A Weekend of Firsts

 This Easter weekend I did a couple of things for the first time, they were both big in my eyes but both for different reasons. As part of my “walk myself happy” campaign I went to Wales with a friend to have little, yes you guest it, walk. It turned into a mini adventure and we ended up walking just over 35km! We picked a part of Offa’s Dyke as our  walk, started at 6.30ish and had a super pleasant drive in the sun. The weather gods decided they were gonna smile on us all day and we had sun for 90% of the time.

Offa’s Dyke is a manmade earthwork that sort of follows the English-Welsh border. It is named after a Mercia kind called Offa who historians believe is the one that ordered it to be build in the 8th century. Offa’s Dyke path is a 177 mile trail that goes from the bay of Liverpool to the Severn estuary. It traverses through diverse terrain and countryside. If you are interested in walking any part of the Dyke or want to explore other parts and activities in Wales the Visit Wales website has great maps and detailed suggestions depending on the length and difficulty of the walk or type of activity that you are looking for. We picked Pandy to Hey-on-Wey - an 18 mile straight line walk - as our treck for the day as it goes along the ridge of Hatterrall hill as it afforded great views and gave us some steep climbing to do. Getting up the hill to the Dyke is a challenge, if like me you are unfit, so I have to say thank you to my walking buddy for the patience and slow pace. Once on top of the ridge however all the aching, panting and thunderous heartbeating is quickly forgotten as you get swallowed by the immense landscape.

We had a patchwork quilt of farmland on our right, a valley on the left and then a second ridge and the black mountains beyond. I know I wasn’t high up, the highest part of the hill being 530 meters and yet I felt on top of the world. To add to the idyllic picture there were animals everywhere, as the area is shared commons. We walked amongst mostly sheep and ponies, but there was the occasional cow here and there.

The morning went by in a flash under a warm sun, walking past other hikers of all ages, sizes and abilities, each of them smiling and saying a hello. At lunchtime we had some food and decided we should turn back, we had gone a good way by now, it looked like just about 2/3rds of the way to Hay-On-Wey. Instead of going back the way we came however we came down from the ridge into the valley below and smack right into the middle of lambing season! The fields were alive with the sound of baahing and little baby lambs jumping all around. Some were so young they were still unsure on their feet.

As we made our way back east we got to Llanthony Priory, a 12th century Augustinian priory that is partly in ruin, the parts of it still habitable now turned into a hotel/Inn. The site is incredibly beautiful, the arches of the Priory standing dark against the bright green landscape. It is certainly a must see, and a very pleasant spot for a picnic. Therefore, sitting on one of the walls we had our second rest, which by this point, a good 20km in was very needed, for me at least. The sun was beautifully warm and if we didn’t have as long left to go I would have probably stayed there much longer.

We didn’t have a particular route that we were following at this point so we strayed a little, and Google maps is shite and totally useless when you are in the deepest darkest Welsh countryside where mobile phones are still very much a thing of the future. Eventually we made it back to Pandy and the car rather tired but on my part at least extremely pleased, self satisfied and proud.   

The next day I was a little stiff, my toes were a bit tender and I was very tired, a two miles stroll from the city centre felt more like 200 miles but I was content. My reward for my hike was the second thing I tried for the first time this weekend, a Baby Ruth! I had seen them in the shop’s foreign isle for a while, I have always wanted one ever since the first time I saw the Goonies. If you love the Goonies as much as I do you will know why trying a Baby Ruth for the first time is worth mentioning. I am pleased to say I liked it and I ticked an item off my bucket list. I agree with you, I have a somewhat strange bucket list…!  

I won’t lie, the walk wasn’t easy. I had aches and pains everywhere, my lungs felt like someone had shredded them to bits by the end. My hips hurt, which was depressing because I am not 80, my empty rucksack got heavy, my back turned into a bit of a comma. If day one after the walk I was a little stiff, then day two I was like one of those lambs, getting up for the first time! None of that mattered, I still had a smile on my face, I felt exhilarated, content, alive. I would have kept walking, I will keep walking! And I will get more and more of you to join me!         

Oh and one last thing...I didn’t fall over!!!!

Durdle Door, a bit of wind and me staying upright!

Here I am, my first adventure of the year. I woke up at 6am with a smile on my face and a prayer for no rain. I have run out of excuses not to do the things I wanted, or to try new ones.

I started 2016 with one of those painfully clear moments that I was going nowhere really fast and life was passing me by waving and laughing at me. Self awareness is a bitch like that, you wake up with a realisation about yourself where you look like an absolute dick. At that point the world will never be the same and there are a whole ton of things you need to change to stop being a dick. You realise that it doesn’t matter how old you are, you will always discover things about yourself that you want and/or need to change. The bonus to this? Life becomes better, change is no longer scary, it is exciting, enticing, needed. And no, before you accuse me of making New Year’s resolution that are nothing but a passing moment, this is nothing of the sort, this is me realising that life is indeed a box of chocolates but that chocolate is ALL good, even the orange cream ones and I am going to eat the whole damn box even if it makes me sick. I am also genuinely unashamed of just how bad this analogy is, Mr Gump had the best outlook on life and we can all stand to learn a thing or two.  

So here I am the car packed, the sandwiches made - enough to feed a small army when there was only 4 of us going - I collected my walking posie and off we went to the Jurassic Coast and Durdle Door in Dorset.

I didn’t know what to expect or how I would do, I hadn’t done anything like this in years. I knew that the area we were going to was beautiful, I knew that the cliffs were going to be white. Anything beyond that was a mystery.

The start of our root, which was circular, was Hambury Tout, and what a mean way to start it is. A steep hill by any standard the path was paved in what looked like a Roman road and was as slick as anything. Every step I took came with a prayer of “don’t fall over, just don’t fall over! Not yet!” You see I had one goal and that was to try and not fall over on this trip. What felt like an eternity later but was most likely 15 minutes I was at the top, my small win was that I didn’t fall over but I was sweating under my windproof and thinking I need to do more cardio. The thought didn’t stay with me long as I was smacked in the face with a stunning view and all the pain then and after was worth every second. The day was grey and overcast the winds were in excess of 25mph and I didn’t care. I could smell the sea, the taste of salt in the air welcomed me and I felt at home, I was exactly where I wanted to be.

The steel hue of the clouds didn’t wash out the landscape of either colour or magnificence, the cliffs were more brilliantly white than I thought. The hills were mottled shades of brown and green and the sea was a brilliant turquoise slowly turning grey as it met the sky, and there just where they touched was a dazzling line of silver light where the sun shone through the clouds and reflected off the English Channel.The saying “Every cloud has a silver lining” has never been more true or expressed in a more awe inspiring way.   

The day wore on and the hills didn’t get any smaller, the wind got stronger and I fully expected to feel miserable at the conditions but instead every time I licked my lips I would taste the sea and a smile would spread through my face. Every hill I climbed up gave me another and another breathtaking vista. I stood on the edge and watched as seagulls soared on the wind and swooped in and out of their nests on the cliff face. The wind buffeted me and I felt the exhilaration that comes with the wonder of what it would be like to jump off of this height. My mind soared into possibilities of other treks, of skydiving and bungee jumping and the misery I had awaited didn’t materialise. I was the picture of happiness and I would have kept walking for ever, perfectly content with the simple comfortable silence or easy conversation of my three friends around me. There was no forced chatter, no dull small talk, no awkward pause when no one knew what to say. There was simply the joint goal of getting to the top of the next hill and back down the other side.

Like all good things this had to come to an end, the conditions were deteriorating,  we turned inland and looped back to the car park where I was hoping I was not going to find a parking ticket for having overstayed our welcome. We walked through green pasture land, still able to see the sea as well as the descending clouds and mist and the immanent rain. Turns out the fates had our back and we made it to the car before any real rain started, we were muddy, windswept and grinning. Part of my smile had to do with a clean(ish) ticketless windshield.  

As all perfect days should, this one ended in Kebab Kid where we actually sat and ate in the restaurant so that I would not be breaking my “lent”(a long story for a different time), I even pulled out the pretend plastic cheese slices out of my burger.

I have barely been back and I am already looking at adventure two and three and ... oh the possibilities! Yes, still smiling and no I didn’t fall over, not once! 

Yes, I climbed UP that hill and did NOT fall down!