THE PREWALKDAUNDER

Every year since 1995 I have been for a PreWalkDaunder. The ‘Pre’ as in before, ‘Walk’ as in the TGO Challenge and ‘Daunder’ being the spirit of the walk.

The list of participants has always included my walking partners for the year and those of my past Challenges and lately we have been introducing LikeMindedPeople from the Challenge. I think I may have insulted the new recruits there.

The usual form is to take the sleeper on Thursday night from Euston, camp in the bar until we are thrown out or they run out of things to drink. We are then forced to the sleeping cabins and we climb from the train somewhere in the heart of the hills – Corrour station is a favourite. We then walk Friday, Saturday & Sunday and catch the same sleeper train back that night to arrive in Euston for early Monday morning. So, for one day off work we get three days walking in the Highlands, two nights B&B (on the train) and all for about £100 (Apex)

The PWD takes place two weeks prior to the TGO Challenge so that it acts as a wake up call to the body and a final test of the gear we will be taking on the walk.

Lately it has attracted a total of eight walkers – and this year we did a fine Minigaig adventure in the snow & sunshine. The year before was Glen Tilt and the Lairig Ghru. You can see that the distances are not great – a comfortable daunder in fact that would probably take a couple of days actually on the Challenge itself. It’s more of a jolly.

I would recommend strongly to all virgin Challengers to have a PWD themselves, as it is incredibly good fun and Totally Necessary as far as your Other Half is concerned and doesn’t count in the You Have Had More Holidays Than Me discussion.