Reflections on a journey           

This final chapter in this diary of my walk has been a long time coming.  Some of you have probably doubted it ever appearing.  I wanted to wait until sponsorship stopped, and you've all been amazing; it has kept on coming, and coming.  See below for a (nearly) final total.

So, nearly seven weeks after I completed this crazy adventure, what are my feelings?  The tiredness and hunger went fairly quickly.  The training and the walked-in new boots meant I only had one blister, which soon healed.  I felt 200% fitter, but was not tempted out for a walk until four weeks afterwards; the appalling weather in May made that an easy decision anyway.  I was incredibly lucky with the weather for the walk, 18 days with just one day of heavy rain and a couple of sprinklings.  Thank you for organising that Julie.

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.  I appreciated the company many of you gave me (too numerous to mention individually but you know who you are) for about two-thirds of the trip.  It was exciting to look forward to meeting new people at different times and I enjoyed the conversations and also your encouragement to keep going when I was flagging.  Five of you surprised me along the way by turning up unannounced; well done for keeping that secret.

Apart from two quite lonely evenings I most enjoyed the five and a half days (spread throughout the trip) that I spent on my own.  Just me and the path, walking at my own pace, stopping as I wished, enjoying the glorious English countryside in springtime.  And the thinking and reminiscing.  Julie was with me, I'm sure of that.  She would have enjoyed most of this path too.  With the dry weather there were few muddy bits, the bits she would have hated.  She would have liked all the stone villages, many self-contained thatched houses around a village green with a church, a pub and sometimes but increasingly rarely a village shop.

She would have liked most of the bed and breakfasts, and had the same complaints about one or two of them that I did.  Overall the standard was very good, but all those pretty villages meant the prices there and in the gastro-pubs were often high.  Many hosts contributed some of the cost of my stay to the cause though, some pubs let me eat and drink completely free (the money's in the pot).  They were all displaying my poster, but I must mention two in particular; the Ship Inn at Surfleet Lincolnshire who raised £120 in a raffle and the White Hart at Trudoxhill Somerset who raised £195 at an impromptu quiz evening.  Thanks to my hosts at Rencomb Gloucestershire who lent me "the old Ford" to drive to the pub three miles away, and thanks (not) to the man at Sherborne who denied all knowledge of having a booking from me.  Thanks Alan and Fiona for finding me a luxurious alternative.

I have had a lot of feedback about the daily diary; it seems many of you were following it regularly so thank you to Phil for keeping it fed.  We only had a couple of days where words or pictures could not get through instantly due to impossible mobile phone reception.  Honestly, what is the world coming too?!  No-one has commented though on a running theme though; I used it to try and regenerate the proper use of the semi-colon.

Thanks too to Alison for being treasurer and to Andy and Martin for bringing my changes of clothes and maps on days 6 and 12.  The route conveniently divided into three 6-day sections; Eastern England Boston to the M1, Central England M1 to M4, and Southern England M4 to Abbotsbury.  For those who are still not sure, the theme is the belt of Oolitic Limestone, famous as Cotswold stone but also occurring right across England and spawning lots of quarries and those delightful stone towns and villages.

So to a few statistics.

I walked 643,182 steps.  That's about 321,591 with each foot, for the two people who were trying to define what a step is!  The two pedometers gave different readings, so that's an average, but no-one was that close to affect the result.  The nearest guess was from Mike and Karen, friends from the trip boat Rose of Hungerford.  Congratulations, and a prize next time I see you.  My own estimate?  I underestimated by nearly 25,000 steps, so only came fourth.  A heavy pack, plus steeper than expected hills, plus some dawdling plus about half a dozen navigational errors overall, make the difference.  Oh, and I can now tell you that at one stage I was carrying nearly £600 with me!

My pack weighed 28lbs full, 25lbs after I had eaten and drunk at the end of the day.  The most useful thing I carried?  A close call, because the maps and guide book were essential, but I'd say my platypus to sip water as I went along.  The waste of space item?  Well apart from my fleece and cagoule which I had to carry most of the way because I did not need them damn it, the item I did not use was a packet of dried apricots which I forgot were there!  Personally I lost weight as well; two pounds, a bag of sugar.

I took 1,650 digital photographs.  When I've finished cataloguing and captioning them I'm booked for a couple of talks already and will do more for a donation to the cause. If you would like to look at most of the photos of the walk go to www.geograph.org.uk and do a search by Graham Horn or a place name. Have a look round the rest of that site as well to discover some other parts of this country in pictures.

Apart from being a long way across England, I am not convinced about the precise length of the path; some days seemed longer and others shorter than they should have been.  But lets say it was a round 300 miles.  Hence my fundraising target of £3,000, £10 per mile, but I was deliberately vague about whether that was £3,000 total, or for each charity.  Both have been beaten.

From the Just Giving websites - about £2,000
From all your personal cheques over £4,200
From cash collected on route and since, nearly £1,600
Gift Aid adds about another £1,700