Holiday plans

Well, this past couple of weeks we have been getting excited about our annual holiday. Now, normally we love to travel, especially in India and South East Asia. However, this year we're doing something a little bit different. We are going to walk The Coast to Coast Path. This is a walk which starts at St Bees Head (on the West coast of England, near The Lake District, for those of you dropping in from other countries), crossing the whole country for 190 miles, and ending at Robin Hoods Bay in Yorkshire. There is a map of the route here, on the web page of The Sherpa Van Project, who will take your bags from various hostels and B and Bs along the way and drop them off at the next stop for you. they also operate a minibus service so that you can leave your car at Kirkby Stephen, half way along the route, get a bus to the start, and then a bus back to your car at the end.

With this in mind we started walking in earnest this weekend, starting off with a circuit of Richmond park (about 8 miles). This isn't quite the sort of distance that we'll be doing on the hike; it will be between 12 and 20 miles a day, but we've got until August to build up. To be fair, the Scotsman had done a 12 mile run with his friend a few hours earlier, so he is probably a bit closer to the necessary fitness levels. Of course, after all that activity we had to replenish our liquid levels, which we very responsibly did, in a pub in Richmond while watching the rugby. Come to think of it, we did a very good job of replenishing our liquid levels...