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    Tales from the Trails, Part 1 UK Trails
    Tales from the Trails, Part 1 UK Trails
    Tales from the Trails, Part 1 UK Trails
    Ebook183 pages1 hour

    Tales from the Trails, Part 1 UK Trails

    By Ben Bennetts

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    About this ebook

    Walking is good for you. It provides physical exercise and stimulates the senses. It gets you out and about. You see places that can only be reached on foot. It also has its moments, sometimes funny sometimes dangerous, plus mishaps and other adventures. This book is a collection of observations, stories, advice and photographs from the long-distance walks made by the author, and his wife, after retiring at age 66 in 2007. Part 1 covers UK long-distance trails including many UK National Trails. Part 2, in preparation, will cover walks in other countries, notably Nepal, India, Spain, and Madeira.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBen Bennetts
    Release dateFeb 13, 2014
    ISBN9780957321830
    Tales from the Trails, Part 1 UK Trails
    Author

    Ben Bennetts

    After retiring in December 2007 from a busy career as a consultant electronics engineer, I took up walking long-distance trails both in my home country (UK) and in other places such the Himalaya in Nepal, the Sierra Nevada in Spain, and the levadas in Madeira. These activities kept me physically fit. To stay mentally fit, I started a blog (https://ben-bennetts.com) and began writing books. To date (February 2021), I’ve published twenty-one books on topics as diverse as religion, winemaking, an erotic novel (using the pseudonym, J C Pascoe), two storybooks for children, various autobiographies, idiosyncrasies of the English language, long-distance walking, keeping fit as we age, how to create and self-publish either an ebook or a paperback book, a book of cartoons, and a series of blog collections. You can read more about the books on my website, ben-bennetts.com/books. The books are available as e-books on www.smashwords.com and in Amazon’s Kindle Store.Contact me at ben@ben-bennetts.com

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      Book preview

      Tales from the Trails, Part 1 UK Trails - Ben Bennetts

      Tales from the Trails

      Part 1: UK trails

      Ben Bennetts

      ben@hollamhouse.com

      Walking is good for you. It provides physical exercise and stimulates the senses. It gets you out and about. You see places that can only be reached on foot. It also has its moments, sometimes funny sometimes dangerous, plus mishaps and other adventures. This book is a collection of observations, stories, advice and photographs from the long-distance walks made by the author, and his wife, after retiring at age 66 in 2007. Part 1 covers UK long-distance trails including many UK National Trails. Part 2 covers walks in other countries, notably Nepal, India, Spain, and Madeira.

      (^_^)

      Copyright © 2014, ‘Ben’ Bennetts

      Published by Atheos Books at Smashwords

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. The eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please buy an extra copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not buy it, or it was not bought for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting my hard work.

      ISBN 978-0-9573218-3-0

      Front cover photograph: approaching Ivinghoe Beacon at the end of the Ridgeway UK National Trail

      Dedication

      Mark, Kevin and Helen who, one day, will inherit our boots!

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Walking record

      Comment on units of distance

      Pause for thought: Jade’s Crossing

      Strange Tales: Betty Mundy's Walk

      Snippets of conversation

      Navigation

      Mobile phone coverage

      The cost of a few extra miles

      Long-distance walking dogs

      Discarded rubbish

      The management of blisters

      Nostalgia: Allan King's Way

      Disappearing walkers: where do they go?

      Trail pill poppers

      Beware meal sizes in north England

      Abandoned clothing

      Walking is big business for some

      Too many miles one day

      Walking direction: the choice is yours, maybe

      B&Bs: do your homework

      Provisions on the trail

      Nostalgia: Monument to Guglielmo Marconi

      Kippers and poached eggs in Richmond

      Trail talk

      Don’t lose your kit!

      Walking in a group if you are hard of hearing

      Trouble at Witcombe

      Beware short cuts

      Is cheating allowed?

      You won’t get rich walking long-distance paths

      Take secateurs

      Scary moments

      Walking is an opportunity to try different food and drinks

      The worst climb of the day

      Spotted by a bird

      We carry pebbles

      Nostalgia: Our wedding night in Farnborough

      A sad story

      Major disaster day

      Immortal words

      Celebrating a wedding anniversary on the trail

      Trail buddies

      Caught out in Hawes: WYBMADIITY

      Wee habits

      Strange Tales: Twice Brewed Inn

      Red Lion urinals

      A wonderful bench

      What to do when it rains

      Why walk long-distance trails?

      Cyclists on the trail: a pet peeve

      Bovine encounters

      Nostalgia: 5, The Crescent, Pendeen

      Create and maintain a checklist

      Selecting maps and guidebooks

      Postscript: Durolane to the rescue?

      About the author

      Other books by Ben Bennetts

      Introduction

      St. Michael’s Mount, Marazion, seen from the South West Coastal Path.

      In 2007, when I retired from a busy career as a consulting electronics engineer, I decided it was time to slim down a bit and take up a sport so I started playing golf. It was the most frustrating sport ever! For every good hit, there were at least nineteen lousy hits. I persisted for about a year and then gave up in disgust at myself for not improving beyond the stage where every hole was taking anywhere between five and ten strokes. (I always stopped counting once the number of strokes exceeded ten so my score card never showed more than 180 strokes.)

      I enjoyed the walking part of golf however and, like Mark Twain before me (or maybe Harry Wilson, William Gladstone or the Allens?), decided that I should develop the walking interest. I did the research, bought some walking gear, and planned my first multi-day long-distance-path walk – a 64-mile 4-day walk round the coastal path of the Isle of Wight in September 2008. It rained. I got wet. My boots were new. I got blisters. I ached from unused muscles. But, I enjoyed the walk. I enjoyed stepping out early in the morning and walking the path with virtually no-one else around. I enjoyed the early morning birdsong. I enjoyed the exercise. I enjoyed the ever-changing scenery. I even enjoyed getting soaked the day it rained unmercifully. In fact, I enjoyed the whole experience and vowed that I would do it again, which I did a few weeks later when I embarked on the 100-mile 4-day South Downs Way UK National Trail.

      From that point on, I have walked now for nearly six years, covering many miles in the UK and quite a few outside: in Nepal, India, Spain and Madeira. In October 2009, I persuaded my wife Carol to join me on the walks and, nowadays, she always accompanies me.

      Often I write up the walk afterwards for the entertainment and enjoyment of family and friends and I had thought just to publish some of these write-ups but, on reflection, I decided there are many so-called travelogues and mine would just add to the pile. Consequently, I elected to extract short commentaries from the write-ups and call them ‘Tales from the Trails’ and here they are. Some tales are short stories about what happened to us on one occasion. Others are observations or advice about the nature of walking long-distance paths. And yet others are just wry or humorous tales. Plus there are photographs of strange or curious things we spotted and there is even a series of cartoons.

      Part 1 of Tales from the Trails covers our experiences on walks within the UK. Part 2 covers what happened on walks outside the UK: in Nepal, India, Spain and Madeira.

      The tales in each part are in no particular order and dovetail with a series of ‘Seen on

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