john's jogle
John Wilmut is walking again for poor children
In 2012 I walked from Lands End to John O'Groats in support of education for poor children in Sierra Leone and elsewhere. Now I'm on my way back and, from June to late August this year, I will again be walking in support of the work of Christian Aid, but this time from John O'Groats to Lands End
MY ROUTE
I didn't just want to walk back down the same route as I used to walk north in 2012 so I created an alternative that's almost completely different. The map shows the two routes - the old one in red and the new one, as it actually turned out, in blue.
Of course, I didn't follow the planned route exactly (I didn't do so in 2012) but the main differences between the two routes were:
across the Flow Country in Caithness, then across part of the northern Highlands instead of down the east coast road
into the Great Glen, joining the West Highland Way at Kinlochleven and taking this western route rather than walking through the Cairngorms
across the central belt to join my previous route across the Southern Uplands, over the Cheviots and into Northumberland
southwards to join one part of Alfred Wainwright's Pennine Journey route (originally published in 1938) and using parts of the Pennine Way
after a couple of days on my old route across the south Pennines, crossing through Cheshire and Shropshire to join Offa's Dyke Path through the Welsh Borders
crossing the Severn estuary on the old bridge, across the Avon on the M5 bridge and then taking my previous route through Somerset
leaving this at Bridgwater to walk across the Quantocks and across Exmoor
from Barnstaple, crossing into Cornwall north of Launceston, walking down mid-Cornwall to join the South West Coast Path for the final stretch to Lands End.
The details of this route are in the table below.
I actually walked an average of 16.3 miles a day and the walk took 69 days, to which I added 9 rest days. I used a tent in the early stages of the walk but discarded this after the West Highland Way section, just north of Glasgow. After that it was the same mixture of B&Bs, pubs and hostels together with many offers of accommodation that I had from friends or Christian Aid supporters.
I walked alone. This was by choice - I am not a sociable walker and I doubt that anyone could put up with me for over 2 months, with no escape. However, some friends did join me for small sections of the walk, and I welcomed that.
I carried everything that I needed. In 2012 that meant a rucksack weight of around 11 kg and I think that I was a bit below that weight for this walk. However, in the early stages, I had the additional weight of a tent and other camping gear, so the total rose to around 14 kg.
In 2012 the weather was good for the first month of the walk and then deteriorated badly for the last 6 weeks. This time the reverse was true: Scotland was relatively wet and England and Wales quite dry.
If you'd like to know more about the 2012 walk, as I experienced it at the time, do click in THE 2012 WALK in the main menu to access the links to the website that I created for the walk, more extensive descriptions of the route and a link to the blog that I wrote. There's also a reference to the book that I wrote afterwards (Something Worth Walking For) which gives a very full account of the whole experience.
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I am considering whether I write an online or book description of the 2016 walk. I'll let you know what I decide!
