Yesterday I returned from a weekend in Suffolk where I did a 12 mile circular hike around the historic Mediaeval town of Lavenham on Saturday and a 6 mile circular hike around Long Melford on Sunday.
Saturday’s weather was amazing for mid October with warm sunny temperatures of around 23 degrees. This changed literally overnight with Sunday being more typically rainy!
Both walks were rounded off in quaint little tea shops 🙂
Having arrived home last Tuesday, this weeks’ walking includes our final day (Monday) in Makarska, Croatia. The first 6 days were lovely and sunny however the last day was a different matter in which we were somewhat battered with a storm! The storm didn’t start until lunchtime and I still managed to walk 9 miles around Makarska on that day!
Today being 30th September means we are now 75% of the way through 2018 already! The good news is that as my revised walking target for this year is 2050 miles I am well on my way to reaching this 🙂
I have 436 miles to go which is an average of around 33.5 miles a week or just under 5 miles a day!
46 of these 48 miles were walked in Croatia this week, mostly in and around Makarska, our base for 7 days. We stayed in an apartment and while close to bars, restaurants and the sea it was about 1.5 miles to walk into the Old Town and marina. Some days we did this 3 or 4 times which soon racked up extra miles! And most mornings I got up an hour or two before the rest of my family and went for a 3 – 4 mile walk.
The above photo was taken during one of my early morning strolls where I could see the sun rising above the mountains behind Makarska. This was a lovely time of the day before the resort became busier with holidaymakers!
13 of the 51 miles I walked during this week were completed by hiking the Seven Sisters coast path where I was fortunate to have amazing weather for this. I also boosted this weeks’ mileage up by doing 20 miles on the Wednesday! I walked to and from work; walked around Central London (rather than taking the tube for meetings); did 5 miles in the gym and another 6 during the evening with one of my local walking clubs!
View from the top of the Bridgewater Monument
Running total (to week 35): 1,422
Miles walked in week 36: 37
Total walked so far in 2018: 1,459
Not quite as many miles as usual this week mainly due to going away to Liverpool with work for 3 days (although on both days I got up early and did 4 – 5 miles each day before breakfast) and also being busy with lots going on at home! I did manage to fit in a 9 mile trek with another walking club today, around the scenic Ashridge Estate which is a National Trust which is part of the Chiltern Hills in Hertfordshire.
Challenge number 19 now complete! I was inspired to do this when my friend Jas first mentioned it over a year ago. I was lucky to have experienced perfect weather conditions, unlike the torrential rain from last weekend’s camping trip in the Peak District!
The Seven Sisters are the 7 chalk cliffs you can see in the picture below. The total distance was 13 miles and despite hiking up and down the 7 peaks it wasn’t too difficult. I’ll shortly produce a blog post on my travel blog where full details can be found!
Our second camping weekend of 2018! Last weekend we stayed in Coopers Campsite in Edale, a quaint village nestled in Derbyshire’s Peak District. We climbed Kinder Scout in lovely sunny weather on Saturday and somewhere near Derwent Reservoir in torrential rain on Sunday!
Coopers is quite different from our previous wild camp weekend… this time hot showers were available, the campsite had a cafe where we had a cooked breakfast each morning and the Old Nags Head is just across the road! Coopers is also at the end (or beginning…) of the Pennine Way!
As the highest point in the Peak District in Derbyshire I had always thought of Kinder Scout as a peak or a hill rather than a mountain. However, as Wikitravel and other websites classify Kinder Scout as a mountain, I’ve added it as the third mountain climbed in 2018! (And at 636 meters it was actually higher than Slieve Tooey last Saturday which is a mountain…)
Chris and I had a great weekend with 5 of our friends where we camped in Edale and climbed Kinder Scout last Saturday in lovely sunny weather.
Torrential rain the following day
By complete contrast we climbed another two peaks the following day in torrential rain, temperatures not much above freezing and high winds!
A good effort this week with quite a few of these miles completed during a fabulous hiking and camping weekend in the Peak District in Derbyshire.
With another 18 weeks left in 2018 and a new target of 2000 miles walked I will need to keep the pace up and walk an average of 35 miles each week for the rest of the year!
My second mountain of 2018! As part of a group of 7 I climbed to the 511 m summit of Slieve Tooey in County Donegal, Ireland last weekend. After a fantastically warm summer of record breaking temperatures, our climb was wet and windy with the remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto at the top! Thankfully we were in the safe hands of Kevin, our guide. With the mist and poor visibility at the top his navigation and map reading skills were essential. A full blog post of my Donegal weekend can be found on my travel blog.
Fifty at Fifty 