Preparations for Pennine Way, UK / Ettevalmistused Pennine Way matkaks, UK

dhwoodland (42)in #travel • 7 years ago (edited)

Me and my friend Sam(who you can see on the pictures down below), where urged by Sam's fiancee(Flow) in the winter to get out of the city and go on a hike together. Interestingly she urged it because I had done some walks in Yorkshire Dales before. What she and Sam didn't know was the fact that longest hikes I have ever done have always been under or around 15 miles.
At some point in the Spring Sam told me, that his University should be over by second week of the June and it would be perfect time to do some hiking. I agreed and tried to book off some time from my work and soon got off 2 weeks for my holiday.
To clarify once again, my plan was never to do something so significant, like I am going to describe you know, it was always going to be only 1, maybe 2 days of hiking(at least in my mind).

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Preparations:
As Sam has been hiking all his life and knows some parts of the Middle-England really well, it was quite obvious to take some route through the known areas(known to him). Well, so he through some ideas at me, like what kind of route to take and how long all those routes should take. I told from the beginning that I am not willing to hike for two weeks in a row, because otherwise I wouldn't have any resting time at all(alone time).
After couple of days thinking on different possibilities, we agreed to take a route that is known to whole wide World pretty well. Although I refused first(because of the time consumption), the Pennine Way was our choice, although we decided to cut it slightly shorter(about 50 miles shorter) in order to be able to finish in 10 days.

Route decided, he asked me: "Do you have tent, backpack, sleepingbag, etc. ?" "Well, I kind of do..", I answered. Then I described what I had and soon we realised, that one of us(of course ME) needs to prepare a bit better, before we can head out on the road. Down below you can read about most of the items we are about to take with us(I had to purchase about half of these..)
Well who said it had to be easy in the first place?

What are we planning to take on the road?

If you ever want to do any kind of planning for anything, wether it is shopping or to-do list for the weekend. Google Keep has been perfect tool for me and it allows to turn normal list into check-list. So once you have put stuff in your bag, you know exactly what you still need to take.

But back to the list.. So we are planning to take:

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Our route is planned along the Pennines, including 9 nights of camping along the route. Our main goal is to start with steady pace, about 20 miles/32 km per day: starting point Malham Cove and ending in Kirk-Yetholm. Ideally we should be in Kirk Yetholm by 10. July. Hopefully in the afternoon. There we will be picked up and taken to Edinburgh, where I will be heading back to Leeds and Sam will continue "nomad lifestyle for another week or two"

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Why am I doing this?
One of the main reasons is that I want to test what I am capable of, but also it is one of my dreams to be part of this amazing hiking culture and discover England more and more. And what could possible be better way for that to hike on the "backbone of the England".

My plan is to enjoy the road(trail), so I won't be concentrating on taking pictures at all times, but as you may read from the list, I am prepared to be able to photograph our whole trail. In certain way I am hoping that this journey will bring some challenges: physical ones as well as mental ones. At the end of the day, I just hope to get along with Sam and take the most of the route.

So what to excpect from the next post?
Pictures from our trip; maybe even some videos and feedback on how the Pennine Ways feels to a rookie like me.

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More about me!