Walking Lands End to John O'Groats 2025 for Alzheimer's Society

With the alarm going at 7am we were down for breakfast as soon as it started at 8am. Don’t ask me why it took until 10 to start walking but I clearly went into relax mode! Dovedale is gorgeous. This morning has to be one of my best. I felt relaxed, buoyed up by seeing the girls and now Martin and, with a combination of exercises and Martin’s massage gun my glute was feeling much less tight and ready to go. I had to steady Martin to a slower pace so I could warm up but the natural beauty around us did more for that than I could.  A heron peacefully fishing was undeterred by us stopping to watch. And then a pair of dippers, obscured by flood debris became bold, continued to feed and swim while we watched fascinated by their movements. By this time we had left the beauty of the stepping stones behind and joined a National Trust ranger as she walked the path picking up litter left behind over the bank holiday. She told us of the story of “Lover’s Leap”, a woman on hearing that her love...

Cooked breakfast, warm up exercises and a couple of ibuprofen for the glute and I was hopeful I was set up for the day. Martin, my husband, was intending to walk out from the Izzak Walton where we are staying tonight, to meet me and I was really looking forward to seeing him after a month apart. My glute was not behaving terribly well - definitely mind over matter for the moment. Entering Derbyshire and crossing the River Dove and A road I entered a field with 50 plus Canada geese, a dozen greylag, and 3 lapwings: Good boost to the morning. Walking along the River Dove towards Rocester and on a large meander I saw sand martins again. I was stunned by the JCB “estate” seeming to run from the Eaton Hall shooting club where new clubhouse and extensive landscaping occurred through the various estate houses along to Rochester where the JCB Academy as part of the HEX group is based - lots of JCB vehicles going by and people carrying and wearing company branded merchandise. Having gone over a...

Ye Old Dun Cow was an excellent place to stay with a good breakfast to set me up for the day. I left at 10am having warmed up with right side glute still playing up. In some discomfort I took small, slow paces to warm up and was cheered by the sun and 4 buzzards enjoying the thermals above, mewing to each other. At Stockwell Heath pond a pair of Canada geese arched and bobbed their necks suspiciously at me as they guarded their brood of chicks, along with mallards and their 3 chicks and a moorhen. It was now quite warm so I put KT tape on my shoulders to protect them from chaffing with backpack, and a swig of water to keep me going. There followed a potential incident with cows and calves. Leaving an attractive stream - actually the outflow for the reservoir at STW - I came to a field of cows, one looking particularly hard at me with her calf by her side. Suddenly the whole herd started to trot towards me with half a dozen starting to cross my path which would have meant me being in th...

We had another slow start largely to let the heavy rain go through before putting the tent down. We planned to wait and have brunch on the way to the start of my walk. This worked out well - we were off the site by 11, just over an hour taken to take the tent down and pack the car, with some skill as the girls had forgotten on the way up that they’d need to leave space for me as a passenger for a short while and the dog in the boot! But inevitably I had to set off again, and my cheerleaders came with me for a short while before heading back to the car with a tearful farewell on my part at 13:30.  I got back into my stride and the backpack felt good, although my right hip was nagging me, and at 13:45, the sound of my first cuckoo of the summer made me smile. The heathland and native woodland  of Cannock Chase, with stream running through it was better than I had imagined and made a great start to today’s walk. A bit of a shock walking along a busy A road but this led to a route...

We had a slow start deliberately as this was going to  be a short walk today and of course it was Easter Sunday.. and Barney’s first birthday. No longer a puppy, as though Georgie would let us forget it! They dropped me off back at Mitton after 11 and the plan was to meet half way at the Boat Inn, Penkridge at 1ish.   The sun may have made the difference as well as wearing “civvie” clothes i.e. not my walking ones but I had much more of a spring in my step today partly because I’d see the girls more today. More butterflies were out as well - some orange tips and meadow browns. I had a long talk with a lady at a cottage by the path with a red fox, rather vocal, Labrador about her father in a fairly early stage of dementia. It’s hard knowing what to say when you’ve experienced the later stages - what comfort is there to offer apart from empathy? There were some beautiful if modern agricultural scenes - hedge laying, sheep, and wind turbines - to be seen as I went forward. I...