The Ridgeway – Day 1

Almost two years go while at work on a cool late November day, I learned my friend Max, had died by suicide.

I remember the shock of it. I remember imagining his last moments, over and over. I remember how I continuously wondered what he would have been thinking. I wondered and I kept wondering and I remained horrified for a long time.

Max was such a gentle guy, so kind, so generous with his time and knowledge, so immaculate in everything he did. I enjoyed watching him move about when we worked together, he had a way about him that was so watchable. I’d bought us tickets to a New Year’s party, ‘Shit taste and bad shirts’ my last message from him was a picture of a perfectly hideous bomber jacket asking me “is this suitable?”.

It was very suitable. He bought it. He had plans, we had plans. But he had other plans.

I miss him. I think on him a lot. What followed me learning of his death three very dark months of asking the same question I’m sure a lot of us have felt before, and the same question I’m sure Max asked himself: “What’s the fucking point?”

Over 700,000 people die by suicide every year. It’s a terrible figure.

The consequences of these deaths in the trauma for those left behind affects an impossible number of people.

Just hold that thought for a moment.

***

In my last blog, you may recall I was moaning about how the act of walking, the routine, the fear of fire and thunder, the constant monotony of it was getting to be too much, so you’d be forgiven for wondering why the hell I’m now taking a few days off to walk the Ridgeway, Britains oldest road, 90 miles from Ivinghoe to Avebury.

Well, the honest answer is that this was planned before my little tantrum in Oregon, so I don’t really have a choice. But the additional answer is that I’ve moved past the tantrum, I’ve made a few changes to make life easier/different, I really like walking in Autumn, and autumn has come early this year.

The changes:

One: I’ve replaced my wife with a strapping bearded man called Kai, (I’ll let you know at the finish line if this turns out to be a good or bad thing).

Two: Winnie the poodle is coming.

Three: the trail is in the UK and therefore the the cool temperate western maritime where the chances of being engulfed by waves, fire or ice are slim.

Four: I’ve packed a hip flask

Five: This walk has a purpose.

Kai has very close family links to the charity ‘Mindstep’. This charity was set up after Max, (a different Max) died by suicide in 2018. He suffered a short period of depression and despite huge efforts from his family, from counselling and medication, he could not be saved.

Every year Kai has aimed to take on some kind of challenge to raise money to support Mindstep whose main misssion is to fund research into the cause of suicide, the very nature of which means its very difficult to fully comprehend and explore the reasons behind it.

They work to raise awareness as to the warning signs and consequences of mental health conditions going untreated. They do this alongside Glasgow University:

Www.mindstepfoundation.com

Now, I did just say Kai was strapping, and I also said it was 90 miles. Maybe this sounds like a very real hell on earth to you, or maybe it sounds like a dream holiday. Kai is a strong believer in never asking for money for a cause unless the challenge to raise said money is hard enough. Although Kai has more hobbies than you have weeds in your garden, multi-day backpacking is not one of them, he’s never done it before. In addition, just to make this challenge sufficiently difficult he went and had his hip replaced and is only just not in pain anymore. I’m only really here to document the aches and pains and dowse his relentlessly sweaty brow with cool beer whenever he needs it.

I’ll be there to offer you, reader, glimpses into the rich Neolithic history along Britain’s oldest road while being sure to advise which pubs are best attended along the way.

Should you feel compelled to donate to the cause, (and we’d both be grateful if you did), you can do so here:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/kai-pinnell-ridgeway

Or should you feel compelled to justify any joy you may acquire through this blog, past or present you can do so in the form of a donation via the above link. We both thank you for that in advance of you doing it. (Smiley face). This is for the Max’s.

Day 1 : Ivinghoe beacon

After I turned my 4:30am alarm off at 4:19 I crept out of my warm bed and donned shorts shirt and cap, like a cartoon character. I abluted as per usual and made coffee. Winnie the poodle and I left for the field for a wee (she not me). In my head this run of chores was practically noiseless, stealth like even ; but luckily I left at 5am so Snakes, (undoubtedly still sound asleep), didn’t have the chance to tell me I woke her immediately then moved about the house like an elephant in ice skates.

Winnie and I drove the dark 20 minutes to Kai’s house where we weighed our bags. I’m not sure why we did this – it changes nothing.

We walked the mile to the train station and immediately boarded the most immaculate and silent Great Western Railway train I’ve ever experienced. I could have happily slept on the toilet floor, but instead I had important things to discuss with Kai, like why people who wear glasses look so blind when they take them off ?

We railed into London and seamlessly transferred to the tube to make our way to Euston. I say seamlessly, there was a point where I had all of Winnie the poodles 24kg in my arms as we went down the escalator.

Poodles on tubes makes even the most guarded of London commuter smile.

Safely in Euston we had enough time to caffeinate before boarding the final train to ‘Tring’ in Hertfordshire.

From here we boarded a taxi and the nice driver who was previously assured Winnie would fit on my lap was not noticeably put out when we arrived, but just automatically raised his boot, less she ruined his nice cream leather seats with her poodle odour (roses and lavender).

Walking this trail in either direction is possible and there are naturally pros and cons to either, but both the start and the finish are in bum-f*%\€ nowhere and are frequented by buses only when the blood moon rises and you hear the hoot of a Ornimegalonyx. Given we practically live in Wiltshire we opted to get this public transport faff out the way first and head to the far Eastern end. We’d have the prevailing winds at our face rather than our back, but as Bill Bailey said “I prefer to talk into the wind, as it blows my hair off my face and makes me look windswept and rugged. Or like a spaniel with its head out of the car window”.

A three mile journey in the taxi took us almost to the top of Ivinghoe beacon, but not quite, so we walked EAST the first 500m of the Ridgeway to beacon to begin our 90- ish mile walk in the: blow-your-eyes-dry yellow weather warning for wind that was forecast for the day.

Here begins Britain’s oldest road, the track that we follow has been used since prehistoric times by travellers, herdsman and soldiers. Boy oh boy!

We begin on the hills and in the valleys of the chalky flinty Chiltern Hills the wind is fierce but warm and the sun comes and goes. September is my favourite month and this year is a ‘mast’ year so the berries are ridiculous and the colours are like that of a terrible Bob Hope painting.

We made some excellent time over the hills and through the dingley dells and hollloways back to Tring , from where we’d just hopped off the train, we continued on passing over busy roads and back into the thick forest, unobserved by anyone.

After a wonderful stretch of beach Forrest we popped out in a park where Winnie had a drink from the clear waters of the brook. A man told us he used to come and fill up bottles of water from here as that was the only water his cats would drink. Those cats had that man by the balls.

In Wendover, our first and possibly penultimate town at 11.6 miles in we stocked up on supplies for the next couple of days and had lunch in the deli, Winnie had a sausage.

We continued on, rerouted past the awful and endless scarring that is HQ2, (which up until to this point has cost 40.5 billion smackers to build – which naturally doesn’t take into account the inexpressible cost to the natural environment).

We trekked up a steep hill to the Boer war memorial overlooking the surrounding hills and Chequers. The wind had calmed its self down a snatch now, after a small shower (during which we hid in a beautiful beach forest) the going was good, the paths were firm and the views most entertaining, not to mention those very unrealistic berries lining the paths , fit to burst.

Before long we popped out on a road, we turned away from the trail and headed downhill to Princes Risborough, a nice little market town where we had it on good authority that there was a pub. Though not serving foods, the nice landlord said we could bring fish and chips in and eat it while charging phones, feeding the dog, making friends with the locals and naturally, drinking some beers. It was all a bit perfect.

We left off just after 6:30pm and headed up the road to rejoin the trail, dusk was approaching fast. We left the road, skirted the boundaries of a couple of fields and after a few minutes into a short climb we veered off to an enclosed area of brackish shrubs, in amongst these shrubs were nice areas of flatish ground and no evidence of frequent use by anyone for anything. Perfect. With Snakes I usually stand there with my pack on while she wanders around with her mind level making sure we absolutely have the best most flat option. With Kai I said “this looks good” and that’s where we camped.

The tarp was up in minutes , thermals were on just as darkness set in. We’d pitched low and to the ground as the wind was still gusting , unfortunately it was a swirly wind so every so often a warm gust flooded through the tarp tunnel. The night was warm but I didn’t sleep until after 1am as I was continually contemplating shutting the doors to the wind , which naturally I never did.

Also as karma for me making fun of Snakes making sure we have level ground, and having said “I can sleep anywhere” I spent the night crawling my sleeping bag, bivi and pad back up the hill I kept sliding down. Humph.

20 trail miles on the day (25 including that London excursion)