches and they decorated the bare twigs like Christmas trinkets.  One such tree had its own female Bullfinch bauble.  Lovely.
A muntjac was the only mammalian offering of the day (other than the Grey Squirrel but I don't count those - I am a mammal snob, you see).


The pack became awkward again, and this time no amounts of adjustment would alleviate the discomfort.  Luckily we had reached the latter stages of our route and we had by now swapped the tacky dough of clay for grassy verge and back-road.  Much easier from a navigational point of view, it offered a glimpse at some of the more opulent properties that speckle the rural lanes of our county.

Another shot of our only real pause for relaxation.

I can summarise that my legs and feet were tickety-boo with forty pound on my back.  My shoulders weren't really as tender as I had expected, but my back felt compressed.  I put this down to the fact that I couldn't get the belt tight enough on the pack to stop it sliding down my hips.  The result was to transfer all of the weight onto my shoulders.  The straps are really good on the pack, so the shoulders were unharmed, but my back really felt it.  I'm not relishing the thought of a few days with so much weight bearing down on me.  My plan now is to get the pack weight down once more.  If any of you have any ideas I'd be grateful to hear your views on how you go about packing.

Me and my burden, er bergen?

Maybe I should post the gear list as I had it on this day?


At least I have 150 days left in which to get this right!