An intentional detour!

As you will know, we are currently walking the Greensands Way. We’d only walked two sections and got as far as Thursley when we got confused – the Greensands Way appeared to go both west and east! As far as we can work out, there is an additional ‘spur’ of the path to Farnham, whilst the official route continues east.

Not wanting to miss out on anything, and curious to walk on Thursley Common which we had heard about but never visited, we thought we’d first walk this spur before continuing with the main path.

Turns out Thursley and Hankley Commons are both interesting environments to explore – read about our walk here.

R & L

Guest goat interview – Great Glen Walk

From time to time we like to hear about how some of our friends have embraced their inner goat.

Where have you been walking recently?

The Great Glen Way from Fort William to Inverness 

How long is that path?

In theory it’s 75 miles but there are places where you can take either a higher or lower level walk and on occasions I detoured to get a better view from up a nearby hill so I took some 80 miles  

How many days did you split it over?

The walk took a full week but there’s also a lot of travelling to get to the start and back home!

What did you do for accomodation?

The accommodation was a real highlight of the trip – a large, old barge. Each morning after breakfast the boat and 7 walkers departed and met up again early afternoon. There was a crew of 4 – Captain, Guide, Cook and a man who did all the other jobs necessary on a barge. 

What is the scenery like?

Stunning scenery especially the 25 miles or so along Loch Ness made all the better given the wonderful weather and absence of midges  

What was your highlight from the walk?

Most of the other walkers were very fit and wanted to walk fast. A couple struggled a bit with this so spent a couple of days on the barge. The result was that I spent most of the walk alone with the professional Guide who was a great guy full of stories about his experiences guiding in the Alps and who was very knowledgeable about the countryside we were passing through.

Any lowlights?!

There were no real problems on the trip but it’s worth bearing in mind that you are likely to be in close company for a week with a group of people you’ve never met before.  You just have to hope you all get on well together!

Would you recommend this walk to others?  If so, any tips or things you’d do differently?

This is a great way to walk if you don’t want to carry your stuff around with you or worry about accommodation and where to eat each evening. The bedrooms were en suite with a wonderful, powerful shower and the food was excellent. 

In search of King Kong

By the end of our 5 days walking in the Mendips, our bodies had got used to the increased activity and the walking and carrying got easier. We were keen to keep up the steps and so we’ve started our next challenge already, the Greensands Way. We’re going to do this route in circular day walks, the same approach as the Wayfarers. It’s pretty long, so it should keep us busy for a while!

We walked the first section last week… and went in search of King Kong!

Read about it here.

R & L