The train journey - a meander through recent walking (2 of 2)

My mood got better as I walked up Cader Idris.  Maybe it was the place I slept the night before, a small copse of beech trees next to a track leading to an isolated farmhouse with a beautiful, well kept garden, box hedges and hollyhocks.  I hadn't meant to sleep there, it was still a couple of hours too early to stop but the cropped bouncy grass in the flat spaces between trees was just too inviting.  A farmer went past me on a quad bike, two sharp eyed, slinking dogs riding the back of it.  He didn't notice me at first but, at the last minute, caught sight of me out of the side of his vision.  "You look exhausted" were his first words to me, it must have been the way my body slumped against the low stone wall, sheltering from the breeze whipping over it.  "I am" I said, smiling.  He drove away after a few friendly words and I decided to settle there, against the wall, perhaps it was a day I didn't need to push myself any more.  It was the night of the big thunderstorms over the south of the country but I heard nothing more than a faraway rumble and felt just a few tiny spots of rain, safe in my cocoon.

Cader Idris was better, the next day.  It still seemed like an endless climb at first, as I came to the place where I was supposed to leave the road and start clambering up the steep, boggy side, towering above me.  I looked at it, far away from the marked paths and decided to take a road detour around to the Pony Path, a much better used and well marked route up to the summit.

And there the story will end I'm afraid.  It just seems too much at the moment, this blogging business.  Time was, a few months ago, when I'd walk all day, come to a pub or cafe at about 4 or 5pm and be able to sit and write for a few hours, getting out all the little details of the day.  Now the walk seems to take longer, I stop more often and it takes longer to complete the distance, there's no time to stop and write.

On the days I do stop I want to stop, properly, not spend the day thinking about all the things I've been doing, I want to switch off.
So that's what I've done today; as my good friend rushed around with her children I put oil onto my dry leather boots, made cups of tea, ate Welsh cakes and kind of looked at Facebook and dozed (I couldn't work out how to switch the TV on, otherwise there would have been lots of that too).

I wanted to tell you about how things have got better recently; how my mood lifted as I climbed Cader Idris and has stayed high ever since.  As the terrain got easier I could see what I'd come through and could understand that maybe I was suffering because it was hard, not because I was weak and rubbish.  I've also walked into the area where friends are, first to Jackie in Dinas Mawddwy, then to Annie in Commin's Coch, on to Heloise in Llanidloes, just a short hitch away then Anna near Tregaron where I am now.  Next will come Alys in Tregaron and then I'll be back to strangers and wild camping again, my little area of morale boosting friends will have passed behind me.  But it's been great while it lasted.  I also had the brilliant Hannah from Aberystwyth come out to walk with me for two day, someone I've only met quite recently but I definitely Like.  She's a fellow adventurer and we tramped together over Plynlimon in the grey cloud and drizzle.  It was my first day of walking and then camping in proper rain in months and I was very glad to have her there to lift my spirits.  I do get scared of what's ahead sometimes and facing it for the first time alone might have been a miserable experience.  I did have a small grump but she passed me pieces of pork pie and swigs of brandy so things got better by themselves.

Tomorrow I'm going to carry on again, after a short break.  First I went down to Cardiff to speak to a WI group, they were all very attentive and interested in my story which felt good, I planned to come back to Aberystwyth, get picked up and taken back to my walking point to start again today but felt groggy and unwilling this morning.  When Anna offered her house for another day, it didn't take much for me to say Yes where normally I'd heroically carry on.  I'll start again tomorrow, with clean kit, freshly oiled boots and a lighter heart.  Tomorrow I walk across the moor towards Llyn Teifi and I'll stay in a little bothy on the way.  Then to Tregaron and onwards, heading down to Cardiff, by way of the Brecon Beacons.  Are they difficult?  I'm not sure.

I've come through a little bit of a low patch.  First I started on the Cambrian Way, it heads down through Wales, winding from one mountain to another, going over the top of all of them.  I may have walked more than 1300 miles before I came to this route but suddenly the difficulty of what I was facing increased massively.  Walking south from Conwy and coming over, one after another, the Carneddau, the Glyders, Snowdon, Cnicht, the Moelwyns, the Rhinogs and Cader Idris IS REALLY TOUGH!!

My calves were burning, as I stepped my way laboriously up and down, seriously hampered by my heavy rucksack, having to haul myself up each step, bracing my poles to pull as much weight up with my arms rather than burden my weak knees.  I feel as if I've walked all the bounce out of my knees during this journey.  They were creaking and clicking to begin with, the result of years of being overweight I suppose, but right now I don't feel there is any possible way I could jump off something and have my knees absorb the shock of the landing, not at the moment.  I am definitely not a lithe, spontaneous kind of a walker.  No no, I must lower myself gently, bracing myself with walking poles, carefully avoiding any drop, jolt or jar to my fragile shock absorbers.  When my friend Stu came out to walk with him it was almost stunning to see him hop nimbly from rock to rock as I paced behind him.  How can he DO that?  He's 38!  That's older than me!  I compared his mountain goat prancing to my packhorse plod and wrinkled my nose with jealousy.

To say that I crossed all the mountains from Conwy to Cader non-stop is not exactly true of course.  Avid followers of my journey will know about the five day holiday I had halfway through, I can't exclude that from the record can I.  It helped a lot, I've been feeling a lot fresher ever since.  The muscles in my calves have relaxed a lot, which in turn has helped reduce the stress on the tendons in my ankles and feet.  I returned to walk over the Rhinogs with Stu and then the Moelwyns alone before resuming the straight line and walking from Barmouth over Cader Idris and on to Dinas Mawddwy.

The Moelwyns were the hardest I think, I struggled alone.  The Rhinogs, the set of four peaks and assorted rocky foothills are definitely the toughest and wildest territory I've passed through so far in Wales.  It wasn't so scary though as I had company; someone to discuss maps with, to take lunch breaks with, to share fruit pastilles with and to keep my spirits up.  It would have been a lonely and intimidating time if I'd navigated those mountains alone.
However, as Stu drove away, back to his life in Aberystwyth, there was a little sense of sadness.  I have to carry on doing this?  For another 2000 miles?  Through the Winter?  Alone? 
Maybe it was the shock of returning to walk after the holiday, or the comfort of walking with a friend but I suddenly felt like everything ahead of me was very hard going.  During the five days off I'd added a tent to my kit, as well as putting in a few extra pieces of winter gear - waterproof trousers, gloves, handwarmer - planning ahead for the wet and cold weather that I know is to come sooner or later.  (The thought of all the hardship yet to come, is it hovering above me like my own personal doom cloud?  Yes it is.)
Along with the food I'd added in for a few days of wilderness, it brought the weight of my rucksack up to a staggering 17-18 kilos.  I hadn't noticed the weight while walking with Stu as we'd shared out my kit between us and it began to tell on me as I headed away alone, from Beddgelert towards Cnicht. 
It's a short days walk according to the guidebook, up over Cnicht, around through the moorland and up over Moelwyn Fawr, down through the foothills and along the railway line towards Maentwrog.  It took me two full days of aching shoulders and painful knees, lots of rests and plenty of cursing as I humped my heavy bag over two peaks and through endless boggy foothills.

That day was also a lesson in the merits of spontaneous wild camping versus advance arrangements of hosts.  At about 5.30pm, as I'd been stumbling my way down the side of Moelwyn Fach for hours, losing my way and having to scramble down a sheer slope, throwing my rucksack down ahead for the second time on this trip, I came to flatter land, softer grass and the treeline began with a grove of autumnal oak trees.  I could sleep here, I thought.  Why am I battling and pushing to get to a bed?  What is so wrong with wild camping because right now I'd love to stop here for the night, it's only that I've arranged this bed in advance that I feel I have to get to it at all costs.
I reached Maentwrog at 8pm, too late to be able to hitch to Barmouth where a bed and a friendly host awaited me.  Instead I slept in a bus shelter in order to be able to catch the early bus to Barmouth the following morning and felt faintly sorry for myself.

It all felt difficult and shit, the thought of the months of this stretching ahead, WITH RAIN, was dispiriting.  I had a moan on the internet and a half day in Barmouth to have a shower and pull myself together a bit.  I posted a few things ahead to lighten the load and pushed on to Cader Idris.

It's a warm lunchtime in Barmouth and I'm in a cafe that smells of frying oil, listening to Smooth Radio and looking out at a flat yellow beach and the sea beyond. I've been walking again for five days and in that time I've come from the base of Snowdon, over Cnicht, the Moelwyns and the range of the Rhinogs, all the way down to Barmouth.  I feel good, in a way.  My body has power, I noticed yesterday as I walked down through the foothills of the Moelwyns, a very spreading, lumpy kind of mountain.  I can feel the muscles in my thighs and calves pushing against the ground, not tired, ready to keep striding out for the thousands of steps I take every day.  My feet don't hurt as badly either, they're not throbbing in pain from late afternoon to the end of each day.  I'm not physically exhausted, in the way that I was before I stopped almost two weeks ago.

However, let that positive paragraph not fool you into a feeling that all is good in my walking world.  I'm in a mood.

It all just seems like a lot of hard work, this walking every single day.  Not only have I chosen to attempt to walk 3000 miles in a continuous journey around Wales - I've chosen to put a route that takes me over all the highest points of the country right in the middle of it.  No sooner am I over one mountain than I have to walk towards another one and head straight up it!  This is really bloody difficult; it's not walking any more, it's scrambling, using my hands to haul myself and rucksack carefully to the top of a steep steep peak.  What is my reward?  To look at the view for five minutes and then spend a couple of hours picking my way down, lowering myself ungainly over rocks and boulders, my knees hurting with every single step.

Ugh, it's just so much effort!  Why am I doing this?  Why?

I have to think of the positives - the toughest mountains are over with, the Rhinogs and I am so glad I had the company of a friend while crossing them.  Good old Stu, chirpy and amenable, he was a brilliant person to go out walking with, especially as we were crossing the hardest, most dangerous peaks of the whole route, of my whole walk really.  High high climbs, big scrambles and boulders, all in some of the wildest most remote landscape I've come across in Wales so far.

I skipped ahead to walk the Rhinogs, to make sure I could do them when Stu was available and then hitched back in a stumbling, tired journey towards the missing section, Cnicht and the Moelwyns.  I lost my mapcase and guidebook that morning, leaving me stranded, in a way, I don't use the guidebook a lot but it helps to know which line the author wants you to take from peak to peak.  Without it I'm walking blind, in a way.  I know that next I will cross Cader Idris and head towards Dinas Maddwy before passing through Dylife and across Plynlimon but I've no idea of what route to take, I'll have to work it out myself which is more tiring.

Another thing I can moan about is the weight of my rucksack - it's far far too heavy and that is unecessarily exhausting.  I've just added in a tent, weighing a couple of kilos.

What do I do?  I'm carrying a pair of waterproof trousers, a handwarmer, a tin of lighter fluid, a tent.  All preparation in case of rain and cold weather but right now, day to day, I don't need them and they're just dead weight.  It's hard to carry them now and it's hard to look ahead and know that for all these winter months to come that I will have to carry them.
Yeah, Winter.  I said it.
I think the thought of all these months still to come is getting a bit much.  I've been walking for six months and I'm not even halfway through my chosen distance.  All the effort I spend each day grinding out a few miles and it barely makes a dent in the huge total I've set myself.  It's pretty wearing to think about all the effort yet to come.

A wholy unexpected aspect of the hard work that this journey involves is not the carrying of these objects, it's the brain power needed to constantly adapt to new situations - every time I'm tired it's because I'm low in energy and I need to solve the problem myself, eat something, put more clothes on, navigate myself off the side of a mountain, find a place to sleep, decide what really needs to be in my rucksack, plan ahead, communicate with people, wash, take care of myself.
These may seem like simple, easy decisions but when your brain and body are exhausted from the 10 hours you've just spent outside, being battered by the wind and clambering over rocks or through bracken, all in the effort to keep putting one foot in front of the other, everything becomes very difficult.  The brain decends into a fog where sitting very still and staring into space seems to be the immediate answer to any given problem.
Half the time I wild camp because I can't face putting up any kind of shelter or even having anything proper to eat; I just want to eat some sugar, take my socks off, get into a sleeping bag and lie down.
I'm struggling, but of course I'm going to struggle.  There's a reason that hardly anyone undertakes a 3000 mile journey - because it's really fucking difficult.  Especially without a support team.

Think of the positives
- I am about to climb Cader Idris, one of my favourite mountains.
- The worst mountains are done, nothing will be as hard as the Rhinogs.
- I have just picked out anouther few hundred grams of stuff I don't seem to need right now that I can post ahead.
- It's not raining.  (Yet)

It's a rest week, my first series of days of since May.  I've been watching films, stretching, eating good food and not doing a great deal else if I'm honest.  Rubbing my legs?  That's about it.
It's a funny way to spend time, doing nothing.  I set off again tomorrow, Friday, and I arrived here on Sunday night.  Today is the first day I've felt properly sleepy, groggy, not waking up properly until ten am.  It's as if it's taken all these days for my body to shift gear, to come out of the relentless Forward I've set myself into and start to release, relax.  I feel as if this rest is not enough, but I'm not sure how much would be.  Would I be ready to go again after two weeks?  A month?  Maybe never.  Maybe I'd have to force myself at any point.
I thought I'd write more this week.  I thought maybe I'd put some of the first six months into a computer, start to spin a few threads of story from the wisps of memories that are filling me up.  Does it matter if I forget things?  If all the times I sat down on sheep cropped turf and ate handfuls of trail mix from a battered plastic bag are running into one?  Where the feeling of hair tickling across my face in the wind or watching the sunlight fall through leaves can come from any day at all, does it matter about the sequence of things?  I'm not sure.
I wanted to tell you about Snowdonia, about climbing mountains, about walking from sunrise until sunset, about heather growing in the cracks of a rockface and looking out at a range of peaks and calculating the crossing of gigantic pieces of land.  Where the swoop and rise of a peak can be pinned down in minutes and hours.  I wanted to tell you about clambering, about the ache of my knees and the scream of my thighs as I pushed myself further, physically, than I have managed before on this walk.  Walking is one things, scrambling is another and as I came down a steep, steep hill, towering above me impossibly, vertically whenever I looked back, the light left the valley, turning to pale purple to grey to black as I slowly, awkwardly lowered myself, my rucksack and my stupid bamboo poles down steps of boulders, heather roots and gravel.  I came to a cleft, the path lost long ago and realised I had to lower myself down the rock to a ledge; the rucksack was thrown down the hill, the poles tucked safely into the cleft and, as I searched for the second handhold I needed to lower myself down to where my feet would touch the rock I thought "This isn't walking, I'm a walker not a climber".  The shaking came later, the dropping to my knees and the gulping of longed for water beside the rushing river that was almost safety. 
I'd love to have written a whole long thing about it all, but I've been sleepy and the days will have to stay as memories, layering down among all the others and waiting for the layers yet to come.  Those of the Cambrian Mountains and the Brecon Beacons, I'm not done with mountains yet.  When I'm over them, when I reach Cardiff, which I hope will be by the start of October, I'll be halfway.
Tomorrow I set off for the Rhinogs, with a friend this time, thankfully.  I'll be glad to have company over this tricky terrain.
What is it most important that I tell you?  That I'm not giving up, that I will carry on until I finish or can't go any more.  That, despite appearances, I deeply love this.  That it's hard.

I'm not certain of what to say today.  I've been walking for almost 200 days, since the 2nd of March.  I've covered 1360 miles, give or take.  I'm tired.  There's no way of getting around it.  I need lie-ins, afternoon naps and early nights, every day.  Of course I don't get them, especially the afternoon naps and I manage about one of the other two every day.

Everything seems the same, I seem to have stopped feeling and, instead, focused on doing.  Last night I walked around the Great Orme until I came to a shelter that overlooked the Conwy estuary.  I had a view of Snowdonia, Anglesey and the Conwy Bay as the sun set and the sky above the mountains turned gentle lilac as the moon rose.  Did I sit and wonder at the beauty of the world, thinking about how lucky I am to be doing this, how I'd much rather be here than anywhere else.  Nope, I read my book, checked the internet, took some photos, rubbed my feet and, once it got dark, laid down for a tolerable nights sleep on a bench.
I'm not saying I'm actively disliking it, when I think about the alternative, which is to stop; to return to Machynlleth and pick up the strings of work and social life again, there's nowhere else I'd rather be, nothing else I'd rather be doing  than camping and walking but the euphoria has gone.  The thrill of the new has faded, the excitement has worn off a little. 
It feels sometimes as if the days are all the same, I wake up somewhere strange, I walk, all day, stopping to rest my feet, eat food, read a book, stare into space.  I reach the end of the day, eat more food, rub my feet again and sleep, trying and always failing to get enough rest to do the same thing the next day without feeling tired.
I'm not sure whether I'm stomping along with a frown on my face, making less eye contact or maybe it's summer so tourists ask less questions of people with rucksacks but I don't seem to have as many conversations when I pass through towns.  I do have quite a stomp when I get going, it's not neccessarily fast but it is a definite stride.

After all this complaining, the next thing I must tell you is that I'm going to extend the walk - hah hah hah.
Yes, I've been putting the decision off all summer.  Since I injured myself, back in May, and had to take a break and then walk short days, I've known there would be no chance I could complete 3000 miles by the end of September when I'm due to be back in hospital, or 3300 miles by the end of October, when I'm due to go back to work.  My plan when I started the walk was to go 20 miles a day for the majority of the eight months I allowed myself to do this.  A thoroughly unrealistic target, I recognise now.
I kept thinking I'd decide at the end of the summer, but I've always known what I want to do.  I want to keep going.  I want to finish the target I've set myself, even if it takes a year. I want to keep walking and not stop, not through the autumn and not through the winter.  I don't want to give up and go home.  It's not enough.  How can I only walk half of Wales?  How can I finish before I've walked around Anglesey?  Or the Pembrokeshire coast?  Or to the top of Snowdon?  If I stop now, the walk will be incomplete, I really really want to keep going.
So I've been collecting winter kit.  I'm writing this in my smart, long sleeved, merino wool top.  Get me.  Someone off the internet might give me a tent, otherwise I'm going to buy one.  Yes, a tent.  That'll make a difference to my camping abilities. 
I've even had my boots sent up from Bristol and I'm trying them out instead of the fell running shoes I've been wearing for the last 1000 miles.  They're good actually, less pain in some ways and they definitely help my ankles.  I'm going to see a physio today, for the first time since I started.  I'll have a good massage and hopefully some advice about what's happening to the different parts of my feet and what I should do about it.
Next week I've decided to take 5 days off, to go and housesit for some friends.  It will be the first time I've had more than one day at a time, with which to do nothing, in four months.  I may have had time away from the walk in that period but always busy time.  This week I will try and sleep, rest and relax my aching body.

First, before the housesitting, there's the small matter of crossing Snowdonia.  Hah.  Yes, I'm setting off to cross the Carneddau, the Glyders and Snowdon before Sunday.  The next path I'm following is the Cambrian Way, also known as the mountain conisseur's route.  It follows a straight up and down path across all the highest points of Wales, from Snowdonia to Plynlimon and the Cambrian range and down through the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains.  It will be a challenge, that is for sure.  I'm not too worried though, my ability to sleep anywhere helps a lot, I don't have to worry about getting all the way up and all the way down each mountain in a day.  I can sleep at the top, or halfway up, or even halfway down, ho ho.  I'll just approach the mountains as I've done the rest of it.  Slow, steady, you'll get there in the end. One of a group of men I met on the Offa's Dyke Path told me how to climb steep slopes - Just take tiny steps and don't stop.  He's right, it helps.  Somehow, while rarely feeling capable of doing so, I have walked more than 1300 miles.  Good eh?

This doesn't feel like a very coherent piece of writing; but perhaps I don't have a very coherent brain at the moment.  Let's see how the resting helps.

I'm not certain of what to say today.  I've been walking for almost 200 days, since the 2nd of March.  I've covered 1360 miles, give or take.  I'm tired.  There's no way of getting around it.  I need lie-ins, afternoon naps and early nights, every day.  Of course I don't get them, especially the afternoon naps and I manage about one of the other two every day.

Everything seems the same, I seem to have stopped feeling and, instead, focused on doing.  Last night I walked around the Great Orme until I came to a shelter that overlooked the Conwy estuary.  I had a view of Snowdonia, Anglesey and the Conwy Bay as the sun set and the sky above the mountains turned gentle lilac as the moon rose.  Did I sit and wonder at the beauty of the world, thinking about how lucky I am to be doing this, how I'd much rather be here than anywhere else.  Nope, I read my book, checked the internet, took some photos, rubbed my feet and, once it got dark, laid down for a tolerable nights sleep on a bench.
I'm not saying I'm actively disliking it, when I think about the alternative, which is to stop; to return to Machynlleth and pick up the strings of work and social life again, there's nowhere else I'd rather be, nothing else I'd rather be doing  than camping and walking but the euphoria has gone.  The thrill of the new has faded, the excitement has worn off a little. 
It feels sometimes as if the days are all the same, I wake up somewhere strange, I walk, all day, stopping to rest my feet, eat food, read a book, stare into space.  I reach the end of the day, eat more food, rub my feet again and sleep, trying and always failing to get enough rest to do the same thing the next day without feeling tired.
I'm not sure whether I'm stomping along with a frown on my face, making less eye contact or maybe it's summer so tourists ask less questions of people with rucksacks but I don't seem to have as many conversations when I pass through towns.  I do have quite a stomp when I get going, it's not neccessarily fast but it is a definite stride.

After all this complaining, the next thing I must tell you is that I'm going to extend the walk - hah hah hah.
Yes, I've been putting the decision off all summer.  Since I injured myself, back in May, and had to take a break and then walk short days, I've known there would be no chance I could complete 3000 miles by the end of September when I'm due to be back in hospital, or 3300 miles by the end of October, when I'm due to go back to work.  My plan when I started the walk was to go 20 miles a day for the majority of the eight months I allowed myself to do this.  A thoroughly unrealistic target, I recognise now.
I kept thinking I'd decide at the end of the summer, but I've always known what I want to do.  I want to keep going.  I want to finish the target I've set myself, even if it takes a year. I want to keep walking and not stop, not through the autumn and not through the winter.  I don't want to give up and go home.  It's not enough.  How can I only walk half of Wales?  How can I finish before I've walked around Anglesey?  Or the Pembrokeshire coast?  Or to the top of Snowdon?  If I stop now, the walk will be incomplete, I really really want to keep going.
So I've been collecting winter kit.  I'm writing this in my smart, long sleeved, merino wool top.  Get me.  Someone off the internet might give me a tent, otherwise I'm going to buy one.  Yes, a tent.  That'll make a difference to my camping abilities. 
I've even had my boots sent up from Bristol and I'm trying them out instead of the fell running shoes I've been wearing for the last 1000 miles.  They're good actually, less pain in some ways and they definitely help my ankles.  I'm going to see a physio today, for the first time since I started.  I'll have a good massage and hopefully some advice about what's happening to the different parts of my feet and what I should do about it.
Next week I've decided to take 5 days off, to go and housesit for some friends.  It will be the first time I've had more than one day at a time, with which to do nothing, in four months.  I may have had time away from the walk in that period but always busy time.  This week I will try and sleep, rest and relax my aching body.

First, before the housesitting, there's the small matter of crossing Snowdonia.  Hah.  Yes, I'm setting off to cross the Carneddau, the Glyders and Snowdon before Sunday.  The next path I'm following is the Cambrian Way, also known as the mountain conisseur's route.  It follows a straight up and down path across all the highest points of Wales, from Snowdonia to Plynlimon and the Cambrian range and down through the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains.  It will be a challenge, that is for sure.  I'm not too worried though, my ability to sleep anywhere helps a lot, I don't have to worry about getting all the way up and all the way down each mountain in a day.  I can sleep at the top, or halfway up, or even halfway down, ho ho.  I'll just approach the mountains as I've done the rest of it.  Slow, steady, you'll get there in the end. One of a group of men I met on the Offa's Dyke Path told me how to climb steep slopes - Just take tiny steps and don't stop.  He's right, it helps.  Somehow, while rarely feeling capable of doing so, I have walked more than 1300 miles.  Good eh?

This doesn't feel like a very coherent piece of writing; but perhaps I don't have a very coherent brain at the moment.  Let's see how the resting helps.