Why I decided on taking 'A Really Goode Walk' in 2022
I was diagnosed with Leukaemia on May 2, 2019. To be precise – BCR-ABL Mixed Phenotype Acute Leukaemia (MPAL) Blast Crisis CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia).
To be blunt, if it wasn’t for the amazing staff at Barts in London, and Anthony Nolan, I wouldn’t be here now and been able to take on A Really Goode Walk in autumn 2022.
Fairly early on during my first seven-week stint of chemotherapy in St Bartholomew’s Hospital I came up with a rough idea of doing a sponsored walk post-recovery, to give something back to Barts via their Barts Charity.
Further down the line that year, thanks to Anthony Nolan and their stem cell register, an anonymous donor was found for a stem cell transplant – and Anthony Nolan were swiftly added to the charity walk beneficiaries.
Since 2019 my sponsored walk plan evolved lots of times. Finally coming up with the concept of walking coast-to-coast across all four countries of the United Kingdom – simply because it seemed novel, I couldn’t see that anyone else had done it, and it sounded like a fun adventure and a necessary amount of challenge to make the fundraising worthwhile – I had to plump for a route, or rather four routes.
After numerous discarded ideas, National Trails were chosen across Wales and England – the Offa’s Dyke Path and Hadrian’s Wall Path respectively – as well as the central Scotland trail, The John Muir Way. Northern Ireland was a bit more of a challenge in terms of route-planning, but the coastal touch points were identified in the south east and north west of the country (Kilkeel and Londonderry), and the exact route could wait.
Fortuitously, the mileage total of the whole lot came to a satisfyingly round 500 miles. And that just left a six-week block to find to actually do it – and the Covid pandemic didn’t help in that respect. Put off in 2020 and 2021, an October start in 2022 was eventually put in to the calendar.
So, Wednesday, October 5 2022 was the start day for A Really Goode Walk. And despite some challenges and set-backs along the way (not least catching Covid two weeks before I set off; then suffering with shin splints in both Northern Ireland and Scotland), I made the planned finish on November 15 in Helensburgh.
You can look at a detailed itinerary to see exactly where and when I walked across the UK.
Look back on my progress and send me a message on social media:
The first leg of A Really Goode Walk started on Wednesday, October 5 in Chepstow.
I walked from Sedbury Cliffs on the south Wales coast at the River Severn pretty much due north for 177 miles on the Offa’s Dyke Path, all the way to Prestatyn on Liverpool Bay in the Irish Sea.
That took 13 days, with a couple of days then required for rest & recovery and onward travel to Ireland via the Holyhead-Dublin ferry for the second leg in Northern Ireland.
The first ferry of the Walk got me from Holyhead across to Dublin, from where it was train & bus to get to the south east corner of Northern Ireland, and the coastal town of Kilkeel. It was 100 miles and seven days of walking from there, heading north west towards Londonderry.
Starting out next to the Mourne Mountains, I headed for Portadown and Cookstown around the southern end of Lough Neagh. Then it was on through the Sperrin Mountains and onwards to Derry and touching the Irish Sea coast by the Rover Foyle.
A day of rest and a day of travel later (a ferry from Belfast to Stranraer, and coach/train via Dumfries and Carlisle), leg three saw me tackle the Hadrian’s Wall Path, starting in Bowness-on-Solway on the Cumbrian coast.
It was 84 miles and six days east to get to Wallsend in Newcastle – with an extra five miles required to hit the North Sea at Tynemouth for coast-to-coast completion.
A rest and travel day then saw me get by train from Newcastle easily up the east coast to Edinburgh – ready to start leg four in Dunbar on the North Sea.
The John Muir Way links Dunbar in the east (birthplace of America’s ‘father of national parks’ John Muir) with Helensburgh on the west coast north of Glasgow. It was 134 miles and 10 days of walking (plus a mid-point rest day in Falkirk) for the final leg of the Walk.
The route passed through Scotland’s vibrant capital Edinburgh, as well as its first national park, Loch Lomond & The Trossachs. There were plenty of interesting towns like North Berwick and Falkirk en route.
With a celebratory overnight stay at the end of A Really Goode Walk, it was a rest and travel day by train via Glasgow back home to Essex.
