Monday 20 to Wednesday 22 April - Hayfield

Written retrospectively on 8 May, as my final catch-up post before getting up to date on the current trip.

Where was Bertie? He spent two nights on a no-electric grass pitch at Hayfield Camping & Caravanning Club site. At a total cost of somewhere around £32.

Weather: Some rain on Monday, but otherwise gloriously sunny, but cool and really windy.

After carrying my full backpack around on various outings over the last month, I wanted to spend a night in the tent, to check everything was as it should be before embarking on the TGO Challenge. Seeing that it was something of a bargain for Mick to pitch at Hayfield for a couple of nights (£19.60 for two nights just for him, because he qualifies for the old geezer rate), I planned a route on the Pennine Way that would see me walk to a pitch I used a couple of years ago by Laddow Rocks, before returning back almost the same way the following day. 

I was actually going to be staying in Bertie with Mick for the first night, but I couldn't work out a way of making a booking on that basis, so I booked just for Bertie and on arrival at the campsite we said that we also needed to pay for me. The person on the desk at the time didn't know how to do that on their brand new system, so she said we could sort it out later.

Other than a stroll up the road and back during the afternoon, at which point it looked like it might rain at any moment (it held off until we were back), we sat around and did nothing all afternoon. It rained through the late afternoon and into the night, but per the forecast Tuesday dawned sunny.

It only took a walk over to the toilet block and back for me to realise that looks were deceptive and this sunny day was quite breezy. There was nothing remarkable in the forecast about wind, so I didn't think much of it, and soon after we both set out towards Kinder, although we weren't together for long as Mick was heading up William Clough, whilst I was aiming for the top of Jacob's Ladder.

I fought the headwind the whole way up that climb, and when I got to the top I almost immediately got blown over. This was not ideal! By the time I met Mick (who was to descend via my ascent route), 6km into my route and 8km into his, I was decided that it was going to be no fun camping in that wind*, particularly in my intended spot at 500m or so, so I warned Mick that he was likely going to see me again in a few hours. (*I've enough experience of camping in high winds, so it's not something I feel any need to practice just for the sake of it!)

I could still walk the distances I'd intended on both days, so I continued on along the Pennine Way to Wain Stones on Bleaklow before turning around. I'd hoped the wind would have less of an impact on the way back, but I was still fighting it the whole way. Even when it was behind me it would catch one side of my backpack or the other and I was constantly having to course-correct and I got blown off the path countless times. 

I used William Clough as my descent route from Kinder and there were some nice sheltered pitches down there, but it was far too early for me to want to be so indiscreetly pitched, and by then I'd confirmed to Mick that I would be back and I assumed that he would have gone and paid for my stay on the campsite. 

It turned out Mick hadn't yet settled up with the campsite, but I found the manager and he did know how to use that aspect of their new computer system. The result was that I paid £12 (and a quantity of pence that I can't remember) for my stay. I think they only charged me for one night, even though I'd declared a two night stay, but as I wasn't offered a receipt, I couldn't see what they'd actually charged me for, so I hadn't been given any reason to question the price.

Even though I'd ditched the camping plan, my intention had been to go back out and walk another circuit on Wednesday. However, I woke up in such a state of exhaustion that I couldn't drag my weary body back out the door, even for a low-level amble. Instead, we packed away, went out for breakfast and were home far earlier than expected. 

At this point I was already thinking that my current levels of fatigue were too great for me to enjoy walking across Scotland. The nail in the coffin was the five migraines in the week before the Challenge started. So, the day we were due to start out journey up to my Challenge start point, I withdrew from the event, with the revised plan being that I would just do a few hills during this trip, with the opportunity to get plenty of rest in between them.  

 

Such deceptive weather! 

 

My turn-around point, at Wain Stones. The buff was to keep my hat on my head. I was also wearing a long sleeved Merino baselayer and a fleece under that windshirt and had winter mitts on my hands. I finally got warm enough to take the fleece and mitts off as I made my way down William Clough at the very end of the day.  

 

Monday 13 to Wednesday 15 April - Cannock Chase

Another retrospective post, catching up on trips taken since my last live blog post in early April. 

Where was Bertie? He spent two nights at Tackeroo Campsite on Cannock Chase at a cost of £18 per night.

Weather:  A few showers, and one night with some rain, but otherwise dry with plenty of sunshine#

After a busy month of house renovations, I wanted to get out with my backpack on three consecutive days to make sure I was in a fit state for the TGO Challenge, a month hence, having only been out for local day walks with it thus far. Options as to where we could go were contemplated, and I plotted a linear (but not overly inspiring) route from Uttoxeter to somewhere north of Ashbourne. Then I decided that, taking the price of diesel into account (I can't remember how much it was at the time, but somewhere over £1.80 a litre, after a recent and rapid rise), Cannock Chase would probably be the most sensible option, with the added appeal that it would allow Mick more freedom to get out for some long training runs whilst I was wandering in a big circle with my backpack.  

I'm not a fan of Tackeroo campsite. Having stayed there before I know that it's not private or secure at all, so there are people walking through the whole time (in fact, last time we were there, a mountain bike coach was giving a lesson on the hardstanding next to where we were pitched). Effectively you are paying purely to avoid doggers and boy racers in the car park opposite (and to use the water and waste points, if you need to, which we didn't; there are no other facilities). They also operate dynamic pricing, but fortunately this week was quiet enough that we got pitches at the cheapest price they offer (there were three units there on both nights of our stay, including us).

The weather forecast wasn't too bad, with a fine Monday, then some rainy spells on Tuesday and Wednesday. Fortunately, as is so often the case, it turned out far better than predicted. Monday was warm and sunny, Tuesday saw a shower hit when I was paces away from Bertie for my lunchbreak, with another hitting shortly before I went back out for the afternoon, and Wednesday was dry until the last 1km, when it rained on me. 

Arguably unexcitingly, I walked fundamentally the same 30km circuit on the three consecutive days. Mick ran an 18k circuit on Monday and Wednesday, and joined me for the final 9km of my route on the Tuesday (I was doing around 21k in the morning, then the rest after lunch).

I don't think there's anything else to report from the trip. It went well and my confidence was boosted that my TGO Challenge route was achievable. (Spoiler: that didn't last. I withdrew from the Challenge a few days before it started, not due to lack of fitness, but lack of health.) 

(Photos are in a Blogger-decided random order)

 

It could be Scotland, couldn't it? 

When I'd driven across Cannock Chase a week or so earlier, the herd of banded coos, with their young, were all in a panic, running along the road. Shortly afterwards a flashing police car came towards me, presumably to control traffic whilst they were returned to where they were supposed to be. I'm not sure this is where they were supposed to be as there are no fences between here and the road (some areas of the Chase were fenced off a good few years ago, specifically for cattle to graze, in a land-conservation sort of way). 

 

25k through the first day, happy to be in such pleasant surroundings.

Mick running away from me after starting out together on Day 1.

 

Saturday 7 May - Calais

I thought I'd drafted a blog post about this day, but if I did, I now can't find it. This is what (2 months later) I can remember about the day. 

Where was Bertie? He spent the night at the large Camping-Car Park in Calais at a cost of €15.25 (including electricity).

Weather: Foggy and cold

Our destination was supposed to be Wissant, where Mick was very much looking forward to going out for moules-frites for lunch, but as we drove north through the fog, and with the thermometer stubbornly in double figures, I checked the weather forecast. It was going to top out at 10 degrees in Wissant, and the fog wasn't going to clear. There is now some electric hook up at Wissant, but there must have been good reason that I convinced Mick that the Aire at Calais was a better bet, and after a poke around on Google Maps I promised him that he could have his moules for lunch.

There are 102 spaces at the Aire, and almost all were full when we arrived, but Bertie was slotted into a free one not far from the entry/exit and I doubt that we were there for long before we walked off into town, with me whinging the whole way about how cold it was. 

Lunch was good but expensive, particularly when there was a confusion in our coffee order that resulted in Mick receiving an Americano cocktail (€9.50) rather than a coffee (far too used to the terminology for order black coffee in Spain rather than in France). The waiter was prepared to put the mix-up right, but in my opinion it was entirely our mistake, so Mick had to make do with more alcohol. 

I would like, at some point, to have a look around Calais, but a cold and foggy day didn't inspire us to do so on this occasion and the sun was showing no signs of fighting its way through, so we went to the museum instead.

We walked a different route back to the Aire, but visibility was so poor that I can't say much about it. Let's hope that next time we find ourselves in Calais, it's a nice sunny day!

We had an early Chunnel crossing on the Sunday, so we were away at around 6am, had smooth passage through the check-in and border process and were back in the UK half an hour before we were due to leave France, having made it onto an earlier shuttle.  

 

Friday 6 March - Neufchâtel-en-Bray

I'm belatedly posting this on 8 May, although I wrote it back in early March. I wonder if I can find a post that I wrote about the final day of that trip?

 
Where's Bertie? He's at a commercial Aire in Neufchâtel-en-Bray, where we've been many times before, but I think the last time was in 2020. I haven't checked whether the price is still €14. I guess we'll find out when we come to leave tomorrow!

Weather: Sunny and warm

There is little to say about today, another driving day.

There was a pause in the village of Monnaie, where I dashed across the road to a boulangerie for croissant (Mick) and an escargot (me), then we drove a few minutes further to the first suitable layby to eat them.

A couple of hours later, it was feeling like time for a break, and noon was upon us, so I opened the Park4Night App to see if there was any parking area nearby (we were on the N154 at the time, which doesn't have regular service/rest areas), to find that we were within a kilometre of a suitable looking spot that was about 100m detour from the road. It was a good find, and the best part of an hour was frittered there (I say frittered, but I did get a loaf going for tomorrow, feed the sourdough starter, make cheese toasties and a pot of coffee, as well as refreshing our travel mugs and eating lunch).

I tried to magic up a better way of getting around Rouen, but there isn't one, so we took the usual route, somewhere along which Bertie's fuel light came on. I was all for stopping, Mick was confident we could get to our destination, 64km away. Fuel was our first port of call on arrival although only enough to get us to Tesco in Ashford on Sunday, as diesel is currently significantly cheaper in the UK than France (we paid €1.959 today; most stations we've passed have been at €1.999). 

It was a surprise to see the Aire here in Neufchâtel so busy, and we took the penultimate space and it wasn't many minutes later that the last one was taken. Good job we didn't tarry longer at any of our stops during the day!

With Bertie settled on his pitch, I soon had my running gear on and Mick and I headed out at the same time - me for a run, and Mick for a walk into town. We were both gone for the same length of time, and thus arrived back onto the site together, with Mick carrying a pattisserie box. If anyone was paying attention to our comings and goings, they must have wondered about my dress sense for a walk to the shops. 

Just a short (2-hour) drive tomorrow, then back to the UK on Sunday. 

Elevenses was excellent. 

 

The goodies with which Mick returned from his walk into Neufchâtel  

 

 

Thursday 5 March - Naitré (France)

Where's Bertie: He's in a small Aire in a little settlement just outside of Naintré. Exact location: 46.76639, 0.51090

Weather: Some sunshine but mainly lightly overcast, but warm (20 degrees max)

Make northerly miles whilst the wind's southerly, as the famous saying goes, so we set out early today. It wasn't yet light as we rolled out of Berastegi. 

With fuel being so much cheaper in Spain than in France, a 700m detour from the motorway was taken to fill Bertie's tank (135.6c/litre), with a slight delay as the fuel station was just putting 'not available' signs on certain of their fuel types. Happily bog standard diesel was still available. 

It was only when we went through the next toll plaza that I realised that because of how this motorway charges, when we left the road to go to the petrol station, we paid for the bit of road we'd used to that point, then when we went through the next toll plaza we paid for the entire section of road, including the bit we'd already paid for. However, given that the toll in question was €1.61 and the fuel was 63c/litre cheaper than France, the saving was still worthwhile. Oh, and when I say that we 'filled up' we still haven't had Bertie's leaky-when-full fuel tank fixed* (hey, it's only been 6 years...), but on this occasion we pushed it and went to 7/8th full. We know he doesn't leak at 3/4 full, and even when he does leak it's a slow drip, so 7/8th seemed a worthwhile gamble given the price differential.

Our next stop, well into France, was supposed to combine lunch with filling LPG. That didn't go well as we found ourselves in a HGV area due to a 1.8m height barrier for cars. Having to mingle with HGVs isn't unusual, but in this case we had to go through a ticket barrier, with the ticket telling us we had a maximum of 1-hour to leave. That would usually be plenty of time for lunch, but when we couldn't find the LPG pump either (it was definitely there somewhere!), we opted to move on. Lunch was had in a rest area a couple of junctions further along the road and we were later successful in our LPG mission, albeit at 5c/litre more (and Bertie's tanks were as low as we ever let them get, with just 12 litres remaining). 

The question over lunch was 'Where are we going?'. The furthest south we could afford to spend tonight, in order to get to Wissant/Calais in time with comfortable driving days, was at Castets (where we stayed on our way S), but had passed there before 10am. The next likely candidate I'd identified was by the failed LPG stop, which was also too early. So, we found ourselves in this Aire, north of Poitiers. I've no idea why it exists, as it's in a tiny community, with no shops to benefit from visitors. There's a full bespoke service point here, but (it appeared) only room for two vans, and we were the second to arrive. We have since been joined by an absolutely massive bus of a motorhome, who has proved that we were short-sighted in thinking that the place was full. 

After a chat with our Belgian neighbours, we took ourselves for a leg-stretch along the road and back, and to the river and back. At the latter we witnessed a man throwing sackfuls of very mouldy baguettes into the water, from where they floated off downstream. Why he was discarding them in a watercourse, rather than a bin, is anyone's guess, but I assume he knew it wasn't an acceptable thing to do, as with our presence, he quickly emptied the bag he was holding, then left with the other two sacks in his boot still full. I wonder how long the ones he discarded took to sink, as I can just imagine someone standing on a bridge downstream when a couple of dozen blackened baguettes bob by.  

(*Bertie's leaky fuel tank: we have taken him to a garage, with tank all but empty, for it to be fixed. When we picked him up they said they couldn't see the problem and needed to drop the tank to investigate further, which is exactly what we'd asked them to do and why we'd taken him with an empty tank. We didn't book him back in. At some point I'm going to remove the flooring in between the two cab seats and hopefully find there's an access hatch to the top of the tank, whereupon we may find that an issue that has taken us years to address is a really easy fix.) 

 

Wednesday 4 March - Berastegi

Where's Bertie? He's still at Berastegi

Weather: Sunny and warm, but a bit breezy

Just as I was about to put tea on the table last night, Mick nipped out to put a couple of things in the recycling bin, about twenty paces away. After a while I wondered if he'd failed to notice the big bank of bins almost next to us and had gone on walkabout, but it turned out that he was just chatting to our Dutch neighbour. His tea may have been cold by the time he got back, but it was a fortuitous chat, as he received a recommendation that the Menu del Día at the bar in the village was excellent. A plan was thus formed: I would get up early(ish), head out for a 4-hour run/walk at 8am, then we'd go for lunch about 1pm, after which we would either get on the road for the shortish hop up to France, or we'd stay here another night. 

I'd downloaded three possible routes for my outing and ended up doing a mishmash of two of them, taking in six summits (the highest being 860m) and amassing 900m of ascent over the course of 19km. 

The first summit didn't have much merit, and I felt like I'd trespassed to get there (I have no idea what the access laws are, but my observation in Spain in general is that if there's a track and it's not marked as private, then it's fair game. On this route, however, I'd left a track to walk up a field and into a felled forest, which felt a bit dubious. That said, just about everywhere that someone may want to cross a field boundary there seemed to be a gate or some sort of a cobbled together style, so maybe access is accepted even off-piste hereabouts). The second summit had a trig point and good (if slightly hazy views) over a magnificent looking ridge that still had some small patches of snow. 

I opted to bypass the next couple of nobbles along the ridge (they felt even more like trespassing to me), but detoured to the next couple. Then came the highlights of the outing - a couple of summits topped by rocky tors. The first one was easy to navigate and technically the second would have been too, but it was a scramble with some big chasms in the rock, where a fall would have serious consequences, so I erred on the side of caution and made do with getting within metres of the cross on the summit. 

My final high point (811m) was accidental. On a path through another grassy field (where I was confident I was allowed to be by the fact that another chap was following me, and four came the other way - I feel like I saw more walkers on this outing than I've seen in the last month combined) was indistinct on the ground and I wasn't sure which side of a fence I needed to be. Having crossed the fence I decided I was on the wrong side of it, by which time I thought I may as well re-route over one final top. 

Setting off back down the hill, I thought I was going to be late for my lunch date, but it was a speedy descent and I actually arrived a few minutes early, and not alone, as Mick had walked out along the road to meet me. It had been a thoroughly enjoyable route that I'd happily do again, although I'd probably choose to do the PR111 next time, and to take Mick with me. 

Back at Bertie, it was a quick shower and change, then out to Ategi Taberna, where I was pleased to see that the menu was written in Spanish, not Basque. The food was good, and the place was reasonably busy for a Wednesday. It seemed a little odd, just after being served our main courses, that our puddings were put down on the table next to us, but it wasn't just us. A couple that came in after us were still on their first courses when their mains were delivered, and their puddings arrived just after they started their mains. It's obviously just the way they do it, and as everyone else seemed to be local and regular customers (everyone seemed to know everyone else), it's obviously just accepted. It does make for a rather fast lunch, though. 

Given how close this place is to the route that we've now many times driven through Spain, we'd happily pop by again, even if just for a lunch stop.  

We could have driven on into France after lunch, but given what a nice spot this is, and that it's free and quiet, we decided to stay another night. That gives us three days to get from here to Calais, so we'll be in full-on driving mode from tomorrow. The only potential fly in the ointment is that on the TV news in the bar there were reports of queues at petrol stations in Spain due to the attack on Iran. If that escalates into large-scale panic buying and fuel shortage, that could be problematic to our journey. It's not something we can control though, so no point worrying about it.  

I'm liking the variety of field boundaries hereabouts. No one seems to go in for manufactured fence posts - any piece of straight-enough local tree will do.  

   

Dry stone walls are prevalent too

 If you can look past me and the trig point, that's a fine ridge as the backdrop. The map tells me its high points are around 13-1400m.

I passed a lot of hunting/shooting infrastructure (and I'm sure some of the paths I took were created solely to cater to that activity). I don't think the scale comes across here - the scaffolding tower atop which sits a the shooting but, in this snap, was hugely tall. No way would you get me up that ladder!

Talking of not climbing things, this is the summit I didn't quite reach. Technically straightforward enough, but grykes were of man-eating size and a slip would have ruined more than just my day. 

There was active felling going on just to my left (two trees fell in the short time it took me to cross this section). In the UK there would have been signs prohibiting me from proceeding and warning me not to approach machinery, not to mention not to climb on timber stacks. There was not a single sign here, and do you know what? I applied the exact same degree of caution as I would have if there had been signs.

Three courses, including a bottle of wine, for €14. When we'd ordered the first item on the 'Segundo Plato' list had been rabbit.

 

 
 

 

Tuesday 3 March - Berastegi

Where's Bertie? He's in a small Aire in the village of Berastegi. Exact location: 43.12372, -1.98324

Weather: Disappointingly overcast, against a forecast of sunshine, but warm this afternoon (17 max)

We woke up to the sound of light rain on Bertie's roof - a surprise as there was no mention of it in the forecast and it must have continued for around an hour. It was still overcast as we set out, but based on the forecast we expected that either the sun would win through, or we would drive out from under the cloud. Unfortunately neither happened, although the afternoon did warm up as predicted even with the cloud cover. 

Our initial journey was a short one, to a petrol station (€1.266/litre), then a supermarket, in Tudela, where our trolley, along with some groceries, included 18 bottles of wine and 24 cans of beer. It's a long way to haul it home from Spain, but Mick knows some of the wines he likes in Spain and the prices are so low that it makes it worthwhile (our entire shop, including the food, came in at €82).

It was then a 2-hour drive up to Berastegi. If we had been solely chasing the weather, we would have continued on another hour or so to Capbreton, but I've run around the Capbreton area a few times now, and fancied something a bit different and hillier, so an Aire within 3km of our route and in a typical village in the Basque Country fitted the bill nicely.

Once again, lunch was our first priority on arrival, then I sought out a route for us to go and do this afternoon, settling for one that did a circuit around the outside of the village (6.8km, 225m).

I don't think we saw a single thing that didn't scream 'Basque Country' at us. The landscape and buildings are so distinctive that using the 'if I was abducted by aliens and abandoned here' test, I don't think I'd struggle to know where I was.  

Final remark of the day: we are parked right next to a church (a disproportionately large one in such a location, I would say) complete with a chiming clock. The chimes aren't the loudest, but I wouldn't be surprised if they continue all night. 

 

Views

 

We saw a few fields with lambs and not recent ones either.

 

We also saw more than one field containing miniature horses. Do they have a purpose?