Recent Posts
Te Araroa part 3 – St Arnaud to Boyle
This section covers the Nelson Lakes national park. Day 17: St Arnaud to Lakehead Hut 11km, <100m, 2.75 hours With only 11km on pretty flat ground to cover, I had a lie in at the hostel and l... Read More
Te Araroa part 2 – Havelock to St Arnaud
This section covers the Richmond Ranges (and the Kaikoura interlude). I’ve added some rough ascent and descent to the distance and time (hut to hut times). I had a gloriously sunny couple of day... Read More
Te Araroa part 1 – Wellington to Havelock
January 2018 It begins! This section covers my faffing around in Wellington and the Queen Charlotte Track. Things that I arranged a few weeks before arriving in New Zealand: Hostel in Wellington Ferry... Read More
Te Araroa Gear List
Here is my gear list of what I’m taking to New Zealand to hike the South Island section of Te Araroa in 2018. My base weight (total of that in the table below, minus what I’ll be wearing, ... Read More
South Downs Way: Amberley to Eastbourne
November 2017 “So, why did you want to go walking at this time of year?” I was on my third train of the morning, 2 hours behind schedule due to delays and cancellations, and the man in the... Read More
The lowlands and the Highlands
August 2017 I had four days at the end of August to play with, and decided I wanted to be up a mountain on my birthday. I’d wanted to go to Scotland for a while – I would most likely get s... Read More
The Poor Student 200km audax
August 2016 In some end of 2016 festivities with the wonderful Broken Spoke Team Beryl folk, someone mentioned their intention to go on a ride in early January. This ride would be 200km long, in a tri... Read More
Attitude of adventure
July 2017 I’m of a generation that was raised being told we can do anything, but instead heard we had to be everything. We needed degrees to ‘succeed’ but were thrust from education ... Read More
How to cycle to a wedding
July 2017 A friend was getting married in Marlborough and I’d started looking at how to get there (no car). Public transport would involve a laborious amount of buses and trains, and I thought I... Read More
Planning for Te Araroa
Last weekend I booked my flights to New Zealand for the beginning of January, with a return flight at the end of March. It now feels much more real! Work gave me the go-ahead for 3 months extended lea... Read More
Wild Welsh Weekend
May 2017 A week before I realised I had no plans for the upcoming May bank holiday weekend. The weather looked pretty decent (I laugh as I write this in hindsight) and my usual hiking friends were una... Read More
Walking the Coast to Coast – day by day
April 2017 You can see my preparation and my gear list, and watch the film I made. This is a day-by-day account of the hike with info for those thinking of doing the route. If you are, do it, it’... Read More
Coast to Coast gear debrief
May 2017 In general, my backpacking kit for the Coast to Coast worked rather well. I was using quite a bit of new kit, so I’ve summarised the stand out pieces here. The good Scarp 1 This te... Read More