It was raining as I entered Austria and it was raining as I left. Most of my four weeks here has been spent unsuccessfully dodging rain clouds. My feet have turned into rudimentary flippers. In such weather, highlights have been few and far between. It was great to finally see Linz and discover that it’s …
Today I finally left Germany. Now don’t go thinking it took me nine month. There was an eight month break in the middle while I reset my Brexit-bonus Schengen limit and waited out winter. Germany was great. It was mostly a city tour, sleeping in the woods in between. I started to Aachen and then …
So insignificant was the Netherlands on this trip that until a couple of days before I arrived I didn’t even know I was passing through the country. Who knew this dangly, scrotal bit of land came down this far? I’d always assumed Maastricht was in Belgium anyway. And that’s also shorthand for saying that no, …
It took me 12 days to walk across Belgium, although that included a day off in Brussels at my cousin Sarah’s house and a two-day detour out of the country and back into France. Why the detour? Testing the painful leg necessitated shorter days and so I strung together some closer camp sites and this …
France was supposed to one of the easy ones: a short, three-day hop over the entirely flat, north-east part of the country. Three kilometres short of the Belgium border I ended up stuck at a lovely organic farm/campsite for 10 days by a mixture of a painful shin that needed resting and the inability to …
Crossing the Isle of Man was a one-day affair. Crossing the UK was the first real challenge. Arriving on April 2nd and leaving May 16th I ended up covering just short of 500 miles (800 km) there. My route took me through Lancaster, Blackburn (my home town), Bolton, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham, Northampton, Milton Keynes, …
Yes, I’ve already successfully completely a nation. But don’t get too excited. It’s only a very small one. I set off from my mum and dad’s house in Port St Mary on the Isle of Man on Day 1, April 1st 2022. The rubbish weather that had been forecast never materialised. It was sunshine all …
