The Art of Unfortunate Travel
Every year I set myself a birthday challenge – something that looks feasible from a distance but turns into a living hell close-up. Last year, I wandered across the North York Moors in an 8-hour October rainstorm (and ended up writing it up for the San Francisco Chronicle). On my birthday this year…well, I was busy. Too much writing, too much on – something had to hit the wall.
So, two months late….I’m hitting the wall.
“You do know the weather forecast is horrific, yes?”
“Yes. But I am MIKE!”
“What?”
“Er – I’m MIKE. It’s…it’s like a machismo rallying cry. I’m facing off against the world, see. Staring it down. And there can be only one winner.”
“Well yes. That’s certainly true.”
My housemate eyes me pityingly as I continue to lace up my boots. (more…)
Tomorrow, I go up into the hills to meet an old foe.
It’s the North York Moors, between Pickering and Whitby.
I’ve walked a little of it before. Enough to encourage me to try the whole route, the whole 20-something miles over barren, hushed terrain.
It’s not an epic trek by any means – a day’s good walking, factoring in the terrain, unexpected fences, being chased by local wildlife and so on. After walking 35 miles a week for the last 3 months, I’m ready for it. There’s a good road, and a train line for emergencies.
But it’s beaten me twice. Mud and rain the first time….unexpectedly rugged terrain making one of my boots explode the second time. (These are, after all, moors).
There won’t be a third time.
Of course, if I had a brain I’d be doing this in the height of summer, rather than at the scrag end of it. But it’s my birthday tomorrow – a day for denying as well as celebrating – and so I’m going to stride through whatever the weather can throw at me (and according to the BBC weather forecast, that’s a lot) and walk and walk and keep walking until I have walked right over my foe, putting him behind me in every sense, freeing me to seeker challenges further afield.
It’ll be hard. And boggy. But by Saturday lunchtime, we’ll be done, my foe and I. And I shall return to York on the bus, mud-spattered and sheep-chewed….
Ready for other walks.
