Welcome to the recording of the eighth edition of my semi-regular Twitter Space sessions.
This episode was all about hiking, but specifically the Hike Across Great Britain I did with my hiking buddy Becky, in the summer of 2019. We’re chattering about why I chose to do a hike of such length, how we planned it, the high and low points of the journey, and ponder on how people willingly do ultramarathons. I’m aware this was the subject of a previous podcast episode, but this one, being a Q&A, has a different vibe.
Usual disclaimer, be aware this conversation took place over the phone and is then recorded directly from playback on Twitter. I notice there’s a few biffs and bangs in the first few minutes but they settle down. Also a shout out to Somebody, and You Know Who You Are (because there are very few people who do call me, and one of them I was already on Twitter Spaces with), who tried calling me at the very end of the recording. When this happens it causes my audio quality to drop considerably for reasons known only to Android.
Topics discussed include:
- Catchphrases
- Whatever happened to the Word Cloud Creation site ‘Wordle’
- Overview of what my hike was
- How it took 57 days and why that was fewer than we’d planned
- Places where we camped en route
- Why I didn’t do the hike alone, and how our styles fitted together
- The Singing Sands beach in Scotland
- Things That Went Wrong when I prepared for the Hike
- Taking footpaths not roads, and sometimes getting stuck
- Comparisons with hiking in Vanuatu
- British Summer Weather, and all that entails
- What we were carrying in our backpacks
- We’ve been hiking 9 miles, time for lunch and recharging
- Food, and why I lost weight on the hike despite the calories
- Why I only hiked barefoot for a quarter of the journey
- Things That Went Wrong (including injuries, broken windows, and getting lost)
- Saddleworth Moor is very bleak and remote
- Mental Health and how we motivated ourselves to keep going
- The best days of the hike (North Pennines and the end of the Pennine Way)
- Why I wouldn’t have done anything much differently
- How it felt to complete the Hike, and what we did afterwards
- Why we did the Hike and what other challenges would I do
- Why pubs are useful places
- Ultramarathons
- Raising money for charity
- The next Spaces will be Hometown Travel
You can listen via the feed above, or via Spotify, or on your podcast app of choice. Let me know if it isn’t, by the way, and I’ll see what I can do. In addition, a PDF transcript of this episode will be available shortly.
As always, if you have anything to say about the topic, or indeed about my podcasting in general, leave a comment or let me know. You can also sign up to my newsletter and find out about future podcasts and recent blog posts.
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As usual, I was interviewed by the lovely Victoria, but you can call her V.