At The Start

I now plan to recount each day of my 268 + mile walk along the backbone of England,the Pennine Way,the semi-marked trail beginning in Edale in Derbyshire and ending in Kirk Yetholm, Scotland. Three years ago a friend and I planned the trip of a lifetime to England and Scotland. That trip included a few days residence at White Lea, a 16th century stone farmhouse just outside the market village of Alston in Cumbria, England. In our wanderings in the area we were curious about the "Public Footpath" wooden signposts : where did they go? And,much more practical- was there a possible short cut for lugging our groceries between village and White Lea? We trampled through cow pasture and embarked on Issaac's Tea Trail, but we never did find the passageway. Ends up, the P.W. skirts the center of town,crossing the River South Tyne at the youth hostel. Keeping to the west. In the three years since, I became a fan of P.W. youTube videos by Daniel Staniforth. He recaptured his through- walk in day hike sections, often in lousy windy cold weather. Hey, I thought,can't be that bad if he's lugging tripod and nice camera equipment out there. Doesn't seem too uncomfortable even in Oct,Nov, or Jan when some of the episodes were filmed. I was intrigued. My sister-in-law , a bicycle lover, suggested Bettina Selby's RIDING NORTH ONE SUMMER. Selby's adventure as a middle-aged solitary female wild camping in England just had me hooked. Hey,I now had the inspiration and incouragement. I could wild camp by myself along the Pennine Way.