Look at their shoes!
Charles Beaumont, A Spy Alone
In between the GCSE invigilation slots at school that I have committed to covering, there is a week’s clear window. It occurred to me I could carpe those seven diems to complete the walk from home to my brother’s on Anglesey. If you remember, I’d walked from Bromyard all the way to the sea through the fierce heat of last September. I’d had to pull out temporarily and take a break to recover from heat exhaustion and wait for the weather to cool down, eventually ending up with my feet in the sea and an ice cream in my hand in Aberdovey.
Now I walk up the coast starting in Aberdovey, past Tywyn and Harlech, with another exciting mountain crossing (but not too exciting, I hope), this one almost in the shadow of Snowdon, to descend into the Llanberis valley, and on down to the Menai Straits.
The last few days have been crazily busy so I left my packing until the last moment. There’s an established packing list by now, so it was a fairly efficient matter of assembling the gear, spreading it out on the bed, chucking out excess items (oh my binoculars!) and cramming it all into the pack.
Very late on in the day I realised that campsite location exigencies had made the first day, from Aberdovey to just south of Barmouth, a horribly long one, at 28km. Apart from the general tiringness of such a long day, it meant that I wasn’t going to be able to get to the deli in Fairbourne, my last food option for the day, before it closed. I was going to have to take a dehydrated meal for the first night. Aquick phone call ascertained that the campsite owner would be kind enough to boil a kettle of water for me when I got there. So excess pairs of pants were out of the pack and supper was in, and the final full packed weight including water was 11.5kg. Manageable.
I had been hoping to walk in my trainers in my endless quest (post the perfect pair of boots that I walked into destruction on the End to End walk) for footwear which doesn’t give me blisters. But I turned them over to check the tread…
… to discover that not only did they not have much tread left but were so thin in places that they risked splitting en route. Innovates and compeed it is, then!
Packing nerves were setting in: I was a bit rattled to discover that the first day was so long (I’d route-planned last year and had assumed that I’d done it properly. Hubris!), and I was aware that I was watching myself notice I was thirsty, but not drink. The effects of nervous adrenaline, I think. I eyed the painkillers I’d slipped into the little green waterproof bag that passes for my wallet on walks, hoping I wasn’t going to need them.
Stephen got home late and we had a last comfortable watch of the Masterchef semi-finals (note to self: keep away from news and social media until you can get home and catch up on finals week!), and then off to bed, later than I would have wished — with the 5.30 alarm set!
Walking The Landscape 