March 5, 2005

Epic Plans

Part of my reason for becoming a freelance worker (that translates as "usually unemployed" in most cases) last year was that I wanted to have more time to do things which I wanted to do. Instead of having to squeeze all my important extracurricular activities into twenty-something days of annual leave (no scoffing, Americans - we all know you only get 2 days of leave a year) I wanted to be able to say things like "Right, I'm taking the next three months to do this" and actually be able to do that.

The only problem with this approach is that I've actually started to think of things I really want to do - things like a long ocean passage on Søren Larsen or a couple of long driving tours of the less-visited parts of the USA. The one which has resurfaced in my mind most recently, and which there's a chance I may actually take the plunge and do, is to walk Land's End to John O'Groats unsupported. It's "only" about 1150 miles by a fairly interesting route (direct and on roads it's just under 900, but that makes for hideous walking) and would probably be doable in 8-9 weeks at the kind of pace I walk. What makes it more appealing, of course, is the prospect of taking along lots of fiendish gadgetry like GPS units and palmtops and arranging things like live tracking, which would be kind of fun.

I did the provisional steps of planning this trip a couple of years ago and for whatever reason it didn't happen in the end, but now that I have the ability to block out the time - work permitting, naturally - and actually do it I'm getting more and more keen to do so. August-September, or maybe skewed a bit later to finish in mid-October to give a couple of weeks of recovery before the Dublin Marathon on 31 October, seems like it would be a good time. There's still things which would need to be sorted out and other plans to be made but I'd like to think that it could still happen this year or maybe, if that proves impossible to organise, next year.

I guess we'll see.

Posted by mpk at March 5, 2005 6:57 PM | TrackBack
Comments

I am considering getting in to walking again - I would really like to do a long distance walk, e.g. Offa's dyke, hadrian's wall, wainwright C2C, or, starting from near me, North downs way.

Of course, there are a few sticking points

1) I'd need to do lots of shorter walks to train, and time can be hard to find.
2) by the time I thought I was ready, I would find it tricky to get accomodation and this would push the walk back dishearteningly.
3) I could camp - but I've never camped under my own steam (e.g. walk... stop here... sleep.... walk) and don't know the simple etiquette of how it works. I've only ever gone on things which have been sorted in advance. Sounds odd, but it is offputting.

In essence, I'm prevaricating like mad! My original plan was to do a walk today, maybe about 5 miles - I don't know if this will happen.

Posted by: Murk at March 6, 2005 8:39 AM

Well.... gonna do it?

Posted by: Murk at March 14, 2005 8:29 PM

At the moment I'd say it's about an 85% probability that I'll do it. Most of the people who it's polite to ask first (my customers, for instance) don't seem to mind too much, and it's only a couple of things like ensuring my insurance and tenancy would be okay if the flat was left for a couple of months that remain as hurdles. And that's just a couple of phone calls.

So we'll see. I hope to have a decision in the next week or so.

Posted by: Mike at March 15, 2005 11:41 AM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?