The never-ending path: Land’s End or bust,
Walk Land’s End to John o’Groats and you’ll forever be able to say you walked 1000 miles in one go. Glorious! But what it’s actually like day to day you’ll tend to forget – unless you kept a journal like editor Guy Procter...
WORK AVOIDANCE. IT’S been responsible for many of the best things in my life. In 1996 I had a lot of work to avoid. Not just my final degree exams, meant to be the result of three years’ hard work and deep thought, but the whole getting-a-job, doing-something-withthe-rest-of-my-life thing, which urgently needed not thinking about. And that’s how I came up with what I decided was a long-held ambition to walk from Land’s End to John o’Groats (or rather John o’Groats to Land’s End, because it sounded like it might be downhill and easier). This was a truly excellent timewaster – not just because it was so big it required a lot of thinking about and preparing for, but because there are whole books about the subject that demand to be read instead of revision, some of which (like John Hillaby’s Journey through Britain) were very good at convincing you that somehow walking could someday be turned into a job. (I mean, what a ridiculous idea.) Then there are the daydreams – great long absorbing ones that have to be had, and which really leave very little time for anything else. And there’s the gear-gathering, and map-buying and highlighter pen-wielding, and the talking about it. Yes Land’s End to John o’Groats is a true workhorse of a work avoider, unparalleled in its procrastinatory powers.
And then after an incredibly long train journey, there we were actually doing it. And it didn’t feel like work avoidance any more. ▶
End of day 1 (26 June 1996): Outside Thurso. “Paul has 8 or 9 blisters. Tent is very damp. We may have overdone it. 23-24 miles. Sunshine nearly all day. Sunburnt. Camped in a farmer’s field secretly. A bit scared. Took several carefully-composed photos at John o’Groats. No film in camera.”
SO BEGAN A nightly diary 68 days long – what I now see to be an epic of minor grievances and of touching kindnesses; of exquisite moments and exhausting hours, of small-scale blisses and vast boredoms. It’s a document which forever stands in the way of me romanticising the memory quite as much as I fantasised the prospect. But boy am I glad I did that walk.
I was walking through Scotland with my friend Paul, a Glaswegian. He wanted to walk the length of his homeland, but thought it preposterous to spend the whole summer doing the same thing every day and 70-odd nights in a tent (necessitated by budget as much as any willing hardcoreness). And who was to say he was wrong? A hell of a lot of country lay ahead of us beyond Scotland’s surprisingly flat, worrisomely infinite-looking far north.
We were following a route roughly corresponding to one Andrew McCloy had described in his book,
Land’s End to John o’Groats, the overview map of which I’d stuck in my journal, along with important phone numbers (only one person had a mobile back then, and it wasn’t either of us). I’d highlighter-ed our prospective route onto OS Landranger maps – 30 virgin magenta-covered sheets, and sent them in batches (along with a few – get this – phonecards)
to seven post offices, poste-restante, to await our pickup en route.
We had an immense feeling of freedom as we left the train and most responsibilities behind, of course we did, but being human, almost immediately out of all that emptiness swelled irritations too. Paul was worried about his feet. I was worried about the
smell of his feet, but also the fretful need I felt to continually monitor the moisture levels of the tent inner, and the tension of the fly sheet. I was disgusted
at having to put away the tent wet in the morning – not only at the extra weight, but the fact it would soak first my pack, then my back, then my bum, leaving me looking like a potty-training toddler. I endured this until I realised the rolled-up tent fitted nicely into our cooking pot, which would collect the water safely during the day, until it was time to put up the stillwet tent again in the evening, a task like birthing a particularly soggy dragonfly. But these were the irritations of out-of-towners, snags designed to detain the unwary and check: are you sure you want to do this? And actually, as we powered through stiffness and gradually found strength; through frustration into the freedom of muscle memory and singular purpose, we realised we really did.
“The
more nights in a row you spend under canvas, the more like a
feel.” special outlier you
Day 4: Melvich. Today we saw a bloke who had come from Land’s End. He was bursting to tell us and looked very happy. He was the inspiration for the next few miles. BUT he was staying in B&Bs!!
YOU HAVE A lot of time to think, and talk, on a long walk, and one of the favourite themes – aside from all the mindfulness and great wisdom – is considering how ruddy superior you are. Whoever you pass you’re probably going further, more hardily, and if you’re carrying a bigger rucksack than them then good. And the more nights in a row you spend under canvas, the more like a special outlier you feel – a sort of wild-eyed seer who refuses offers of lifts and can see through any material comfort (like showers, clean socks, comfy places to sit) like the soul-rotting indulgences they are. But it takes a whole muddle of motivations to keep you going through miles 87, 343, 696 and 763, and you readily accept that not all of them will be noble.
On Day 5, approaching Helmsdale – a small Sutherland village that in 1869 was the site of a sixmonth gold rush – we realised we hadn’t seen darkness yet. ▶
Night didn’t fall this far north until well after 11pm, and it was light at 3.30am latest. That encouraged us to let our days’ walking spread to fill the time available, setting the template for our routine (it wasn’t like we had evening plans). We’d often take breaks of an hour and more, enjoying the liberation of all that space and time and rucksacklessness, and later let evening camp occur when fatigue and a suitable spot coincided.
The wilderness was wonderful. But a tent is a homely place, and the talk can be remarkably small, for all that the world outside is a vast mattepainting of grandeur. (Which films have the best twist ending? Are you more looking forward to a pint or fish ‘n’ chips in Inverness? Do you think anyone, anywhere has ever said the words “Trouser fire trance badger” in that order?) And actually, after a week of walking, the appeal of a comparative megalopolis like Inverness becomes transfixing.
Day 9: Waited 2.5 hours for the rain to stop and lights to go off in a suburban Inverness sports club bar so we could camp on their football pitch.
IT’S NOT ALL glamour and noble pilgrimage. It’s not like the trail from one end of the country to the other is curated and managed by a National Trail team. There are routes to be forged through brambles and between gasometers, nights to be spent beside roads and glances best avoided along the way. But you come to relish the rough-andreadiness too. Not just because it throws the beautiful days into sharper relief but because this too is the stuff of life – and a long walk should leave you clearer-eyed not just rosier-spectacled. And goodness gracious does it put a proper perspective
“There
are routes to be forged through brambles, nights to be spent beside roads… But you come to relish
too.” the rough-and-readiness
on the so-called small pleasures. I had a shower in a Drumnadrochit campsite on day 10 that put me in such a rapture I couldn’t think straight. The couple in the campervan who gave us three packets of crisps each on Day 25 will never know the scale of our gratitude. And talking of crisps...
Day 12: Today’s diet in full: Bacon crisps, Dairy Milk, Monster Munch, Dip-Dab, 500ml Coke, pork pie, Bounty, barbeque crisps, Rocky bar, another Dip-Dab, scone & jam, 1 tin beans, ½ sausage roll, mint Penguin.
WE’D BEEN REALLY looking forward to the West Highland Way. But after a fortnight forging our own path, we found we rather snootily considered an ‘official’ trail as a somewhat contrived idea and longed to be in a less popular spot. It didn’t help we got off to an awful start – 24 hours of rain that saw us eventually give up the day’s walking at 4.30pm after an exhausting climb out of Kinlochleven. Putting up the tent in cold, wet despair we slept instantly til 11.30pm, by which time it was too dark to cook – and so, abysmally, we went without dinner.
But all was forgiven by the time we reached the splendid view from Conic Hill (WHY are we climbing this? Oh THAT’S why) across the whole of Loch Lomond, the Campsies, Glasgow, Stirling, Helensburgh. Besides, we were indisputably making great progress now – a fact we celebrated with a night’s drinking in Glasgow with some of Paul’s friends, after which despite the offer of beds, and to general ridicule, we opted to sleep in the tent in the front garden. (And I remember looking forward all evening to being out in the cool air of the tent at night again.)
I wouldn’t have Paul’s company for much longer now, but as we crested the graceful Southern Upland hills and made for our next map pick-up in a place called Bentpath, I wasn’t immediately concerned. We camped high, to escape the midges, and for me the outlook was the most beautiful yet. We were fit and brown, and if we were smelly (we definitely were) we couldn’t tell any more.
Day 25: Paul opened the doors of the tent quickly and puked forcefully into the porch. 17 miles ahead of us with no shop. Removed a tick, half-way burrowed into my side.
WE CROSSED THE border on a disused, overgrown railway bridge – the Liddell Viaduct. It was a real jungle struggle to get onto it, and standing atop its deserted, soaring nine-arch span we played the world’s tallest game of pooh sticks, and drank one swallow each from a whiskey miniature. Paul’s challenge was complete (and he already had a job lined up) and we were about to go our separate ways – how separate, who knew. It felt like our own Stand By Me moment. In 10-miles-distant Carlisle Paul would get on a bus and I would realise I was rather afraid of sleeping in the tent alone.
Day 35: Walking the Lancaster canal a man shouted from a barge: “Where you going?” I told him “Land’s End”. “Fookin’ miles” he said.
I’d met up with John, one of a series of friends with whom I’d decided to patchwork my remaining way through England. Though I’d conquered my fear of camping alone (and just once, outside a pub, had all my tent pegs pulled out, by persons unknown no doubt disappointed the tent didn’t collapse), it was so nice to have company. But by Day 39 he departed, limping – and it was then I realised ▶
that weeks into a heavily-laden trek you’re not ideal company. Lean, fit and with a sort of mangy hunger for a distant horizon they don’t share, it’s never going to work out.
I wasn’t as sad about that as I expected. In company you’re always in a bubble. Alone, I noticed more and interacted with strangers more. In Frodsham a shop-keeper came out to where
I was sitting eating the dry rolls I’d just bought and insisted on buttering and putting thick slices of ham in them. In Ruabon where I showed my sore knee in a pharmacy I was descended on by friendly women, who procured me a doctor’s appointment, an address (a field name plucked from the map) so I could legally be offered a prescription, and who watched happily as I applied the resulting cream while bathing me in kindly coos. A Dutchman on Offa’s Dyke gave me a list of all the unmarked campsites between where we were and Chepstow – backpacker’s gold.
On sunny days the life of vagrant bachelorhood agreed with me powerfully – and on showery ones I took frequent shelter in freehouses. One of them, the Bull’s Head in Craswall at the foot of the Black Mountains, will forever be my template of the perfect pub – with its stone-flagged floor, huge highbacked wooden chairs and a bar that was just a hatch through which you summoned the service of an old lady by pressing a doorbell. She fetched beer from a row of pumps at knee-level behind her. By now, and quite often assisted by the form of timetravel permitted by two pints in the afternoon,
I was walking 25 miles a day comfortably, and the right-turn of the West Country loomed.
Day 52, Westham: The Clifton Suspension Bridge is so much more impressive than I imagined. My spit takes over 8 seconds to hit the river below.
THE SOUTH WEST Coast Path is awe-inspiring but after hundreds of miles walking, its sheer mountainous quality is apt to be lost on you. I was torn between revering its drama and reviling its dilettantism: when it knew its true purpose was to deliver me progress west, WHY did it go up and down and out and round headlands in that infuriating way? It was clearly an insane way to view one of the world’s great coastlines, but a reflection of the singlemindedness of someone who hasn’t slept in a bed for two months.
Day 58, Croyde: “As I walked, hundreds of butterflies rose up from the grass like bubbles from the ocean floor. Arriving at the campsite I bought a tin of beans and a can of tuna and ate them in the toilet block waiting for the rain to stop”.
BY DAY 62, at Clovelly Cross I’d finally abandoned any notion of following every damn fractal facet of the coastline. Later that day my rucksack’s hipstrap broke, and a storm featuring raindrops as ferocious as meteorites threatened to destroy the tent. If it was a damning judgement I didn’t care. The next day I would cross Cornwall’s county line and nothing could stop me then.
Day 66: It seems tonight will be my penultimate night in the tent. I felt almost nostalgic putting it up. The end seems to be coming very quickly. It’s almost
like ‘Getting nowhere… getting nowhere… The end.” I’m at the same stage as the happy bloke we met on day 4 near Melvich. BUT HE STAYED IN B&Bs.
MY FINAL DAY’S walk would be 16 miles, taking me to a grand total of 1100-ish at the multi-pronged signpost at Land’s End (did anyone deal in exact distances in the time before smartphones and digital maps?). There my mum, a former geriatric nurse, would meet me and tell me I smelled like an old person who’d reached the point at which they’re relieved of their own care. There were a few photos to be taken, a self-conscious cheer to be cheered and then we drove away at 30mph – unbelievably, recklessly fast. I was relieved, and looking forward to clean socks, baths and home comforts. But I also knew how quickly they would become ordinary again and felt already a little homesick for the trail – its minor triumphs and trivial routines, its satisfactions great and small. In a way, I didn’t want it to end, and I don’t now. So I’ll leave it to my diary’s last entry, the night before I completed the walk, where I’ll be happy in perpetuity and rich in pleasures that have no price.
Day 67: Campsite near Hayle, 16 miles from Land’s End: £3 campsite! Swimming pool! Some girls have just come over and asked if I’d like to join their barbeque. Jackpot!”