The agony and the ecstasy of an English adventure
When writer Simon Armitage began his walking trip along the south-west coast of England, he had two very important things: a hat to block out the sun (and also to help him collect money for his poetry readings along the way) and a walking stick, which he’d shaped and treated himself.
The two very important things which got me through my journey from Lymington to Oxford, then around the Yorkshire Dales, were a bicycle and a smart phone.
The bicycle was a Trek and it came from a friend of mine, Aussie Dave, who is really a Pom living in Lymington. He had once upon a time lived in Adelaide, and it was the Aussies, not the Brits, who gave him the nickname, but he’d been gone 13 years and that’s how long it had been since we’d seen each other.
I liked the idea of getting a bike from my friend rather than a bike shop, not just for the low cost (I only had to buy a back rack and drink holder), but also because the transaction meant I could cycle to Oxford from Lymington rather than London, as I had initially planned, and that sounded less stressful and much safer. And starting off with a pub crawl of Lymington with an old friend was a great way to fend off jet-lag.
I bought a smart phone for the trip. It would appear I’d had a dumb phone before. It took no photos and had no internet, which maybe even made it stupid. I wanted GPS for the trip because I’m a glutton for getting lost, and I also wanted to take photos and upload them onto Facebook – something of a luxury which I’d rationalised as “I’ll keep in better touch with my family”.
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I had no idea how difficult it would be to work out all of these smart phone things – the apps for cycling routes, turning off data roaming when I was done with Facebook – but I found great comfort in the Trek. Phones are hard; a bicycle is easy. You just have to peddle.
I read Armitage’s second walking memoir, Walking Away (Allen & Unwin, $32.99), along the way. Being a poet myself, it seemed fitting to read about another poet travelling without any motorised vehicle through England’s scenic routes, but his first book in the series, Walking Home, would have been more suited to my path, as it actually went through some of the villages where I travelled.
Armitage is less reflective and anecdotal of the past in Walking, focusing more on the people he meets rather than what memories the walk dredges up. I wonder if he was more at ease during his second long walk and therefore less focused on the Big Questions (which memory always seems to reference), taking the time to relax into conversation with those around him.
This second journey may have taken the same amount of strength and determination as the first, but because he’d done it once, he knew he could do it again, and it was no big deal. Like having a second child. The first one tests your endurance through an entirely new kind of love, attention and exhaustion, whereas with the second one, the days are familiar – challenging, yes, but no longer life-changing; your life was changed with the first one. And here is where I might insert an anecdote of my first baby, comparing him to my second or third, but I’ll stick to the bike, even though I love those anecdotal things and missed them in Walking Away.
"I knew I could do it, I knew I would, and I knew that the poppy fields that lay ahead would be the most glorious thing my eyes took in …"
On my second day, I set out thinking I had four hours in the saddle but I’d somehow misinterpreted my distance. Perhaps I confused miles for kilometres or perhaps this was just a problem with the rural signage on the bike routes, but I left Alresford at 8.30am and arrived in Stoke Row at 4.30pm, having gotten slightly lost twice and taken two long rests in the shade to look at maps (stuff the phone – it was too smart for me).
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That’s six and a half hours of riding, and though I was sore and not looking forward to the next day, I knew I could do it, I knew I would, and I knew that the poppy fields that lay ahead would be the most glorious thing my eyes took in, bringing new life to my aching back and making me forget about my inflamed knee. I’d keep pedalling.
I’ll take on any hill in the morning, but after lunch they get me grumpy. I think my stamina is at its prime for about three hours, then wanes. The hills from Ingleton to Dent on my sixth day of cycling were killers, with equally killer views that I mighty well earned, but the hill coming out of Dent headed toward Hawes, after a particularly nice parsnip soup and a marvel at the maze-like, stony old village, just about did me in.
And it didn’t help that the sun had disappeared. And it didn’t help that there was no real view beyond a clagged-in sky, and that I somehow felt weak from hunger pangs despite the particularly nice parsnip soup.
At least there was a downhill after it and at least a 17th-century pub accommodation awaited me at the end of the road. The Black Bull: nice big bear, even bigger sleep.
How did Armitage do it? Every single night he gave a poetry reading to a roomful of admiring fans, when I imagine he craved nothing but rest after covering all those kilometres. The man has courage and great staying power and deserves to get a best-selling book out of the process. I, too, have courage and great staying power, and this is my travel-writing-book-review to prove it.
If you’re into DIY adventures, particularly those that include exercise and England, you’ll like Walking Away. And if you’re a poet, or a fan of poetry, or even just think Armitage a bit of a stud, you’ll like Walking Away. But I reckon you’ll like Walking Home better.
Simon Armitage walked the UK’s South West Coast Path National Trail (1014km), beginning in Minehead and hugging the coast to Bryher, hitting Porlock Weir, Lynton, Combe Martin, Woolacombe, Braunton, Instow, Westward Ho!, Clovelly, Hartland Quay, Morwenstow, Widemouth Bay, Boscastle, Port Isaac, Padstow, Constantine Bay, Newquay, St Agnes, Gwithian, Zennor, Land’s End, Isles of Scilly and Tresco.
Adelaide writer Heather Taylor Johnson cycled from Lymington to Arlesford to Stokes Row to Oxford (188km … but less – she got lost a bit!) and The Yorkshire Dales Cycleway (210km), beginning and ending in Skipton and hitting Malham, Ingleton, Hawes, Reeth, Kettlewell and Hebden.
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