Four weeks

By this time in four weeks, I hope to have made it to Cape Wrath and completed my first day's walking in the direction of Dover.  Alongside starting to handover my day-to-day responsibilities to my colleagues, I've also been gathering the equipment I need for my trip in the last few weeks.  I am pleased to say that I've found most of it from around the house and garage, so there are just a few things to get now.  I'm particularly grateful to friends and colleagues who have offered OS Explorer Maps, most of which I now have, and will be using alongside the OS maps app on my 'phone (mindful that I won't always have access to power!).

Getting to the start is quite an adventure in its own right - a long train journey from Bristol to Inverness, near where I will spend a night with long-standing friends.  It's then a bus journey to Durness, where will be spending a night in a youth hostel before taking the small ferry across the Kyle of Durness, followed by a minibus to the cape and the landmark lighthouse.  A member at one of my churches told me this morning to expect a bumpy journey - the road which leads to the lighthouse was built for the keepers to get there, but since the advent of automation, the track is less well used.

My first day's walk should be around 11 miles (back from lighthouse to the ferry, retracing the minibus journey), followed by a second night in Durness.  My aim for the first week is to get to Ullapool where I've booked two youth hostel nights, aiming to give myself a day off every week or so to have some downtime within my itinerary.

I've had quite a few offers of accommodation en route, mostly as I cross England, so one job for the week ahead is to look in more detail for the second part of my journey when I will be heading from Mallaig towards the border of SW Scotland with England.

Pilgrimage

Some of you will have spotted that the BBC Series 'Pilgrimage' returns later this week, which I will watch with interest.  Several celebrities take a journey of a lifetime, each with different faiths and beliefs - will stepping in ancient footsteps on a spiritual journey broaden minds?  

Alongside the 'stepping aside' and taking a break, I wonder how my stepping along will impact me spiritually and in other ways?

...Be for us our companion on the walk, Our guide at the crossroads, Our breath in our weariness, Our protection in danger, Our albergue on the Camino, Our shade in the heat, Our light in the darkness, Our consolation in our discouragements, And our strength in our intentions...

(from the ancient prayer that comes at the end of the Pilgrim Mass said along the Camino de Santiago)