On a sunny weekend in August last year I took on the persona of a Pilgrim of old as I walked the length of an ancient route known as St Peter’s Way.
St Peter’s Way is a 45-mile-long walk through the countryside of Essex starting from the village of Chipping Ongar and going all the way to the ancient 7th century chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall on the remote Dengie Peninsula. Continue reading “Walking ‘St Peter’s Way’ a Summer Microadventure”
“But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad…” Legendary Mountaineer – Walt Unsworth
I can particularly relate to this quote of late having suffered from my own amateurism during a little microadventure during which having hiked 15km to my wild camp spot of choice in the mountains to only then realised that my tent had dislodged itself from my backpack and was nowhere to be seen! Not a good scenario when confronted with only one hour of daylight and temperatures of no higher than -4°C to -6°C predicted for the night ahead.
Having to bail after 5-6 hours of walking and embarrassingly have to hitch a lift back to my start point and then drive back home to London with my tail between my legs I understand very clearly where good old Walt is coming from with this snippet of wisdom.
But the ‘unattainable has a special attraction’ to me so I will return and hike the same route again and take a new tent with me, and get it right this time.
People think I’m mad and probably quite eccentric but I have ambitions and fantasies that are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have.
All power to the eccentric amateur adventurer I say!
Well, as we turn the corner into 2013 I always find that it’s a good time to look back over the previous year and have a retrospect look at the places visited and the adventures experienced along the way and throughout the year in general.
Initially I felt that the year had been a bit of a washout as a combination of illness and ill weather seemed to conspire at every corner to thwart all my best laid plans. But with hindsight it seems that Continue reading “A Year of Travel and Adventure 2012”
This is the weekend they didn’t play golf. – Deliverance (1972)
Instead they decided to canoe down the beautiful Wye Valley along the river of the same name. They, being my good self, my usual partner in microadventure crime Andy Crozier, and the Gavan brothers up from Cornwall.
The concept for this little microadventure was simple; Continue reading “Microadventure – Canoe and Camping Trip 2012”
JAMES HANDLON 