This last month or so, since walking the Norfolk Coast Path has been jam-packed full of little adventures.
We kicked things off about a month ago, when we headed to London to pick up a folding canoe from Dave Cornthwaite. We needed to stay south, so we decided to spend a day as tourists and have a day in town. We camped over in a surprisingly good little spot next to the Royal Naval College in Greenwich.
While in London, we did all the touristy bits. The London Eye, Dungeons and had a look at Parliament. We upset one or two commuters by having to get off and on the escalators ‘side by side’. It was a nice day, but that’s enough city now for probably the next 12 months.
Our next destination was ‘The Yes Bus’. We recently became ambassadors for SayYesMore – a cool little movement that aims to get people to say yes a little more often and doing more of the stuff they love. It’s pretty awesome to find something we can be ambassadors for that is so closely aligned to what we are wanting to achieve that all we need to do is exactly what we are doing already. Awesome!
Except it’s not exactly the same anymore because at the ambassadors training weekend at The Yes Bus, we learnt a few new things about social media, how to podcast, met a bunch of new awesome people and got a new matching hat, t-shirt and hoody too. It’s just like before but a bit smarter and better! Sweet!
As the ambassadors weekend drew to a close, we still were undecided on what we should do next. We had a folding canoe, an awesome weather forecast and wanted to do something. Poole Harbour and Brownsea island was suggested so we said Yes and headed down.
We didn’t have any BAs (buoyancy aids) with us, so we made it our mission to try and find somebody to lend us a couple that evening so we could take the folding canoe out to Brownsea island in the morning. After lots of messages we got it sorted thanks to The Watersports Academy . We popped there in the morning, picked up 2 BAs and set to work on building the canoe.
We didn’t realise how hard it would be. Two and half hours of graft and it didn’t seem quite right. It was almost there, but not quite enough. We headed back to The Watersports Academy which was just over the road from the harbour to see if they’d lend us a boat to go with the BAs and they did! We unfolded the canoe, got changed and went for a paddle. It was incredible, at least until Lauren dropped the GoPro into the sea (a deeper bit too). It took half an hour to locate and rescue it, which we fortunately did! We didn’t go to Brownsea island but it didn’t matter. Take a look at the video:
The Norfolk Coast Path stretches 84 miles from Hunstanton to Hopton (which can be extended a further 46 miles by linking it up with the Peddars Way).
We left home at just after 9.30am and were dropped off in Hunstanton at around 11am. Our mission for the day was to reach Burnham Overbury Staithe, where we would camp in the dunes (18miles).
We felt fresh for the first 5 or so miles and enjoyed seeing (well,
at least Lauren did) the wintering birds that visit the area during the colder
months.
10 miles in and we knew about the packs on our backs. They weighed around 12kg each and we were also beginning to feel hotspots on our feet. We took a look and each of us had blisters – no problem we thought, we have blister plasters! We patched ourselves up and continued our journey through Holme Dunes, Brancaster and Burnham Deepdale. It was stunning!
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15 miles in and the feet were starting to getting sore and light was fading. We pushed on in the dark until we reached the dunes. We kept seeing odd looking people in camo with guns. One of which shouted something and all we heard was light and windmill. We decided to wear a light until we found a windmill so we wouldn’t get shot. We presume they were hunting but it was quite disconcerting.
We knew stopping early was no longer and option with the hunt taking place so we kept moving. Once we reached the dunes, exhausted, we set up camp, cooked some noodles and headed into bed. After about 45 mins of setting up beds, finding and losing things it was around 8pm and time for bed.
“Night John”
“Night Lauren”
[A few seconds of quiet]
“John, can you hear that?”
“is it a boat?”
“I’m not sure, maybe a motor bike”
“It’s a helicopter”
The low rumbling sound started quietly in the distance, but soon sounded much much closer. We were not quite sure what it was, perhaps a dirt bike playing in the dunes? The fear was it would come up over the top and squish us and our tent but it got louder still.
“IT’S DEFINETLEY A HELIPCOPTER”
“YES, IT MUST BE RIGHT ABOVE US”
We’re sure it was low and close, but we never saw it. Around
20min passed and we settled back down for a restless nights sleep.
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Day 2
The mission for the day was to reach Cley-Next-The-Sea which was another 18miles. The plan was to leave early and hit Wells-Next-The-Sea in time for breakfast at our favourite bakery. We left at around 7am and walked along the quiet beach which was littered with thousands of shells and had a colony Oystercatchers on a sand bank. The route took us through the Holkham Estate and we reached Wells at around 10.30am.
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We made use of the facilities, topped up our waterbottles and gave our sore feet a bit of rest before heading into town for our breakfast. We stocked up on some cakes for the day ahead and sat by the quay with a hot drink and sandwich. We decided to take the boots off for a bit and to check in on our feet which is when we discovered that John’s feet had started to blister in several places including between the toes.
The next conversation was a tough one. We never doubted our ability to continue blisters or no blisters, but we knew that doing so would likely end up in damage that would take several weeks to recover. We did the sensible thing and stopped, we waited by the quay and had a different adventure: Getting a bus home! It took around 3 hours in all and we even had time to make a hot chocolate between bus changes.
The bit in-between
This was our first attempt of a long distance walk. We knew we
could finish it but it was a case of how! We did a bit of research while recovering
at Lauren’s home. Toe socks looked like they’d sort John’s weird toe blister
issues so we ordered a pair of liners (ininiji) and looked at taking some of
the weight off our feet.
We swapped the tent for a tarp and bivvy bags, used smaller, lighter
backpacks, left the waterproofs at home, switched to a lighter stove set (still
alcohol based from speedster stoves) and took less food with us. Our decision
to head out again was a last minute one and was only to be for 1 night, unless
things went much better than before. Our
new packs weighed around 6-7kg with water.
Day 3
We hopped on a train at 11.30 from our home village and headed out towards Sheringham. There were lots of waits between connections which gave us time to eat and supply but it meant arriving back at wells at 4.30pm. We walked for a couple of hours before reaching a less-than-ideal camp spot but it did the trick. Couscous was on the menu along with a hot chocolate.
It was a cold night, down to around -3/4 and we struggled to
stay on top of our sleeping mats because of the uneven ground.
Day 4
Despite the poor nights sleep, we woke up feeling quite refreshed.
We were on the move by 6.45am and it was still dark. The hard frost helped with
the mud and walking was quite easy going. We reached Moston for a beautiful sunrise
and Cley-Next-The-Sea for around 10.30am where we found a bench and dried out
some of our kit including the what-was-frozen tarp. There were lots of people
around enjoying the sunny day and wildlife.
Blakeney – an old wooden boat
From here, we had to walk miles along the shingle beach. It was
particularly tough going on the legs – if you can do this bit at low tide it
would probably make life easier, but we persevered and stopped for a lunch at
around 2pm, where we aired out our sleeping bags and grabbed some more couscous.
From here we were able to move up on to the cliffs toward Sheringham
where we met some nice people that offered to see if we could stop where they
were staying, perhaps we should have accepted, but we didn’t and kept walking
on into Sheringham town for a resupply and then decided to keep going.
The end of the shingle beach
We were between Sheringham and Cromer when we found our overnight
spot. We had covered another 18miles and our legs were tired but we were blister
free. We ate Couscous again despite being
fed up of it. Again, not a great night’s sleep and it was pretty breezy.
Day 5
We woke up feeling quite good, the feet had recovered well. We set off early and soon reached cromer where we supplied once more from a local bakery and Co-op. It was incredibly windy, so we stayed off the beaches and kept to the clifftops as much as possible but this did bite us on the bum at Bacton. Already tired, we discovered the path had given away to erosion near the large gas terminal and was impassable. This resulted in a highly unwelcome 3km detour. This affected moral pretty badly as were were already flagging slightly, but it was to be the least of our troubles.
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We discovered that despite covering the distance according to Strava, it just wasn’t translating into progress along the route. We were many miles behind and had a long way to go to reach Winterton, our planned overnight stop for the night. We knew we could stop short, but we wanted to finish the entire route but we had cut-off point. Not reaching Winterton would have put completion into jeopardy.
A sign which reads “coastal path (please keep away from the crumbling edge)
We’d already walked 38km and we calculated we still had around 12km to reach Winterton. We were tired, hungry, it was getting dark and we were pretty demoralised. We grabbed a sausage roll from our bags while we took a quick break and then it started to rain.
We considered our options and decided to push forwards. The
remaining 12km was painful on the feet (but still blister free) and we had to
take many stops.
We reached our overnight stop in the dunes and set up the tarp, it was windy, but it held up ok. Despite having the the tarp flapping on our faces most of the night, it was one of the better nights sleep.
Day 6
We woke up knowing we only had 15 miles to the finish and we were determined to make it. The tide was low which meant we made excellent progress along the hard sand, at least until a freak wave came up a little too far up shore giving John a wet foot! Oops.
An icecream does wonders for moral
We saw a couple of seals in the sea here and lots of evidence of
coastal erosion.
We reached Great Yarmouth by midday and stopped for some chips in the town.
5-Miles to go. The tarmac by the quay battered our feet and as soon as we could walk on sand, we did. The last 5 miles was tough, but we made it, opting for the cliffs again because of the rising tide.
The Norfolk Coast Path sign points to the edge of the cliff
We reached Hopton at around 2pm and grabbed a beer from the
co-op while waiting for our lift to arrive!
We enjoyed the walk, but it was very much type 2 fun! For us,
lighter packs made all the difference so we’ll try and keep to this ethic in
the future. We would have liked more time to enjoy the experience. Less time
pressure and we may have taken up that offer of accommodation, or stopped off for
‘soup and a pud’ but we had to remain focussed on our destination.
We’re soon going to be heading off on a 5-6 day walk along the Norfolk Coastal Path (82 miles). We’re planning on going relatively lightweight, which prompted us to have a look at our stove options and what might work the best.
We’ve always used gas stoves. Our alpkit brewkit is our best friend on van camping trips but we decided to take a walk around Decathlon to see if there was anything that could be useful for our trip, and we found an alcohol/meths stove that looked well worth a try. The price was £18. We decided to compare all of our available options and these are the results. The test has been pretty conclusive and the best option is ‘it depends!’ but the figures here helped us make an informed choice.
The first test was a 3-way boil test between the Alpkit Brewkit, the OEX-F1 and the meths burner. We used new 500g gas cans. We used the brewkit as it came (but the weight below doesn’t include the pan support). The OEX-F1 without a windshield (we didn’t have one tall enough) with a 1l OEX pot. The meths stove was used with a windshield and another OEX pot. Outside temp was around 2-3c.
It’s worth noting that on this test, we had issues with the OEX stove not being on the can well enough and it stopped working part way through. We fixed it up and continued the test without stopping the clock. We also had some issues with the meths stove in that the flame was licking up all over the side of the pan, so we decided to add the simmer ring part way through.
Stove
Weight
Boil time (1l)
Fuel used (g)
Alpkit Brewkit
470g
6.18
15g
OEX-F1/OEX Pot
350g
16.45
25g
Meths Stove/OEX Pot/Concertina windshield
460g
24.12
42g
All in all, this first test was a bit of a disaster, but it showed us that the our loyal buddy the brewkit came out on top. Though it was the heaviest option, it was also the most efficient. We didn’t stop there though! We could see there were some improvements to be gained and so began test 2. This time we made a pot cosy for our OEX and used simmer ring from the start.
Stove
Weight
Boil time (1l)
Fuel used (g)
Meths Stove/OEX pot with cosy/Concertina windshield
480g
30+mins
29g
At 30mins, we gave up. The water was very hot. Enough for a drink but it just wasn’t getting there quickly. We were very happy with fuel performance. 30mins of cooking time with 29g of fuel is great, but we’d spend far too much time waiting around for a brew! But what if we tried using the brewkit pot with the heat exchanger? Would it keep the flames in? It did, and the results were great but it was also heavier. We also gave the OEX-F1 with the same pot.
Our new pot cosy made from a sleeping mat and foil tape. It got slightly burnt.
Stove
Weight
Boil time (1l)
Fuel used (g)
Meths Stove/Brewkit pot/Concertina windshield
540g
11.40
20g
OEX-F1/Brewkit pot/Concertina windshield
440g
5.45
20g
In this test, fuel consumption and speed were hugely improved and the OEX-F1 was quicker than the brewkit, but a bit less efficient.
But what do all the figures mean? It depends on what matters to you. There appears to be no perfect solution. Things to consider are the stove weight, how much boil time matters, would you use one canister of gas, or would it be two/three or more and can you resupply enroute? What are you cooking, boil in the bag or something where simmering is more important? Is it for one or two people?
Gas canisters are heavy. The full Primus 230g canisters weigh 380g meaning that canister alone weighs 150g. By comparison. A meths bottle is around 60g. 500ml of meths weighs about 400g excl the bottle.
To calculate our best option, we looked at how much fuel we would use for 3 full boils a day. It’s not what we will be doing, some will be cooking, we won’t want 1l each time but it lets us compare. We’re not too worried about boil times.
So all in all, the results are actually quite similar! The main differences being in boil times.
We’ve actually decided to go with the meths stove with an extra pot cosy. We know we can cook on it as well as boil water. While initially heavier, after day 1-2 we would be lighter overall because we would lose one bottle and around 80-160g worth of fuel and it stays the lighter option throughout. If we could get away with a single can, the gas would win the test on fuel efficiency alone.
Other considerations: We know the gas boil times are much quicker with a full can and that this drops down considerably the more empty the bottle gets. The other benefit is that the alcohol burner is much quieter and the fuel is easier to get hold of being available at both hardwear shops and camping shops. The meths burner is also more compact.
For this trip, our alcohol stove will be coming with us, but it doesn’t mean it will always come out on top.
The chosen stove. Brewkit pot, concertina windshield and meths burner.
We hope everybody had a great start to their year! We kicked things off with a dip in the chilly north sea (see video below). The new years day dip was held in Sheringham and was to raise money for the RNLI.
We even made it on to the local news!
After that, we headed to Cromer, ready for the new years day firework display and took part in an impromptu 1 mile fun run (in full winter kit!). The waves were huge and part of the fun was dodging the waves that were crashing over the promenade wall!
We were visiting some friends who lived up towards the Lake District. They recommended this walk, perhaps without considering how tough (and slow!) it might be for somebody with 3% vision. We set off from Old Dungeon Ghyll with the intention of visiting Stickle Tarn and a few of the Langdale Pikes.
Scrambling up towards Stickle Tarn. An easier path was available!
Hikes can be a challenge for us. Most of the footpaths in the great outdoors are only wide enough for one, and even on the rare occasion where there is room enough for two, the differences in terrain can make using the width difficult. This means that for the most part, John, who is registered blind, holds on to a backpack while Lauren leads the way describing features or tricky sections along the way. Mentally it can be draining for both of us: For John, using the vision he has to locate where to put his feet and for Lauren, constantly having to describe terrain and be aware of the extra person. But that doesn’t stop us giving things ago. We’re on a mission show the world that blind or disabled people can do stuff.
The final route we took
Our route began steadily over relatively easy terrain, joined by a local lost farm dog (who made his way home eventually). We can cover even steps and flat sections quickly, and we did, but wasn’t long before things became a little more interesting. Fortunately, we’re both climbers and the odd scramble here and there doesn’t worry us at all, in fact, it can be easier than uneven or rocky paths. With his hands on the rock, John can make progress with little guidance. Stepping stones however, are quite a different story! Without being able to see, hopping across would probably result in a change of activity from walking to swimming but John has a real talent for doing things statically where it really shouldn’t be possible. Soon enough, we reached Stickle Tarn.
Lauren hopping across some stepping stones at Stickle Tarn.
With it being early afternoon, and knowing everything takes us a long time, we probably should have turned back at this point but instead, we had a little review of our route in the hope that we’d still gain some altitude, but hopefully make it down in daylight. This isn’t exactly how it went. We had planned to take a longer, but gentler route ‘around the back’ but against the clock, we opted for a scramble up ‘easy gully’ instead. The gully itself was fine, but once we hit the top, the path was tricky to follow, and it was a case of navigating from Cairn to Cairn. It was also rocky in places and uneven, our progress was slow.
View from Pavey Ark towards stickle tarn.
By the time we had reached the top of Harrison Stickle, the cloud had dropped down, the wind had picked up and the light had almost faded. Our route down was almost entirely through steep crags. It took a long time, navigation was a challenge, but we made it back with enough time to have a coffee before the carpark closed.
Back at the end of October, we visited Bear Grylls adventure in Birmingham. It was a seriously busy day jam packed with activities…so much so, we barely had time to film anything. Instead, we went on highropes, did survival mazes, obstacle courses, archery and snorkelling.
snorkeling
the fish in the tank
meeting bear
bear at the start
archery with daisy
getting ready with face piant
lovely bug smothies
We were supposed to go scuba diving, but because of John’s hearing aids, we need a note from the doctor first – watch this space!
The great thing about this place is that on the whole, they were really up for letting John do everything without a second thought or with some extra thought into how to adapt things slightly. The managers looked after Daisy (the guide dog) when we were on activities and apart from scuba diving (which needs a medical for the ears rather than eyes) we did everything.
A few weeks back we visited Mid-Wales for a climbing competition (John competing, Lauren sightguiding) and we had some great plans for things to do while we were there. We know it rains a lot in Wales but non-stop for 3 days?! Our plans changed but we still had a lot of fun.
We visited Henrhyd Falls in the hope of going for a swim but well…
After that we hit tripadvisor for some inspiration!
Henrhyd falls. The waterfall plunges around 20m into a deep pool below.
A few weeks back we hit the grit up at Stanage and did a few easy climbs. It was great to be joined by Anita for a couple of hours too!
The plan was to get ourselves used to being on Grit again. It’s a completely different ball game to limestone. The holds are small, but grippy and you have to trust your feet a lot. Big run outs towards the tops are the norm but it’s fun!
Here’s the video:
And here are some pics:
Lauren and John at the top of Mam Tor in the peak district
Lauren, John and Anita at the crag
John coiling a rope with the sun setting behind him
Lauren and John looking happy at the end of a days climbing with the sun setting behind them.
We’ve not long launched our social pages but we’ve been up to quite a bit the last few weeks. Here’s all of it in a single blog!
Our first proper little adventure was one leg of a 1000 mile journey around the UK’s waterways on a waterbike to raise awareness of litter and plastic. We rode 10 miles from Birmingham city centre to Majors green and took it in turns to pedal. When John was riding, he had to have directions from Lauren which weren’t always perfect!
The next big thing we did together was take a trip to Symonds Yat. A limestone climbing venue in the Wye Valley. We had a real laugh on this one and had a few epics too (what time does the carpark close?). Best just to watch this one..
Our next little venture out was to the Peak District for a first aid course run by Al over at Gritstone adventures. John needed his for his CWI assessment and Lauren’s was due to expire. We’d spoken on the phone to Al about John being blind and we weren’t totally sure how it would go before we got there but it actually went incredibly well.
Left: John sat with his cane stuck out of his leg with bandages supporting it. Top right: Lauren and John selfie – John has a bandage on his head. Bottom right: John having a bandage put on his head.
Apart from occasionally kicking the casualty (or body as John sometimes called them!) his first aid skills were top class. Al did a great job of providing some plain text documents with the important information so John’s iPhone could read it fine. Lauren sometimes had to describe things but on the whole we think blind people have the potential to make great first aiders!
Here’s a video from our celebratory trip up Mam Tor!
Sunset from Mam Tor
The last thing to catch up on was our visit to the Petzl UK Gri Gri tour at Redpoint Birmingham. We had a good chat about belaying and then tried out soft catches. Climbers..head to a tour date if you can!
