Finally. We've ended up having to settle for a caravan at a caravan park near the halfway point of the walk. There seem to be fairly regular buses along the coast so we'll take a car and do a mix of leaving the car at one end of the walk and getting buses each day. A bit of a faff, but at least we don't have to carry all our gear.
We had planned to do the walk over four days and have accommodation on Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights. However, at this caravan park we can only have the caravan Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Getting there on the Friday night isn't a big deal and it means we can get an early start on the Saturday morning. But it does mean that unless we can find alternative accommodation for Monday night we'll have to complete the walk in three days instead of four. As we'll be restricted by the bus times and by the diminishing daylight this may not be feasible. But at least we're going.
I really don't know why everything has been so difficult and expensive. I find it hard to believe that demand is so high they can be like this and not see it as an issue. But equally I can't understand why they seem to be actively trying to discourage tourists.
Some of the problems we've had, besides everywhere seemingly being full, are:
- Very expensive campsites - cheaper to stay in a hotel!
- Campsites that state you have to stay a minimum of 2 nights - it's a long-distance walking trail; walkers will stay one night and walk on!
- Very expensive guesthouses and B&Bs - again, there are hotels that are cheaper (just not where we need them unfortunately)
- The caravan park we are staying at saying we can't leave the car there on the day we checkout. We have to have it moved out of the park by 10am!
It almost makes me want to do the walk just so I can say "Hah! Beat you. I did it despite all your obstacles!"
I've signed up for NaNoWriMo. So from the 1st November, for a month, I will be typing furiously trying to write 50,000 words for a novel I have no idea about yet. I'm consciously trying to not think about it till then as I just want to write whatever comes into my head and not worry about quality or if it even makes sense.
This may sound like a crazy way of doing things and the usual advice is to have a plan, write a draft, check the plan, blah, blah, blah. But I've always found when I start with plans I over think and struggle to actually get any words down. When I was studying, once I'd finished researching an essay I'd just sit and write for an hour. I found that not only was this good exam practice, it was the only thing that worked to actually get me started. And once I had an hour's worth of words, I'd read over it and then make my plan and do the next draft and all the rest of the blah, blah, blah stuff.
NaNoWriMo actually encourages my way of writing. (Though I think I'm maybe supposed to have an idea of what I'm going to write about). It's a month of quantity and not quality. So I'm just going to go for it and see what happens. It'll be a test of my patience and dedication to actually sit down each night and write. If I can't do this and write when I don't have to care about the quality then I'm really going to struggle to write anything in the future where quality is important.
After speaking to my friend in Norfolk again, we decided to walk the Norfolk Coast Path instead of the Peddar's Way. We like the idea of being beside the sea. Her husband will drop us at the start on the Saturday morning and pick us up at the end four days later. For the three nights on the path we thought about camping, but Valinda doesn't have a tent. We've looked at accommodation and got quite excited by the choices. The first night would be in a hostel and the second in a caravan. Neither of which is particularly exciting, but on our third night we would stay in a windmill. This would be our last night and so would be a nice treat.
Valinda has tried to book everything only to find everywhere is all booked up. Yes, we know it's half term, but it's the end of October in Norfolk for God's sake. What's going on? The one campsite she tried had a minimum stay of two nights, which seems quite bizarre for a campsite on a walking trail.
We still want to do the walk, but may end up borrowing a tent for Valinda and wild camping. At least we still have plenty of time to sort something out.
This isn't on my list, but is the kind of thing that could have been if I had thought of it earlier. A friend is celebrating her 40th birthday this year and instead of a big one-off celebration she decided to have 40 'events' with 40 different friends or groups of friends. My event was zorbing.
I drove down to Nottingham last night to stay with her. This morning we headed to the outskirts of Loughborough for our, courtesy of Groupon, bargain zorbing experience. I'd deliberately not googled it beforehand as I didn't want to freak myself out. I was fine until we got there and saw the large balls bouncing down a very steep hill. Yes, bouncing. I was expecting rolling.
At the top of the hill we joined a queue and watched the people ahead of us squeeze through a very tiny hole to get into the balls. First panic, how am ever going to get through that hole? It actually wasn't as bad as it looked, albeit it was very undignified. Second panic, how securely am I going to be strapped in? The guy doing the strapping was very reassuring and made sure everything was tight and secure. Then he strapped Al in opposite me.
We were getting all psyched up and ready to go when another guy popped his head in through the hole and said there was a problem with the harness and it would have to be changed. As we unstrapped, Al moved her (shoeless) foot and somehow managed to burst the ball. As the ball deflated we had to quickly ooze ourselves back out through the tiny hole. Third panic, is it possible to suffocate inside one of these overgrown pieces of plastic?
We were given another ball and started the strapping in procedure again. This time everything was ok and the barrier holding the ball in place was lifted. We were off. A nice slow start. But it quickly picked up speed. I was going backwards which was actually the better position as I was always feet first, whereas Al was head first. Each time the ball rolled our bodies to the bottom, the ball bounced and it hurt. I hadn't expected that. It doesn't hurt when you bounce on trampoline, so why inside the ball? We also hadn't expected the heat. Daft really, as we were inside a type of greenhouse, but we just hadn't thought about it. Even before we set off we were already hot and sweaty.
Rolling down the hill seemed to take much longer than walking up had done. Once at the bottom we squeezed ourselves out again and decided not to have a second go. Al had pulled her shoulder and so it wouldn't have been a good idea. I was glad I'd done it, but I think once is enough. I don't think I'll be in a rush to do it again.
After leaving the zorbing place we drove into Loughborough and sat in a lovely coffee shop for a while recovering. Then we had a wander round before going for a late lunch in a wonderful Turkish restaurant. All in all a good day.
I spoke to a friend this evening. She moved to Norfolk about 6 years ago and so far I haven't got round to visiting her. Now that I've completed the Great Glen Way I've been thinking about which path to take on next. I'm still not ready for a very hilly, long one, so thought that the Peddar's Way and the Norfolk Coast Path could be good choices. And I could visit my friend at the same time. My friend is keen to do the Peddar's Way with me and said it starts about 10 miles away from her house. So we've tentatively pencilled in half term.
She also mentioned that she would like to climb Kilimanjaro before she is 50. As this is also on my list, we can now start thinking about it together and motivate each other. It's something I really should have done years ago when I lived in Africa and spent time in Tanzania. But I wasn't fit enough and couldn't afford it. These are still issues now, but if I can focus then I can start working towards it.
I've just read that the Ice Hotel in Sweden is going to be open in the summer. Usually this is a winter experience only as it melts each spring and has to be rebuilt the following year. Now a smaller version is to be built inside an art centre so visitors can stay in the summer and experience the midnight sun. No chance of seeing the Northern Lights though. And I don't think I particularly want to stay inside an ice hotel inside another building. It just wouldn't be the same at all.
http://www.icehotel.com/uk/ICEHOTEL/Press-media/press-releases/ICEHOTEL-to-re-emerge-during-summer/
I love this quote:
What I realized—not just about myself but about the world—is that time and money are commodities with an inverse relationship; to get one you need to spend the other. And I realized, for me, time is a more valuable commodity than money, so I’d rather hoard free time than extra money. Most travelers end up feeling the same way and its one reason why they find the return home so difficult, our society is built on the premise we should want more money so we can have more things, even if we don’t really have the free time to use those things.
—Brook Silva Braga
