Morning Charity Hike......Beginner Mistakes ReLearned!!!

[Scythe13]

Hello Everyone

This will be a VERY helpful thread for many old-time hikers, walkers, and the alike, and an even more helpful post for the newer ones.

Today I enjoyed the first (and possibly last) section of the 630mile SouthWest Coast Path walk, for the MND Charity (my wife's father died of MND when she was 13, so this was my way to do something for him over Christmas). I'll explain why it may have been the last part later.

Yesterday was Christmas day! A wonderful day, and full of prepping/survival fun at the S13 household. I'll post about that in the 'What have you done towards your preps' part. But all in all, had an awesome Christmas and got home and into bed at 10pm (yes it's early....but you'll see why). At home, alarm set to wake up on Boxing Day (today) at 2am!!! Yes, that's right, it's an A before that M, not a P! TWO A M!!! One more time for those as dumb as me....2AM. Four hours sleep, about as much as a new mother with a screaming child.

I wake up at 1:58am, thinking I had overslept. On schedule, 2 minutes later, the alarm goes off, and it's time to start packing the car and getting dressed for a 25mile hike around the coastal path. I pick up my new gear as well as my worn in newish boots. Then it's into the car and off to Cape Cornwall.

The getting dressed process is where my first lesson to you all. If you can't notice the mistakes, I'll let you read about them later. Change boxers, look for walking socks (wanted to wear 2 pairs) and came a cropper! Couldn't find any of them for the life of me! Ended up wearing a normal pair of sports socks and a pair of skiing socks (super warm) over the top. Got my new cargo trousers, then a tshirt, thermal long sleeve over that, a lovely hoodie, and packed my waterproof jacket and the Swedish Parker. Grabbed my new gaiters (old ones were screwed so 'testing-pair' came in handy). Picked up BOB, a change of clothes, and into the car we all went.

The drive was from 3am to 6:15am, Taunton to Cape Cornwall. The drive was really cool. I saw a barn owl just before I got to the A30 in Exeter (just by the weird bridges, for anyone from this neck of the woods), and later I saw a badger by the side of the road, and even later still, I saw a fox. So already it's a good start to the day. Rain started lashing it down very early on, as soon as I got past Exeter, which made me smile. Get all the bad weather out of the way before the walk starts, I thought.

I made it to the National Trust carpark (Thank you all NT sites! I used an NT carpark when I slept over on a cliff earlier this year, so I really appreciate all they do) with plenty of time. The walk was to start at 6:30am. Head torch at the ready, hand torch ready too, spare batteries for both in pocket.....just in case (well, I am a prepper.....what did you expect?). Met up with David (the guy doing the walk for MND, both his parents died from it) and got ready to set off. Each day he is trying to complete 25 miles and today was day 16 for him.

The walk was brilliant, watching the sun slowly rise, hearing the roaring of the waves crashing against the rocky coastline, not a single drop of rain or even ocean spray! We were set for an awesome day! As we crept over our 4th hill, the sky turned from a dark looming purple, to a soothing soft blue. Damn, I'd chosen a great day to walk with him! Seriously, I have the best timing.

As the sky illuminated with the rise of the sun, we could see an ocean mist in the distance. It was an amazing site. We both stood and looked on in awe. But there was no time to rest. We had another 23 miles to complete. Down the other side of the hill we go. Torches and head lamps off, we started an easy decent. At the bottom of the hill we came across a road path, and David realised he'd forgotten his walking poles. Scythe13 to the rescue! Grab a straight tree, out with the Gaffa-Tape and multi-tool. Next thing you know, Walking poles! Fully equipped we set off down a smoothly tarmaced road. David was telling me all about the streams he had to cross and about how many were bridges were submerged by the deluge we've had recently. This was looking like a good bit of fun!

Mile 4 saw a boulder scramble up and down, and suddenly on a large downward jump (David went the easy way, so I opted to go for a slightly higher jump) my left knee decided it wasn't going to play along and do what it's meant to. POP! The knee I smacked on top of a Tor (thanks for the spelling correction BP) started acting up. It was an electric shock type pain from mid thigh to mid shin, and an ongoing throbbing. Felt like my knee was swollen instantly. But it's only a bit of pain. As I was always told, pain is temporary, glory is eternal! Suck it up Scythe13, don't be a wuss!

Knee ignored and feeling better after 'walking it off' we continue. After mile 6....IT hit us! When I say IT, I mean, horizontal rain that felt more like a swarm of wasps lashing at the side of our faces and ripping at any bare skin. To be fair, I don't know whether it was hail, sleet, or whether it really was thousands of invisible stinging insects interlinked with soft rain. But all I can be certain of was.....it fricking hurt like hell! I pulled my hat down more, hood up, waterproof jacket on with hood up, head down, and just kept following the trail. I could feel my hoodie taking hits and slowly absorbing little bits of rain. This is never a problem as long as you keep moving. Your body warms up the water and it acts like a wetsuit. The only time it sucks, when it's ultra windy, or when you're stood around doing nothing.

After nearly 30 minutes of torrential lacerating horizontal rain, we had a moment to reflect on the view again. Stunning, with more ocean mist.....oh wait, that haze in the distance might not be ocean mist. It's more than likely.....more rain!!!

By 10am, rain was the least of our worries! We were more concerned with the 50mph winds forecast in the morning, that had come to say hi. At 15 stone, I'm not light. This wind was basically throwing me and David around, one minute trying to push us off the cliff edge, the next minute it's throwing us onto the rocks away from the sea! Damn this wind hated us for a long time! Up one hill, it was unleashing it's full force against us towards the sea as if trying to kill us, on the way down, it was pushing us away from the sea, as if trying to push us off course (better than being killed I guess). It was relentless....even when the rain decided to give an encore! 50mph wind, hornet stinging rain.....maybe I didn't have as good timing as I'd expected!

I'm so glad I had my waterproof jacket on, it would.......oh wait......
Hood had blown down on the waterproof and the hoodie had absorbed all the water it could hold. At least my waterproof trouser......Son of a @£$%^ I knew my legs felt odd. I was so distracted by the pain of my left leg that I completely forgot about my waterproof trousers. Turns out I left them at home. I feel so foolish! It's a noob mistake to leave waterproofs at home!!!

Lands End.....got the photo at the "First and Last House" in England. It had a sign in the window "We will be open again in time for Easter 2013". 5 minutes before we arrived at Lands End all the harsh weather stopped, so David had a great photo stood at the house with the sign. Guess what...we had a 4 minute rest, which was just enough to get the heat out of the wet hoodie! DAMN, that got very cold very quickly!!!

[At this point in the post, I have a very beautiful wife next to me, and as much as I'd love to continue this, I will have to....later. Right now I'm going to be spending time with my lovely wife. I'll update and finish this post later. Thanks for reading up to here]

Okay, 2 days later....continuing.

We rejoin out hero....haha. Anyway, Lands End, cold through, wet to the bone. Big smile on my face (somehow).

The walk continued and sure enough, as some of you expected, a warm spot that had occurred on my heel (not yet mentioned, as it was only a warm spot) was nicely developing into a blister, on my right foot. Blisters have never been a problem in the past. Just suck it up and get on with it. Used to wear shoes in by walking until the back of my ankle bled. Not so much this time. For the first time in my life, I was feeling the force of a pair of boots and a blister! Bad socks, bad pain, good lesson!!!

As the walk progressed, I noticed David had some pretty good gaiters on. I remember when my gaiters had a lace hook. I broke it and got into the habit of not attaching a lace hook. Okay, guess who felt stupid sticking to old habits that are of no relevance?!?! Damn right. Seriously, this walk ended up being self-embarassing!

I really should update this again some time, but right now....it's that wife thing again. I'll post this up and finish the whole thing off later.

Enjoy the read.