Day 1 Go! Edale to Crowden 17.5 miles

My goodness! That was a day, and a hot one. I feel like I’ve been in a tumble drier on hot setting for a good amount of the day. And such varied landscapes. I realised last night that I had actually forgotten a small bag with essentials for wild camping. Use your imagination ;-) Anyway, I managed to get a message home on 1 bar of mobile reception standing in the corner of a field. At that stage that was the best I could do.

Straight out of Edale it was up onto Kinder Scout and then Edale Rocks made for a pretty hard start to the day, but by that point we were up top and stayed there for most of the day, before the gruelling, sweaty descent into Crowden.

We crossed Snake Pass and had to play Frogger with motorbikes driving at 80 miles an hour, but a couple of miles beyond that we were in what would have been a labyrinth of bogs a couple of weeks ago before the dry(er) weather started and there was no one to be seen. I am so grateful that it has dried out!

And having put the call for help out in the morning, amazing my eldest son did an emergency trip and brought me what I’d forgotten to the campsite in Crowden. What amazing service!

We try and send the young people leaving prison off with a leaving custody kit with a phone and credit, food, toiletries, clothing, household items…whatever they need really. And if they find that they’ve forgotten something then they know just who to call for help, even if it’s on a Sunday morning. We all need someone like that.

I’ve been challenged a number of times today to mentally embrace the reality that I am walking to Scotland, not just doing a couple of training exercises. I haven’t got that in my head yet. Maybe in a few days.

Day 1 is done. Day 2 is longer, harder and The weather looks hotter, before the rain comes. And I’m tired.