SHANK OF INCHGRUNDLE

In your wildest beer fuelled imaginations, you couldn't make up a name like that, could you?

I was in correspondence with a bit of a Chally Guru - a Humphrey Weightman (now there's another name you couldn't make up, already) - discussing my Day 12 Chally route. Humph put it quite nicely:

"The huge enjoyment of this particular route - should you be heading toward Tarfside - is the splendid opportunity to gloat and suffuse (?) as unfortunates struggle up toward Loch Brandy."

Now, until that point that very thought hadn't passed my mind, but I am pretty sure it had Lord Elpus's, who had been responsible for this part of our route. Now I am not sure if I would have thought of the term 'gloat' or 'suffuse' for that matter either, but I do get Humph's drift here! Schadenfreude will be kicking in, just a touch.

You can click on the map to make it much larger and readable

Again, our route is the radioactive symbols until the green pecked line is reached that takes us into Tarfside Heaven.

If you look at the bottom left had corner you will spy Clova - a popular overnight halt for Challengers with a welcoming hotel with an excellent bar. There is also an excellent bunkhouse there too. I would hazard a guess at about 80% of the Challengers will, first thing in the morning, set out straight up the hill to Loch Brandy and thence on to the hills above. A Brute of a Start to the Day. Phil & me, on the other hand will be having a little lie-in and then a stroll down the stream and a shortish hop up a hill so that we can have a go at the Shank.It looks like it will have wonderful airy views. In all my Challenges I have never had a go at the Shank of Inchgrundle.

With a name like that it really is not to be missed. I think I will take a leaf out of Humph's book and take a nice steak and some onions from Braemar with me for a bit of a fry-up on the top.

Perfick!

TGO CHALLENGE 2010 DAY ELEVEN

(You can click on the above map to make it bigger) 

There's a lot of information on this map as I have been around here quite a few times, but the route I shall be following this May is between the red triangles, indicated by the radioactive symbols.

It starts at Stan & Bill's place at Lochcallater Lodge. This means that we might struggle for the first few miles as the night before will have been one of sex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll. Well - it might not have the sex. The drugs will be mostly alcohol but there will definitely be rock and roll, well into the small hours if past experience is anything to go by.

It's days like these that focus the mind, here in a bleak January evening. There is a lot to do on the fitness front as well as the lardy belly front. Lots of this days' route is trackless stuff and happily, a wonderful lot of it is glorious peat-hags! We should arrive at the point of collapse to flip the tents up at about 2300 feet above sea level, no doubt in high winds and torrential rain.

On the other hand, it could well be warm and sunny and there will be dancing girls there to soothe our tired brows and put the tents up for us and wait on us hand and foot all night.

Ooh. Now, there's lovely!

FORTHCOMING ATTRACTIONS!

Okay - This isn't Pearl & Dean but with the belly beginning it's forced descent to near-where-it-should-be-normalitudiness I have built myself a training schedule.

I seem to have given up on training with the Canadian Airforce - I decided that they weren't going to call on me anytime soon. So, as there is nothing like walking to get in practice for walking, I fixed my sights on a walking training programme largely based on walking. The TGO organisers will be relieved to hear that no running is involved.

So - in addition to the already written-in-blood-in-the-diary Sunday afternoon walks with Miss Whiplash there will be the following exciting exertions:

February: The Lakes with Lord Elpus. This is an expedition principally to acquire a replacement pair of booties for the his Italian feet. It will involve a whirling miasma of sweaty feet and talcum powder, mountainous piles of discarded leather and Goretex goods and despairing howls as outdoor emporia are exited. It is never pretty. But we do hope to get up a few hills, even if it is raining. And see the inside of a few pubs, too.

March: We are hoping to bag a weekend away up in the Yorkshire Dales to marvel at an old bloke's past triumphs on one of the U S of A's longest hiking trails in a village hall. (The talk is in a village hall; not the hiking trail, you understand). But we do hope to get up a few hills, even if it is raining. And see the inside of a few pubs, too.

Then of course, there's the Snake Pass weekend - an 'Official' reunion for Challengers. We do hope to get up a few hills, even if it is raining. And see the inside of a few pubs too.

April: A busy month: We hope to stagger along with the Pieman on a hitherto unknown to me multi-day walk between two small towns 'upnorth' at very high altitudes. This will be a very difficult walk for flatlanders and we expect to struggle. We are expected to climb a few hills, even in the rain and there will be no pubs. What are we thinking?

Then in the same month of madness, we are hosting the annual PreWalkDaunder - again 'upnorth,' in an area famous for it's watery features. We will be clambering up a few hills, even if it is raining. And see the inside of a few pubs. (Phew!)

This is all good stuff and hopefully the legs will hold out.

 

MORE DUCKS THAN DARREN

Is this possible? Can anyone write a blog post that has within it more Ducks than our Darren?

Well, yesterday, in 'one last heave' to lose the week's required 14 ounces, Phil & Tini dragged my sorry carcase around Nine Miles - yes nine whole imperial miles - of greasy Cambridgeshire clay. He had us marching up to the top of a hill and he had us marching down again... TWICE!

The man is a sadist.

Anyway - he marched us through the pretty little village of Linton (twice...) where we crossed the little splash on a bridge. And spotted the ducks. Apparently there are now fewer ducks than there used to be and that a local Chinese restaurant has been questioned about the mysterious disappearances...

We got back to the cars slathered in mud, just as it was getting dark and cold. It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.

THESE TWO OUNCES...

Talk amongst yourselves awhile. If you are of a certain age you will understand that there are occasions when you find yourselves upstairs. You may have a mug of freshly ground coffee in your hand and you are standing by the linen basket but for the life of you you have no idea why you are standing outside the bathroom with a mug of coffee.

*Shrug*

Whilst you were chatting to each other just then did that strike a chord with any of the congregation? It did me and I was the one who wrote the nonsense. Back downstairs in the kitchen you realise that you have left that cup of coffee next to the linen basket, on the window sill over-looking the back garden. A quick skip up the stairs again and the coffee is reunited with your right arm.

You still cannot remember why you were at the linen basket in the first place, but you are happy to be there as you have found that missing coffee. That was lucky then.

My whole life is life this at the moment. It's bloody chaotic. But there is a good side to it all.

I must be climbing those stairs at twice the required amount each day, which in turn burns calories. Perhaps its enough to lose those two precious ounces.

Time will tell.

'ALLO, 'ALLO!

A huge 'thank-you' to an anonymous member of the congregation, who has kindly supplied a translation for Rab so that European harmony is once more restored:

A VERY BRITISH BUSINESS

I must have been a very good boy this year as Father Christmas very cleverly remembered what I wanted and duly delivered.

After a dampish night in Wanda halfway up Scafell Pike earlier in the year in, admittedly, pretty horrendous conditions, I had coveted Shirl's very lightweight bivi bag that she had bought from Winwood Outdoors. Unfortunately it was no longer possible to get the same bag and so I scoured the interwebbysphere for a similar product that was available in Britain and not stratospherically expensive.

Eventually I came up with the RAB Ultra Bivi:

Rather pleasingly it actually weighs less than the manufacturer states - just 201 grams in its little stuff sac: A trifle, to guarantee a warm dry sleep in the very worst that the British weather can chuck at little Wanda. It is very well made and has welded seams - so I was very impressed, especially considering the price.

But one thing did make me chuckle: The tag that came with the bag:

Is this RAB keeping "Johnny Foreigner" in his place?

NUMBERS

Having slumped into the settee (the settee is my friend) after an exhausting Sunday afternoon stroll, I was told that all it takes it two ounces a day.

It's the belly you see. It's always the belly.

Christmas had not been kind and I need to lose a stone; a stone that in it's usual comical way, has congregated at my belly. The exhausting Sunday afternoon stroll was just seven and a half miles with 86 m of ascent. It's not funny, is it?

As I sit here this Sunday evening, there are just 117 days to go to the start of the Challenge.  That's just sixteen Sunday afternoon strolls to get the legs back into some sort of shape. Sixteen weeks to lose the belly.

Two ounces a day. That's all it should take.

Hmmmm

MR BIG - LIVE

Well then.

It's been a while since we had a bit of music on here. You have already had  'The Stealer' from the Best Band In The World Ever, Ever, so now, turn up your speakers to eleven and pin your lug'oles back for some pure live magic from a little four piece band that only lasted a few years.

FREE: Mr Big (Live)

There. Now you will want to go and hunt down every last track they ever did.

That was forty years ago.    Sigh....

WINTER FLATLANDS

Well I'll be! Another walk - just to the Oliver Cromwell in St Ives but in wonderfully crisp weather. It's been a while since the Great Ouse has been frozen over - but here it is! It's a big river so very impressive.

Great Ouse

It's just the usual circuit for a quick Sunday afternoon stroll but the two pints of Adnams Broadside were delicious followed by a wonderful walk over the Hemingford meadow - which had flooded and then frozen so that we were crunching along on powder snow on two or three inches of solid ice as far as the eye could see. Quite magical in the dying winter light.

Frozen Hemingford Meadow

 

SOUTHWEST COAST PATH

Over the holiday we walked quite a bit of the coast path. I have to admit to not liking coastal paths at all but just occasionally it can be rewarding.

Anyway, helped by some fantastic weather over the New Year, here are a few pictures of what the SWCP has to offer.

St Michael's Mount

St Ives New Years Eve

St Ives, New Years Eve

Lamorna, New Years Day

Lamorna - Old Water Wheel

Newlyn Fishing Boat

Penzance 2nd January

Near Zennor, 3rd January

Sennan, 4th January

Sennan, 4th January

MIKE McCABE B+

THE OLD SUCCESS INN, Sennan Cove.

It's the 4th January 2010 and we are out on the fourth walk of the year. We started at Land's End ~ as good as any place to start a walk ~ and headed northish towards John O' Groats.

We stopped for a moment at the famous signpost to watch a chap pull up with his motorbike; he seemed well kitted out and 'travelled' ~ a big fellow. He had the letters loaded onto the signpost "Getting Lost." Curiosity got the better of us and before too long we discovered he had ridden here from Singapore, having started his trip eight months ago, solo.

A year ago, Mike chucked his job in (he was an executive in a gaming company and spent too many months traveling all over the globe and not having he time to see anything) to start planning his trip. It had been possible to ride virtually all the way but the intransigence of the Red Army got in the way. The Chinese Government had said 'yes', but the army; 'No.'

He had his name on the sleeve of his bike jacket "Mike McCabe B+" Well if it was his blood group, that's pretty handy. But I would like to think it as a message; Be Positive.

You can find Mike's site at www.gettinglost.asia

SCHADENFREUDE IN ZENNOR

Ordering a second pint of Sharp's Zennor Mermaid is the best thing this side of the Pearly Gates when it's drizzling with a cold easterly and you should be out there on the Atlantic Granite Coastline with the rest of the London set in their pattterned gurly wellies and their Peruvian Nomad's wooly hats.

Instead, we are settling into a nice warm stone-built ancient pub with two roaring log fires watching the weather outside from a comfy window seat.

The incomers to the pub in their mud-coloured nylon overtrousers stand and steam in front of the fire saying that it's 'hell out there'. Well ~ it's actually hell when they come through the door and let all that cold weather in and drip all over the place...

Lord Elpus would like it here right here and now. It's nice and cosy and the grey cells are slowly slipping into comfiture, watching the horridness outside.

Schadenfreude: nothing beats it.

(The picture is Helligan's Honey in the Gurnard's Head at Treen after clambering along a bit of the SW Coastal Path)