Hay’s Way: It was going perfectly well until Storm Kathleen joined my walk
◆ Despite arriving at camping sites drenched through, I have a secret – sandwich bags, writes Katharine Hay
It was becoming all too good to be true that, a month into Hay’s Way, there had only been one day of downpours that made me look up to the sky and shout “why?”
That all changed this week, though, when Storm Kathleen arrived.
I took a bit of comfort from the name as I have a best pal called Kathleen. But that faded quickly when the horizontal rain made it clear it was here to stay, for days.
I don’t think the storm warnings even covered where I was walking in East Lothian, which almost makes things worse.
A few people have asked how am I managing to stay dry walking and camping in this weather. The truth is, I am not really. I have a Haglof waterproof jacket and some handme-down waterproof trousers that do a pretty good job at protecting me for half the day, but by the end I relied on hand dryers in public toilets to keep me going.
I also have a cheaply made patent leather cap which keeps the rain out my face. It has weirdly drawn a few compliments, including from one person who said it made me look like some model from the 1960s. It must have been on one of those glorious Easter weekend days when they were blinded by the sun and couldn’t really see.
Despite arriving mostly damp at either a camping spot, B&B or where someone has kindly offered up a bed, my kit, so far, has remained dry. The secret? Sandwich bags. When my mum handed them to me before I left, I thought she was mad. But I couldn’t do this adventure without them. Not only do they help keep my things dry, but it’s also an efficient way of keeping items organised.
As for the tent, if it’s been raining in the night I tend to find a rail or a tree to hang it on to let it dry in the wind before packing it up. Which brings me onto the wind...
The wind has been worse than the rain. It is no secret that this month and the last have been inundated.
I have been mostly camping on beaches and, while warming up in a pub after pitching my tent one evening, a local said, ‘I hope you haven’t tried to peg it in the sand in this weather’. And he was completely right. When I got back, the top sheet of the tent had blown off. Luckily, though, a gorse bush a few hundred metres away had caught it.
It’s also demoralising when you know you have a long walk, but the headwind is so strong you aren’t actually moving forwards and find yourself looking more like one of those static inflatable stick figures flapping arms manically in the wind.