Book number 17
Book read: Grand Adventures by Alastair Humphreys
A short but HUGELY inspiring book which has given me loads of ideas for my own adventures! Alastair is enthusiastic and he explains how, with an example of a £1000 budget, you can set about planning all kinds of exciting trips! As I was reading this book I started to jot down some ideas:
- Drive across Australia
- Drive across Canada
- Drive around Europe
- Travel by land and sea from London to Sydney
- Travel across Madagascar independently by train
- Climb Kilimanjaro
- Trek the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal
- Cycle Eurovelo routes
- Cycle and wild camp around Iceland
- Drive the Wild Atlantic Way (Ireland)
- Walk the length of New Zealand
- Walk to Rome
- South West Coast path
- UK Coast to Coast
- Pembrokeshire Coast
- Bibbulman track (Western Australia)
- Routeburn track (New Zealand)
- Dolomites trek
(Some of these are not new ideas but I thought I would capture them in any case)
Book number 18
Book read: Walk Sleep Repeat by Stephen Reynolds
This book was somewhat tame by comparison but still an enjoyable read. Once I got into it… I started to become a bit irritated by “Dear Reader” references on almost every page but I got used to this as being the author’s writing style. Although when he started waffling on about which flavour Weetabix drink to have in the morning I did start to question why I was reading the book…
Whereas the likes of Alastair Humphreys and Chris Pountney fill a book with a 12 month plus cycling adventure, this was an entire book about a one week trek along the 100 mile West Highland Way.
However as I continued to read I found I really like the way Stephen Reynolds writes. He has a lovely descriptive manner that makes you feel you are walking the West Highland Way right next to him. Which is nice.
He is really likeable and I started to think of him as a mate, an honest, down-to-Earth kind of chap, someone you would like to sit in a pub with at the end of a busy day and exchange stories.
And on a positive note, if he can string out a book from a week of walking, a popular walk that many thousands have done in the past, I’m sure there would be a market for my 2016 adventures!
- Walk the West Highland Way (just adding another adventure…)
Fifty at Fifty 