Getting from here to there, or somewhere

    My mother, like some Australian aborigines, claims to have an innate sense of exactly where she is at all times.   I, on the other hand, am directionally impaired.  If I make more than two turns, I no longer know where I was originally headed.  If I stop in a store while walking through a mall, I may very well head in the opposite direction when I leave it. Around here,  I rely on familiar landmarks and road signs to find my way. But the Coast to Coast trail, which is actually not a trail but a network of foot paths and roads, is notoriously un-signposted and certainly unfamiliar.  Uh-oh. Getting lost is a high stakes game if it means walking extra miles.

     Henry Stedman's book, cleverly named Coast to Coast Path, is the Bible for walkers. It’s written in English, which is a lot like American, except when it isn't. If ever an American edition is printed, we can hope that it will at least add a glossary. But that's what the Internet is for, I guess. 

     The charm and treasure in this book are the meticulous, hand drawn maps showing every step of the way. There are copious notations.  But will we know what a " small wooden pen round shaft" is when we see it?  There is one not far from a “ruined peat store". I don't know what peat stores look like even when they're not ruined.  There are the cryptically labeled "grouse butts", and “drumlins".  I can't wait to see these, whatever they are.

      There is testimony from walkers that claim these maps are all you need to find your way across England. I hope that's true.  Otherwise I'll be desperately looking for somebody with a GPS.

       I'd like to give you a peek at the Stedman maps but I'm pretty sure they're copy written. (Not that that ever stopped me when I was teaching. That's what copy machines were made for!).  Instead, as a tribute, here’s a map of the trails in the park-behind-our-house,  drawn in the same style:  

   
     Unfortunately, this map doesn't have any ghylls or scars, no sheepfolds, stiles, cairns or kissing gates. (The latter sound like a fun addition to hiking!)
     On the weekends, people in the park-behind-our-house often ask me for directions.  Usually they just want to know how to get back to their car.  

In shape for coming events. Or not.

   
 Sunday we walked to a lake in the woods behind our house and around it and then cut cross country to another lake, where my son works in the summer.  And then turned around and walked all the way, way back.  This is probably, umm, nine miles? ( or 14.4841 kilometers if you're from a logical country. )  The idea behind this trek was that our feet should be familiar with nine miles of walking if we are going to use them to walk across England.  

      The only silver lining in this project was that at the second lake, I can buy an ice cream bar and eat it in my son's air conditioned office and stay there until my core temperature falls within normal parameters. It was a fkg jungle hot sauna day.   

       England in September will likely not be so hot.  If you have to pick a country to walk across, you could do worse than England.  Of course, you don't have to pick a country to walk across. Reasonable people probably wouldn't.  

What would Wainwright wear?

   
     One reason soccer (AKA “football”) is a far finer game than the American kind of football is that it requires less stuff. Some good shoes and those cute knee socks and you’re ready to play. Where along the spectrum of stuff does the Coast 2 Coast trail fall?
     The first dilemma is footwear. We've tramped up and down and around a fair bit and I’ve always worn running shoes. (Known as “trainers” where we’re going.) On internet discussion boards devoted to the C2C there is impassioned debate between those who fervently believe in hiking boots, and other, somewhat fewer souls who stoutly maintain that hiking shoes (a step up from trainers, but still..) will suffice; they put spring in your step and make for greater agility. Well, they do. But the booted answer back in ominous tones, “Whut about the bogs?” Oh, there’s deep, deep muck where you're going and you’ll sink right in. Your wimpy shoes will be full of it and then you’ll wish you had on real boots! (I note that most of the voices in these discussions are male; draw your own conclusions.)
     The kind of stuff we’re talking about likes to be called “gear”. And as it happens, we have a real gear guru in the house, a son who definitely didn’t get the anti-stuff gene. He camps and kayaks, fishes and hunts and his gear is piled all over the basement and the garage. Go to REI, he said.
     Well, there they were on the shelf: soft boots, boots so soft  that don't remind me that one of my ankles was reconstructed with screws and bolts, boots so lacking in the pretension that they're big and tough that they're purple. But are they tuff enough for the boggy bits?
     They’re on probation. "Wear them around the house", I was told. I take them out of the box and lace them up, thinking I’ll wear them to vacuum. The big dog goes crazy. He’s never seen the purple boots before, but he’s no dummy. One look and he’s knows: those boots are tuff stuff! They mean we’re in for a real good tromp in the woods!  Well, who am I to doubt if the dog knows?
      The husband is not into stuff either. I hope he’ll buy rain gear, but I know he has visions of hiking along with just his trusty umbrella held aloft.

How slow can we go?

       It took a flurry of emails, and nearly drove me crazy, but I believe I have made reservations at farm B&B's and pubs and even a yurt, for 21 successive nights strung across the dark part of the map near Scotland like a thin line of Christmas lights.
      Yes, twenty-one nights. That's how long we plan for this walk to take. Twelve or thirteen days is traditional. That's the way Alfred Wainwright, (a guy who evidently didn't much like his job or family life and spent a lot his time tramping in the rain across northern England and eventually wrote the book on the C2C, ) that's how Alfred suggested doing it. But….we're on vacation! And being foreigners, we might find it a fascinating novelty to look at wet sheep.
     And not to put too fine a point on it, but my husband is retired. Actually, he's retiring. Again. This would be the third time but who's counting? And since his work involved a fair amount of sitting, he thinks it would be a fine thing if retirement involved walking. Rather leisurely walking by some measures.
     Anyway, I imagine that people who walk it in twelve days have something to prove. We don't.