Scourge of the Trail, Part V

Previously on The Scourge (link to part 1).

Part 5: Dick Whittingtons in Reverse.

With haste we rose and pushed the lingering few items into our backpacks, and Dave offering a groan under the weight which provided a kind of departing toast. My bag, by comparison, was featherlight: I had painstakingly removed anything which wasn’t essential, and was still thinking of shaving a few bristles off my toothbrush to save even more weight. I foresaw an afternoon of pleasant greenery, blue skies and trickling creeks, ruined by the unbearable, Sisyphean load on my back. I was having none of it. My wilderness was going to be an unspoiled, Wordsworthian Babylon.

We had a few errands to run before our midday train to the north. Principally, I wanted a new t-shirt or two. I had grown envious of two of Dave’s t-shirts, a pair of Merino wool beauties which, supposedly, dried superfast. This was precisely the type of thing that should be in my pack. Down Kensington High Street we found ample hiking shops and even ampler prices. Eventually I picked up some cleverly scientific-sounding boxer shorts at Uni-qlo and left it at that.

Our train departed Euston at 1pm. The sun was high and beautiful and we arrived in early, so we ate a sandwich in the seated area just outside. Dave had recently become vegetarian, I discovered, and I wondered how this would affect the meals I was hoping he would make for me. I crossed bacon sandwiches off the list and shot a glare at Dave, but said nothing.

As we sat there, musing about what to expect on the walk, a young woman in a fur coat sat beside us. We were also sharing the table with a middle-aged, bearded, scruffy man. The lady in the coat, which looked freshly plucked from the back of an artic wolf, expressed such disgust at the man that it would have hurt deeply, had he not been drunk enough to be oblivious to her.

We’d have to average 15 miles a day, Dave told me, peering into the Coast to Coast book, but some days would be long and some short. Starting in the west meant that we’d be hitting the grand Lake District first, and it would be downhill from there in every way.

“You’re really selling it,” I told him.

“It might not be so pretty, but after the heights of the Lake District, it might be nice to be on flatter ground.”

“Especially with that pack you’ve got,” I told him. I’d been reminding Dave regularly how overpacked he was, but I knew that it was really only to disguise my own anxiety at being underpacked.

“When it’s on, it’s OK,” he said, looking down at the bulbous lump of possessions he had sat beside him. It’s quite a sensation to know that everything you have to live on, to live by, is in a bag next to you, and wherever to go next, you can leave nothing behind but that which you will leave forever. It’s a strange mix of freedom and constraint, to leave everything but the essentials. For someone who experiences his anxiety with the potency of a chili pepper, it leads to a severe amount of head-scratching – how and what to live on? I have a weakness when it comes to making decisions, when the infinite ramifications of the multiverse seem to appear before me like phantom futures.* But, sitting there next to Miss Posh and Mr Scruff, and my very own Dave, I was content. We felt like a couple of Dick Whittingtons in reverse, leaving the gold-paved streets of London to find a quainter, more idyllic world.

“Do you think we’ll be more or less wrecked than this guy?” I said referring to the drunk at the end of the table.

“About the same, I’m hoping,” Dave said. “But you’ll have to start drinking again.”

“No chance,” I said. “I’m taking the sober route to the gutter.”

*The tiny torch, for example, is a good space saver. But it has one of those special batteries that go in watches. If the battery runs out, can I replace it on the trail or will I end up buying a new torch? Then what do I do with the old torch? Just dump it somewhere? If not, I’ll be carrying around two torches; then I’m no better than Dave. Or... I could steal one of Dave’s “landing light” halogen bulbs, or rely on moonlight, or ensure I always position things in the tent in an organised, memorable way and proclude the need for a torch at all... Just recollecting this train of thought is turning me into a spinning top.

Take me to Part 6.

The Scourge Part IV

Previously on The Scourge... Link to Part 1

Part IV: Pepys Road, London.

Alfred Wainright, spiritual father of the Coast to Coast walk, wrote “I want to encourage in others the ambition to devise with the aid of maps their own cross-country marathons and not be merely followers of other people's routes: there is no end to the possibilities for originality and initiative.” With this in mind, we decided to merely follow Wainright’s route.

I had suggested walking east to west, following the sun, but Dave rightly pointed out that I was being an idiot. Going east, he said, laying out his case, means that you walk towards the sun in the morning, and have it on your back as the afternoon draws on. It also means that we can follow the book, Henry Steadman’s map-cum-guidebook Coast to Coast Path, to the letter. I realised I had developed a rather naïve sense of what trekking was to be like – just go forward in the direction you want. It hadn’t really occurred to me that trees, rivers, fences or cows might get in the way.

At Dave’s house, on the eve of the Big Walk, we took inventory and spread out our things. Dave’s backpack was roughly twice the size of mine, as was his tent. I had bought a one-man tent which was little bigger than a Smarties tube; Dave had a mansion.

“That’s heavy,” I said. “You’re going to regret it, mark my words.”

“When I’m stretched out diagonally in my tent – my Taj Mahal – enjoying a spacious and peaceful night’s rest, you’ll be the one who’s regretting it. I might put a small bar in the corner with a selection of scotches, so I can read my books with a pleasant tipple.”

The bar idea may have been a slight exaggeration, but Dave hadn’t scrimped. He really hadn’t. I examined his procurements which were now spread over the floor (a result of not being able to get them all in the bag): apart from the massive tent, a chunky sleeping bag and a yoga mat to sleep on, he had three books, a variety of wardrobe changes, two gas canisters, plenty of plates and cutlery, a flask, two mugs, a torch that one could use to beat an intruder of the night, an axe, an penknife, and four flat halogen lights.

“We’re not helping planes land,” I said, looking at the lights.

He paused. “I’ll leave one of the lights.”

The evening passed in this fashion – me telling Dave he had too much stuff and was going to regret it, and him finally accepting this argument and leaving something. I managed to convince him to leave the Tibetan Book of the Dead, but he wouldn’t budge on Rashomon by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, nor the Saga of Gunnlaugr Serpent-Tongue, a 13^th century Icelandic epic. These were, Dave insisted, vital for taking our minds, as well as our bodies, truly into the wilderness.

Each item was a battle, and we would never have gotten through it if we hadn’t had the aid of some decent single malt scotch. After this evening, I had told Dave, I wouldn’t drink for the entire journey. He eyed me with suspicion when I said this.

With our packs loaded, we went to bed. Dave, to the last night with his partner Cinthya; me, to the first night in a superlite sleeping bag, on a sofa. Superlite, I quickly realised, also meant superthin and supercold. If I am cold in this sleeping bag in a flat in London, then what about when... I pushed out the doubts. Tents are, like... insulated with body warmth, or something... I was sure it would be fine.

Take me to part 5.

Scourge of the Trail: P3

Previously on The Scourge (link to part I)

Part 3: When the Planning of the Doing of it Still Takes Longer than the Doing of the Doing of it.

Walking. Yeah, I know about that. I’ve done it before. Even since the Coast to Coast I’ve walked from time to time. I even did a little before breakfast today. However, in the week leading up to the Big Walk, as I’m going to call mine and Dave’s Coast to Coast walk from now on, I decided to put my walking into practice by walking a bit further than I usually would. The first walk involved a Mr. Marc-e-b and a Mr. Mike Todd, and we walked from New Milton to Brockenhurst, taking an unneeded and tiring detour on the way back, to the tune of 20 miles. We finished at the Kebab House, in an attempt to undo all the health we can accumulated, whereupon I bought a massive doner kebab I called my mum to come pick me up.

The combination of walking and kebab caused very different pains in very different places, but provided a good test for the Big Walk. With the promise of averaging 15 miles a day, it seemed very doable. Even better, as we all noticed, the next day the muscles were positively fresh and only the lingering heaviness of doner meat remained. Eat healthy, walk healthy, I promised myself.

Mike and I also walked the coast from New Milton to Lymington. It pelted with rain, providing a good test for my bag and coat (which were not adequately protected) and took us past the wonderful low marshlands which sit beside the Solent. On this occasion, we set something of a precedent: after a quick and mighty start, we stopped off for a coffee, feeling very good about ourselves and sure to plod on gallantly to the finish line. Sadly, we were only about 10% of the way through and we’d already had our break. When you reach the 12 mile mark or thereabouts, you can’t help but curse the fool you were when you breaked so early.

In Lymington we went into the camping and hiking store Millets where I bought a few items: a tiny torch which you can wrap around your head, waterproof trousers, a tiny pillow and tiny ‘quickdry’ towel, and first aid items. Dave was going to sort out eating equipment.

“Gonna need that if it’s a day like this,” said the Millets Man. He’d cleverly made the connection between the waterproof trousers and the deepening rainstorm outside. “You couldn’t be more right,” I said. “We’re walking back to New Milton.”

“You’re what?” he said, astonished. Unlike you, reader, this Millets Man of Lymington knew exactly where New Milton was, for New Milton is Lymington’s scummier, unruly brother. Whereas Lymington is the proud home of the likes of teenage piano cover queen Birdy, New Milton is the proud home of machete-wielding townies. A few years ago, I came back from living in South East London, with all its gangs and big-city perils, only to find myself in a pub brawl outside New Milton’s Rydal. Millets Man thus he knew that it was some distance, and was surely wondering why anyone would go to New Milton, even on a sunny day, even in a car. “You’re walking to New Milton, like, now?”

“We’ve just come from New Milton,” said Mike, evidently feeling a bit manly. “Gotta get back somehow.”

“Blimey,” he said. For a man who worked in a hiking and camping shop, he was surprisingly surprised to come across walkers. His astonishment only deepened when I told him I was going to walk the Coast to Coast. I had suspicions that this man was not a real walker at all, but simply a mere retailer.

I had bought a tent, also from Millets, but online. It turned out, later (when emailing them from a pub as my ripped tent dripped rain in the garden) that I hadn’t bought it from Millets, but from Millet Sports. The latter is a sports store, also trading in Millets-type equipment, but at a lower quality if the frozen moisture in my nostrils was anything to go by.

After these walks I felt positively sturdy, somewhere between Conan the Barbarian and a gorilla. I had some Keen hiking boots which I had spent hours deliberating over, reading reviews and whatnot, before buying them from Taobao. Taobao is China’s Ebay, and a haven of cheap shit. It was a risk, but my Keens were great! And they continue to be so. With all my stuff stuffed into a smallish Oakley backpack bought from the Fake Market in Shanghai, I was ready to go.

Take me to Part 4

Scourge of the Trail: P2

Previously on The Scourge (link to part 1)

Part II: When the Planning of the Doing of it Takes Longer than the Doing of the Doing of it.

These days, you can’t just wander out your door with a copy of Wainright, jump on the 18:05 to St. Bees, throw a shilling at the guard and go hiking. The world got all complicated and micro-managed. Trains in the UK are extortionate – the result of a clever ploy to get UK citizens to buy more cars and engage in more road rage. To avoid these costs, the savvier traveller uses a new-fangled gizmo called the Internet. The Internet, also known as the web, the net, or, amongst particularly cool individuals, the interweb, is pumped into everyone’s houses through pipes and allows people to operate on a newly unrestrained level. Protest, shopping, bullying and, most enthusiastically, sex, have all gone online and not even the fact that the governments of the world are watching us can stop us behaving like absolutely disgusting morons. Take me, for example, with thirteen windows open, including National Rail, the Trainline and six different Megabus windows. Disgusting.

Once upon a time, the Trainline.com was cheaper than a normal ticket. Now, it’s the same. Am I wrong? Once, you could get a Megatrain ticket for £1. Now it’s £15 at the cheapest unless you want to alight at a station which is underwater or in a volcano. When you’re nostalgic for good train prices which were available only one year ago you know the world has become too rapid and too boring, but there I was, fond memories of £1 rides in my head, cursing at the screen.

The number of websites which profess to offer cheap train tickets are now more numerous than the number of straggly beards in East London. Megatrain tickets only go to certain destinations, and you have to get off at that destination. You also need to get the specific train, at the specific time. Hence, if you have the time and the will, you can plan a complex, labyrinthian journey across the country, making smart connections at tiny prices until you get to the end of your rainbow. But only on specific trains. Each successful journey would depend on the reliability of the previous ones, and that’s a lot of faith to have in British transport. Do you really have what it takes to withstand that kind of pressure for a whole day? With my anxiety the way it is, with the 13 windows on the computer screen jostling for attention, I knew I couldn’t do it.

So, I bought two tickets, one for Dave and one for myself, from London to St. Bees, and two more tickets, one for Dave and one for myself, from Robin Hood’s Bay to London two weeks later. The return tickets presumed that both of us would still be alive for the return journey. I considered reading the terms and conditions to see if I could get a refund on Dave’s ticket if I were to murder him in his sleep, but terms and conditions are impenetrable, as you know, so I figured I’d just worry about that if and when the situation arises.

The date of the return ticket was of paramount importance because the following day I would be taking a train to Brussels en route to Japan. These tickets I had planned, with equal frustration, with the aid of seat61.com, an excellent if geeky website dedicated to all things train. If you want to know if there is a working soap dispenser in the toilet in car E on the eastbound 15:45 train from Paris to Strasbourg, Seat61 can tell you.

Needless to say, taking trains across land to China takes you through a number of countries. As an EU citizen, travelling through Europe is blissfully easy. But after that, you have Belarus, Russia, Mongolia and China to deal with. Already working in China, I was sorted for entry there; Mongolia doesn’t require visas which is lovely, and neither does Japan if you’re British, which is also splendid; but Belarus and Russia were another story. To get these visas I had to send my passport to each embassy, and get them returned to me. This is usually not a problem, but then again, usually I’m not walking across the north of England like a ragged, hungry hobo.

“Get it sent to my house,” said my mum, “and I’ll send it on to you.” Good old mum. But, hang on, that won’t work. I’ve got to get my first train the day after the walk ends. It’ll never arrive in time! “Get it sent to my house,” said Dave “and it’ll be waiting for us when we get back.” Good old Dave. That’s a man with a plan. Dave lives in London, less than four miles (and three hours by public transport) from St. Pancras, gateway to Europe.

I dropped my passport off at the Belarussian embassy, having already secured the Russian visa. “Send it to Dave’s,” I waved. It all seemed so easy. Too easy. It was, and all too late when I realised.

Take me to part III

Scourge of the Trail

Part 1: Proximity

I suppose I should've known better. After all, it was summertime in England - a wretched time that even the most hardy seaside go-getter can attest to. Perhaps I had been away from home too long, and a cosy fog which suggested warmth had clouded my judgement, and filled my head with the English summer of pub gardens, beach parties and cocktails on the lawn. Pym's. On top of that, I hadn't erected a tent and shivered my way into a sleeping bag in a good fifteen years, and I had long since ceased to remember the discomfort, the sheer depravity of camping in England. More than once did I consider uttering that immortal line, that of the sacrificial Captain Oates - "I'm just going outside and may be some time," in order to save my frozen friend, Dave, from certain doom. I'm sure he thought the same thing.

Our mutual friend, the generally-more-reluctant Chris, had declined to join us, citing an absence of hair straighteners and naturally sourced lime and aloe moisturiser on the trail. "There are a thousand better reasons to reject this trip, Chris," I said to him, number 1 being me and number 2 being Dave. Proximity, it could be said, is the greatest test of a person. It has to be delicately handled. If you're stealing oxygen from your neighbour, oftentimes this is too close.

One tent each, said Dave. That should be enough. Enough to save us from ourselves. Lord of the Flies was flickering across the back of my eyelids, crossed with some twisted version of a weekend getaway on the Goode Life. I pushed the idea of murder (which had now evolved to murder-suicide) from my mind – seriously, the chances of being killed while camping in the English countryside must be tiny, perhaps as high as being killed in a terrorist attack, which, I assure you, is lower than you’d think – and looked over at Dave. His pale brown flop of hair had been recently shawn and he peered through his glasses with an alert keen. His newly shaved head accentuated his neck, somehow increasing the enthusiasm in his eyes. “I’m really looking forward to this,” he said.

the idea had been raised a few months before, while I was in China. Coast to coast, said Dave, west to east. “it’s Wainright’s walk,” he iterated, “and a woman did it on TV. With a film crew.” A film crew, I pondered. There could be something to this. Just shy of 200 miles, the walk stretches from the sea to the sea, starting at St. Bee’s and ending at Robin Hood’s Bay. Before you ask, we saw no bees at St. Bees and no Robin Hood at Robin Hood’s bay. Alfred Wainright, grumpy countryside wanderer par excellence, did the walk over a number of occasions – not in one go ­– and wrote about it in 1973. Since then, the trail has been tweaked a little and attracts 10,000 people a year (according to Henry Steadman’s map-cum-guidebook Coast to Coast Path), mostly in summer when the weather is it its shittest, each of whom curse the skies, their friends, and the long-dead Wainright for coming up with the blasted idea in the first place.

But, as I mentioned just a paragraph ago, I was in China. And I had to return to China because of work. This meant my trip east from St. Bees was going to take on something of a marathon quality far beyond the 192 miles of Wainright’s puny walk. It did, but that’s a story for a later time. Before that, we had planning to do, and as everybody knows – planning is cool and always, always fun.

Take me to Part II.

C2C, the rest.

The night in Keld was exhausting. The sunset betrayed a coming chill cold enough to make Captain Oates pack up and march off. And so it was for me. At 1am I realised the worst was still to come. My microlite tent was forming icicles and my ripped tent was letting in a cruel draft. I got out and burst into Dave's tent saying 'I'm coming in.'

  It's fucking cold in here too, he said, perhaps by way of deterrent. But who cared? A thousand Celtic warriors couldn't have removed me from this tent. 

The remainder of the trip was on lower ground. We stayed in a hunting lodge yha and got lost looking for a 'lone oak' in a friend with many lone oaks near Richmond. We lost Ali but found her again at the end. In the meantime out cohort grew to include four oldies from Burnley and a stubborn father and daughter, whom we called Strongarm Sue on account of her dismissing other people's packs as light. She cried her way to Robin Hoods Bay, and we think developed something of a romance with Mark, the ex-hippy brummie. 

We rolled in to the bay spent and ready for a bed and breakfast and a pint. We got both. Next day, we said bye to the north and hi to the

business of London, where cars took on the form of large indifferent farmyard animals, and people were, god forbid, not walkers. 

Day...7?

Just got to the tiny hamlet of Keld. Finally left the Lake District. Camping the last few nights is cold! Done 98 miles. 

A few days back we met Ali, whom we swam in Ennerdale Water with. She's become a regular on this trip, someone to share cookies and green tea and even the occasional political tete-a-tete with. 

Others we see often are an Australian occupational therapist and her mum. The OT glumly told Dave to rest his battered leg, advice he didn't like, but did take. 

Nice sunset tonight.