Day 21: up and over

Day 21:

Day 21: thank you for all the support. Means a lot. Today started late. Getting up and quitting sleep is hard work; sleep is a refuge from hard labour and giving it up is hard. Today I left the hotel at 10:30 and walked north to Longsleddale in the Sprint valley. Eventually the road became a rocky track that turned into the Gatescarth Pass, my first ever taste of the mountains of the eastern Lake District. And they really are mountains. The landscape resembled the Highlands. I worked my way up and over. It was cold and dreadfully exposed. An injury up there could quickly lead to hypothermia and a fall...good luck. Luckily I made it down safely to the Haweswater Reservoir where I saw a sadly deceased red squirrel. Then back to regular tarmac walking all the way to Penrith. Tomorrow I'm seeing Sarah in Carlisle and we'll share a day off before my push into Scotland.

The Road to Longsleddale.

South Lakeland, Cumbria.






The Gatescarth Pass. A serious climb up from the valley floor.

The other side.

Haweswater Reservoir.


A note about the blog

I must be the only LEJOGer without a smart phone. This means I don't have the ability to update this blog when I'm on the trail. My support team back home kindly offered to update the blog for me, so this will be communicated by text message and written up on my behalf. It will therefore be brief and without photos. I will expand on this when I get back from my journal entries, dictaphone recordings and photo journal. The detailed account will be published as a book which will be available on Amazon.

Charity

Thank you to everyone who has made a donation to Helping Hands for the Blind, a respectable local charity. You can make a donation here. Using Gift Aid, the charity is able to claim an additional percentage of each donation from the government as part of the Gift Aid scheme.  

While I am not tracking how much has been raised, the charity themselves may wish to do that; leaving a note with your donation such as "LEJOG" will help them do that. To be frank, it's more important that they receive donations than it is for me to take credit; they're actually doing something important whereas I am going on what could be described as a holiday.

My books

Lastly and leastly, I am an independent author. Writing is a pleasure even if reading it isn't! I will write an account of my LEJOG journey in the form of a book which hopefully will encourage other people to give LEJOG a try (and probably discourage many more). If you want a copy, the first batch will be given free of charge. Ask and you shall receive...

My other books are available on Amazon:


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