Birdoswald

Just experimenting with adding photo's to the blog so I thought I would add one of an entrance way into Birdoswald fort on Hadrians wall from when we were there last June!

37 Miles!

As hoped we upped our training last weekend and managed to do 3 days of back to back walking in practice, building up from 10 miles on the first day, 15 on the second and back down to 12 on the third making it a total of 37 miles in 3 days! I have to admit the last mile on the second day was a bit of a killer and made me think why are we doing this...however despite the aches and pains we did carry on to do 12 miles the next day and it was worth it, not only did we not ache as much as I thought, (apart from really bad pain from my ankle which I now have a lump on my bone, which I not sure if it was due to the walking or if it was already there and I made it worse, just need to re-adjust how I tie my boots next time to see if it fixes the problem), we was left at the end of the 3 days feeling really positive and although know it will be a real challenge, it is do-able! And as a bonus the last day was really nice, sun came out and a lovely walk to boot! We also saw over the 3 days several large birds of prey...not sure what they were, 2 hares and 2 groups of young stags just to make the weekend complete.

Food glorious food!

As we will be traveling very light we plan to eat at least one good meal a day, either pub or cafe or the like and carry dried meals with us for instant just add hot water food snacks. After doing a fair bit of research and realising proper dried camping food you find in camping shops is very expensive and can be a bit bulky/heavy. We have in our search found what is hopefully the solution, dried snack pots from the supermarket which range from pasta to potato to rice dishes. Today we are testing a pasta bolognese flavor pot, which is eatable but could do better! So far the potato with sweetcorn and tuna rated highly and also did the pasta with cheese and ham, tomorrow I'm going to try a rice one! The idea is that we empty the contents into sealable bags so we can carry as many as we need, just need two dishes and boiling hot water and we will be away!

In Training!!

Ok if all things go well with my roster and I get three days off in a row our plan is to try 3 days walking based from my front door doing at least 10 miles each day, with a rucksack each, though not packed to the full weight we will be carrying as we haven't worked it out yet!! Also we want to start gently and work out way up in weight and size off our rucksacks and also the distance walked!! I'll update on here how we get on!!

The Begining!

OK better give you some background! Last June myself and my partner were up on a camping holiday in Scotland for a week then the Lake District, on the way from Scotland driving to the Lake District we decided to visit Hadrian's wall...that's where it all began, whilst browsing in the gift shop at Birdoswald he spotted a book on the Hadrian's Wall National Trail, us both being a bit nutty decided that would be a great idea! Also whilst we were at it we may as well collect for a good cause, in this case for the charity called The Railway Children (See separate link for more info!!)

Anyway to cut a long story short! We are now at the serious planning stage and beginning of training!! I hope to use this blog as a diary of the run up to the walk and when we get back, how we got on!! Also any other useful bit's of info along the way!!