Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Plans for the summer

My plans for the summer are still going ahead, as much to my surprise I still haven't encountered any enormous and overwhelming reasons for them not to. The prospect is surprisingly un-daunting - knowing that a lot of people have done this before me certainly helps, as does knowing that as long as I take it fairly easy in the initial stages I'll certainly be fit enough to stay the distance unless something really nasty comes along.

The only thing so far which is causing real frustration is the feeling that now I've decided that I'm definitely doing it, I just want to jump on a train to Penzance and get going right now.

One thing I think I've worked out, though, is exactly why it is I want to do this. It seems to me that in this age of global travel, where for those who can afford it it can be as easy to get from London to Thailand as it is to get from London to Glasgow, precious few people who've grown up in Britain know anything about the geography and landscapes of the country in which they live. When your view of Britain consists entirely of small islands of knowledge (your home town, maybe central London, Heathrow airport) linked by motorways it's not surprising that especially given the unreliable British weather and the tantalisingly exotic prospects of foreign travel most people prefer to leave the country to go on holiday. Actually travelling within the UK therefore seems strange and exotic by comparison, and I think it's a shame that more people don't travel more in the UK. It's a fantastically varied country for its size, and the joy of doing a trip like this is that there's always somewhere new to go. Walk 20 miles down the road and there's somewhere new, so walking a lot of units of 20 miles should make it possible to see an awful lot of new places. Of course, there's also the food...

The other reason I'm doing this is less easy to rationalise neatly away. In Mike Myers' seminal arthouse movie Wayne's World 2, Wayne (the main protagonist - a dark, brooding Swede) expresses the desire to do "Something capacious. Something cajunga.", but is uncertain of his true destiny until a nocturnal visitation from the ghost of Jim Morrison and a weird naked Indian. I have not had the benefit of the late Mr Morrison's wisdom - or, mercifully, his dreadful poetry - but it seems to me that after ten years of working full-time it's time to take a break and do something which is indeed capacious, and might even be cajunga. Wayne organised a rock festival. I'm just going for a long walk. But I hope to avoid the fate Wayne feared, that of "working at Great America, mopping up hurl and lung butter". Shyeah! Oh, and the renewed thoughts of doing this inexplicably came to me while reading a bunch of old Dork Tower cartoons, so I guess I should blame them too for good measure.

Anyway, the die is now well and truly cast. Charities have been contacted, things have already been bought, and most importantly the domain names have been registered. It's all go so far. I now have a mere 47 Ordnance Survey 1:25000 sheets to acquire, plus trivia such as a new rucksack (with straps which aren't held together with knots), a new tent or more likely a lightweight bivvy, and a solar panel for charging all the geek toys I'm going to be taking along with me.

Oh, and just one more thing. I have here an entry for the Dublin City Marathon on the 31st of October. It seems like a shame to waste it, so provided I finish the end-to-end in time and I'm in good enough shape (not collapsing from exhaustion, in other words) I think it would be kind of neat to round the whole thing off with a marathon. Should be fun, eh?

(Images produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Images reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.)