Thanks for taking the time to visit John and Barbara's 'Walking for Trees' JustGiving page.
We're on a mission to walk all the UK National Trails (at approx 2 per year - so this is a several year project!) and raise money for the Woodland Trust in the process.
Our next venture is Hadrian's Wall Path. We'll be walking 84 miles beginning at Bowness on Solway on the 12th May and finishing at Newcastle Upon Tyne on the 17th. We would really appreciate your donations.
Our first venture was back in May 2009, when we walked the Offa's Dyke path (177 miles) along the English/Welsh border. We raised £435 in total (from online and offline donations - NB - this is included in the offline total on this page as this is a different website to the one we started with). In October of the same year, we walked 96 miles on the Peddars Way/North Norfolk Coast path, raising a further £138. (You can read a little about our 2009 expeditions below under 'The journey so far:' )
We completed the Speyside Way in June, 2010 walking 84 miles beginning in Buckie on the 17th June and finishing in Aviemore on the 22nd, raising a further £215 - big big thank you to everyone who has kindly donated so far. We really appreciate it.
We are trying to get to and from all the trails by using trains exclusively (from our home in Glasgow) and we'll report back on our experiences re ease of doing this and costs.
Please sponsor us - trees are beautiful and very necessary. We need to plant more of them and save more of them for future generations to breathe!
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The journey so far:
Offa's Dyke Path 16th May - 27thMay 2009
We set off on the Offa's Dyke path on the 16th May from Chepstow and finished at Prestatyn on the 27th taking 11 days as planned. There's a lot of steep ascent and descent on this trail - Offa was very relentless in the building of his dyke! Plus, we thought we were walking 177 miles but when we arrived in Prestatyn, the sign pointing back to Chepstow said 182 miles - we felt suitably heroic! All in all though - this is a great walk through some outstandingly beautiful parts of the British Isles. Check out the Wye valley (especially the carpets of wild garlic and the bluebells); the Black mountains; the beauty of Shropshire and Herefordshire; Hergest Ridge; the dazzling white limestone scenery of Trevor rocks; the Clwydian Hills - just some of the many wonderful places we walked through and we definitely recommend a walk over Telford's famous aqueduct at Pontescylte - not to be missed.
Peddars Way/North Norfolk Coast Path Oct 6th - 11th 2009
Setting out on the 6th October to walk the 96 miles of Peddars Way and North Norfolk Coast, we though we would be in for a relatively easy ride (given that it's pretty flat most of the way!!). However, on the train journey down to Thetford, Barbara felt the first twinges of a dental abscess (not pleasant). By the following morning (i.e. the first day of the walk), she had a face lik (in John's words) 'the elephant man'. Great! No sleep either due to outragous pain. The dentist was the first port of call and drugged up with a powerful dose of antibiotics, we set off nevertheless. (This kind of dogged determination is not necessarily recommended, by the way). Reaching the first port of call at Little Cressingham was a little piece of heaven - never been in need of sleep so much! Despite antibiotics and ongoing pain for the next 3 days, the walking through the (not flat but rolling in places) landscape of North Norfolk was beautiful and the weather was very kind to us. Big views, big skies. This walk is actually two different walks joined together - Peddars Way from Thetford over land to the coast at Hunstanton and then the North Norfolk coast from Hunstanton to Cromer. The coastal walk was wonderful and full of migrating birds - memorable sights and sounds plus the strangely remote feeling of walking out on the sea defences with the muddy creeks and abandoned boats. Highlights include the area between Brancaster and Wells next Sea and the stunning stretch of beach at Hokeham.
