I’ve often favoured running over walking, because you not only finish sooner, but you spend less time on the legs and they would always start to ache if I’d been on my feet too long. But as I get older, and my stability reduces, then walking is starting to have more appeal.
Notwithstanding this I have over the years done or attempted a few walks.
1970s – Ridgeway
Sometime in the 1970s my brother Jon and I planned to walk the whole length, camping along the way.
I guess we got a lift to Ivanhoe Beacon – probably from mother – and then we set off South Westwards, laden down with food, camping gear, water, wet weather gear, ….
We immediately followed the wrong footpath but soon got back on track, until 2 days later, arrived footsore, damp and exhausted at Goring and Streatley – the halfway point – where the train station was too great a temptation to resist.
Subsequently I’ve walked the rest of it in various stages and also run many parts when competing in the Ridgeway Relay with the hash group – but I haven’t done the whole thing in one go.
1990s – Morocco – High Atlas Trek
2000s – Morocco – Plateau Trek
2015 – Hadrian’s Wall
2019 – Ramsbury to Winchester
The two day walk from Ramsbury to Winchester was roughly a straight line between the two and was generally very scenic. The exception was the last few miles into Winchester from the north where there are few footpaths and bridleways.
I then had the weekend off before walking the Pilgrims’ Way.
2019 – Winchester to Canterbury
Your first question might reasonably be “Why walk to Winchester along the Pilgrims’ Way?“.
Although I’ve never been religious, a pilgrimage does have some appeal as a means to slow down and reflect on life and any possible meaning that it might have. However, at the moment anyway, I believe that life has little if any meaning – it just is, a bit like the Universe.
The idea of walking a Pilgrim route, was probably planted back in 2008 whilst on holiday near Biarritz with Catherine. On one of the days there we went for a drive to St Jean Pied de Port and I then became aware that it was on one of the major routes for pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela. I remember a pilgrim walking down the main street with his donkey – but also thinking that there was a dipstick who liked to draw attention to himself.
More recently I’ve enjoyed the film ‘The Walk‘, and watched bits of a celebrity reality TV program about the Camino Frances between St Jean Pied de Port and Santiago de Compostela, as well as another on the Via Francigena, the pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome.
Anyway, in 2018/19 hamstring and back issues had made me significantly cut down on my running, but walking remained OK, so I began thinking more about that – perhaps the Ridgeway (the walk that I aborted back in the 1970s), the South Downs Way or even the Canal de Midi.
In the end I decided that I ought to start nearer home and given that Ramsbury used to have a cathedral, it seemed appropriate that I should start by walking to Winchester and then follow the Pilgrims’ Way to Canterbury.
Ramsbury had been established as a bishopric in 909 AD which lasted for approx 150 years. The bishopric was combined with that of Sherborne in 1058, before both were transferred to Old Sarum in 1075. The post was re-instated in 1974 with the appointment of the 11th Bishop of Ramsbury.
2019 – Camino Frances
Having done the Pilgrims’ Way in the UK, I was then really keen and decided to walk the near 500 miles along the Camino Frances between St Jean Pied de Port and Santiago de Compostela.
I even got as far as Bayonne, but instead of continuing to St Jean, I took myself off the Sete and stayed a week there before returning to the UK.