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Link to part 1:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=34902___________
Aberdeen to DundeeAs expected, I didn’t really sleep at all that night. My head was buzzing and I was uncomfortable sleeping on a bare mattress, wrapped up in an old blanket. When my alarm finally went off at 8:30, I got up, showered, threw the blanket, alarm clock and my watch in the bin. Up to that day I would never take my watch off, but I had decided to leave all that behind me, I wanted to be free from all stress and just live by the daylight.
After quite an emotional evening, I expected to get hit hard by the blues on leaving my home for the last 12 years. When I left my flat though, ‘Eye of the Tiger’ suddenly started blaring out of tinny speakers from down the road and 5 of my friends jumped out from behind a van waving a ‘Start’ banner.
I really dislike goodbyes but this was a fantastic surprise and kicked me off into adventure mode. I walked out of Aberdeen without looking back once, fully focused on the road ahead of me now. It was cloudy all day but comfortable for walking and progress was good. It was a pretty uneventful walk, following busy country roads. Not much fun, but it was what I expected until I would get further away from civilization. While I had mapped out my entire route through the UK, I hadn’t set any daily goals, I just wanted to take each day as it came, walk however far I felt like at the time without having to follow some sort of schedule. While this gave me an amazing sense of freedom, it would often result in chaotic improvised sleeping locations, but that was all part of the fun
As I had no idea how far I could walk in a day, I had initially thought I would try to aim for about 12-15 miles a day and then up it from there. For those who remember though, the Spring and Summer of 2012 would later be declared as some of the coldest and wettest in history… Aiming for an ultralight pack, I only had a very thin 1 season summer sleeping bag with me and a minimal amount of clothes, which ended up leaving me with no choice but to keep walking until it was time to find somewhere to sleep and get in my sleeping bag to stay warm. So, I ended up doing nearly 20 miles already on my first day.
Outside of Stonehaven I found a little forest and decided that would be a good spot for spending my first night. I had just made myself comfortable in my bivvi bag, reading my kindle, when it started raining. (and it would continue raining throughout pretty much all of April…) I had no choice but to get all the way into the bivvi and zip it up. A rather uncomfortable night followed. Completely inexperienced in bivvying, my first mistake was to put the thermarest on the outside, so I would slide off it constantly. Being slightly claustrophobic, I struggled lying in this tight, fully enclosed body bag. The damper the inside got the harder I found the breathing and regularly had to open the bag up and get some fresh air, getting my sleeping bag quite wet in the process. The whole experience wasn’t helped by the fact that I had never spent a night alone in a dark forest before and I wasn’t used to all the noise and movement that started up as soon as I laid still. On top of it all, temperatures had dropped to 0 °C and I was pretty cold all night.
It was still raining when I woke up shortly after sunrise. With no experience in how to ‘live’ in a bivvi, I got pretty soaked in the process of getting up, getting dressed and packing all my gear up again. I really should have practiced this a bit more! No biggie though, I was still riding my adrenaline high and couldn’t care less. After a hot cup of tea and bacon roll in Stonehaven, I set off towards Inverbervie, this time walking mainly along small paths, which was a lot more pleasant.
Quick food stop in Inverbervie before following the coast towards Montrose. Out of nowhere, a tendon in my left ankle suddenly started flaring up and quickly getting more and more painful. As I had made good progress, I called it a day and set up camp along the shore. It looked like the weather would deteriorate further, so I kept all my clothes on and got into a still wet sleeping bag.
If the previous night had be uncomfortable, it was bliss compared to my second night. Shortly after getting into the bag a proper storm hit me, I could feel the rain batter my bag all night. The howling wind kept pushing the soggy bivvi against my face and temperatures dropped below freezing. On the bright side, I was so pre-occupied with being cold, wet and miserable, I seemed to forget my claustrophobia. I spent all night wide awake, waiting for sunrise and cursing myself for not having followed other peoples advice and gotten myself at least a hooped bivvi!
After a seemingly endless Chinese water torture, it finally started to lighten up in my bag and I knew the sun was finally rising. I unzipped my bag and stuck my head out to find my bivvi covered in a layer of ice and snow!! Well that was a bit unexpected!
By the time I had packed my gear up, my hands were completely frozen, my left hand had gone completely numb, stiff and a funny shade of blue… I couldn’t move my fingers at all anymore and panicked a bit. I power walked to the next village, St Cyrus, ignoring the pain in my ankle. I stopped at the first coffee house I came across. The incredibly friendly owners had one look at me and supplied me with free pots of tea and freshly made cake. Slowly my fingers regained their feeling and movement again, so I continued on to Montrose.
I felt pretty rough and worn-down all day, a bit worrying considering it had only been 2 days! I knew I would be spending the following night in a proper bed though! My mate Stuarts folks live near Montrose and they were so kind to offer me a place to stay. I had a fantastic evening with loads of great food, drink and banter. I literally just passed out as soon as my face hit the pillow!
After an excellent breakfast, I set off towards Arbroath. Having ignored my ankle the previous day, I was now in agony as soon as I started walking. I can’t remember much of the walk to Abroath, I was too busy trying to ignore the pain and focussing on continuing to walk. I had planned to go further, but I just couldn’t walk any further and spent the night in a B&B in Arboath. I didn’t even feel like leaving the room anymore to get some dinner, so I dug into my food reserves. I quickly realised that living purely on pistachio nuts was a terrible idea. They may be nice as snacks, but an entire dinner consisting of only pistachios was really not pleasant and I would need to come up with a better plan!
I had arranged to stay with my friend Iris in Dundee, so only a days walk to go! My ankle was pretty bad but I was sure I could make it. From previous experience with injuries it just seemed to be an inflamed tendon. I swung by the pharmacy, got some ibuprofen tablets, took some of those mixed with some paracetamol I had on me and hit the road. I made it about half a mile before I sat down on a bench and realised there was no way I could keep going, after having brute forced my way through the previous two days even with the painkillers. I took my boots off and wondered what the hell I should do. This brought back bad memories of my failed attempt of the WHW years back. I got really quite stressed out about it but I was determined to see this through, no matter what. After all, I had collected over a thousand pounds for my charity by now and I couldn’t let people down! While going through my options, I realized that movement didn’t hurt my ankle at all, only the pressure of the boot pushing against it. In a proper ‘Eureka’ moment, I unpacked my five-finger shoes which I had originally taken as ultra light shoes to wear in the evenings. I took a few cautious steps… nothing, no pain at all! Incredible relief washed over me and with new-found energy I grabbed my backpack and raced off. I had a brilliant day with beautiful scenery and with lots of random chat from people who stopped me to enquire about my peculiar footwear!
Unfortunately, due the lack of cushioning these five-finger shoes provide, a small collection of blisters I had gained over the previous days and walking over hard concrete paths for most of the day, my useless feet got so sore that I made it as far as Broughty Ferry before I couldn’t take it anymore, the soles of my feet were on fire! I only have a few miles to go to Dundee, but there was no way I would make it without completely ruining my feet. I picked a memorable spot and called Iris, asking her if she would be ok with picking me up, under the condition that she would have to drive me back to the same spot again so that it wouldn’t be cheating!
I spent the rest of the day sitting in Iris’ flat soaking my feet and relaxing and decided to take the following day off walking to finally give my feet and ankle some time to recover. On the one hand I felt great, knowing that I had walked 124km so far, a distance that not long ago I would have found quite ridiculous. One the other hand I was pretty worried about my body letting me down so early on. I really should have done some training before setting off on a trip like this, but I had been winging things all my life, and it always worked out somehow …
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Link to part 3:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=35083