I Would Walk 1000 Miles

Despite the rain deciding to belt down late in the afternoon, I made it to Vesoul relatively unscathed. Again, my thanks to Jean-Etienne for hosting me in Besançon and to Jérémie for joining us for dinner. Great guys, and hopefully I’ll see them both sometime as I do need to go back and visit the citadel.

I also got a mail today from another nutter, this one a girl from the US who’s cycling 600km round the south of France, raising money and awareness for Darfur. Another worthwhile cause, and not least because my good friend Hans has recently accepted a job over there and ships out at the end of September… Robyn’s page is at www.cyclingfordarfur.com. Pop over and give her some support. And money!

I couldn’t make it up. As of right now, the donations received and pledged stand at £666 plus $445 plus 1000 Slovakian Crowns. In addition I’ve been informed that a missive I sent to Tharg the Mighty, editor of the Galaxy’s Greatest comic, 2000AD, has made Letter of the Week. I think one of the donations I received today is as a result of that, which is a great start. UPDATE: A nice person on the 2000AD mailing list scanned the letter in. You can see it here. The 42 is kind of spurious. I need to calculate how many miles I’ve done so far as it won’t be quite the total expected by now, though I hope to find it in excess of 200 miles. For safety reasons (horrendous roads, incoming bad weather), I accepted a lift over the Pass de Grand Saint Bernard between Italy and Switzerland all the way to Montreux. In a bid to increase the miles in compensation, I walked along the north shore of Lake Geneva / Lake Léman, crossed on a boat as I neared Geneva itself and walked some more on the south side. I’m fairly sure there’ll still be a shortfall, but I’ll calculate this and add some more miles elsewhere accordingly. I ain’t getting on that ferry in Holland until I have at least 993 miles under my belt! The videos from my camera seem to be kaput… I have rescued two very short none-walk-related ones and nothing else. The photos, in the main, seem to be OK but it will take me a while to go through and weed out the corrupt ones. Does anyone know of a utility for repairing partially corrupt AVI files?

Not joining me, another walked on another walk. Gosia mentioned this in the comments and I thought I’d give it a plug. A grandmother from Canberra is going to walk circuits around the Lennox Gardens over 42 days to reach a total of 1000 miles. Her cause is a charity aimed at helping the study of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, another hugely worthwhile cause.

If you’re in Oz, then perhaps pop by and give her some support and some cash! You can also donate via her website: www.1000milewalk.org.au.

Meanwhile, I’m resting my feet at Alessandro’s, not to far away from Giuliana’s for another night, perhaps two. Giuli is off to the beach with her folks from this evening and I hope their weather improves as it’s currently chucking it down. I’ll also be looking into some routes to take over the next stage of the walk as I think the one I’d banked on may be impassable.

Another quick thanks to the folks back home as well. People, your comments do help and your encouragement makes a hell of a difference. Especially to my dad for the email last night - thanks, Pop.

Finally, please recheck the older posts when you get a chance later today or tomorrow. Hopefully, I can use Alessandro’s setup here to upload some videos to YouTube…

Yes, I’m running late… But I had to get one post up to thank Delphine and her family for the last week or so. They’ve been hugely accommodating, allowing in some weird guy who barely speaks their language, feeding me (very well!) and allowing me full use of the internet. I had a great 3-day trek to get me used to the camping and walking and I’ve had an otherwise lovely chilled time.

So now I’m about to wolf down some breakfast, finish packing (without the tent - going to gamble it shows up today and Delphine can run it out to me) and get on the road. OK, so I’ll start later than I intended but I’ll just walk fast to make up!

Not sure when the next post will be but I’ll try to keep you all up to date as I go.

In case you’ve not noticed, or you’ve not got JavaScript enabled for this site (go on - I’m safe!), there’s a timer ticking down under the title. It’s the time until 9am in Monte Carlo on August 1st.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Argh.

(I got the timer from here)

Some Italian guy’s nicked mine! Story on Ananova. Thanks to Chris for pointing this out for me. I really should start publicising a bit more, though. Hopes are to speak to the Vietnamese BBC correspondent in a couple of weeks when I get to Hanoi.

They pinched my idea! OK, so probably not, but it seems that this year’s Red Nose Day charity single is a parody of “I Would Walk…” called “Roll 500 Miles“. Another good cause, so check it out. I’ve not heard it yet - must get to a broadband connection. Tomorrow I should have a map available of the walk and hopefully an idea of the towns I will be stopping at.

Welcome to another of my now multitudinous blogs. The idea for this one has sprung from personal issues (being dumped), an urge to make a difference for some people who deserve it, and a huge amount of enjoyment experience by travelling the globe for the last 11 months. Essentially, the situation is this: my now-ex is heading back to the UK shortly. In a homage to the Proclaimers’ song 500 Miles, I intend to walk 1000 miles across Europe to "fall down at [her] door" as per the lyrics. In doing so, I hope to raise a decent amount of wonga, spondoolicks and cash for the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation in Vietnam who I worked with during my World Tour (part one). The walk will finish somewhere near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in England by way of a ferry journey from the continent. Originally I’d intended to get the Bergen-Newcastle ferry as I’d love to walk across Scandanavia, but it’s only twice a week. So if I’m "off" in any mileage calculations and I miss the boat, I’m sat in Norway for 2-3 days. Instead, I’m now considering a different crossing from Holland to Newcastle, which is daily. On the off chance Lou goes mental and is so worried about my sanity that she refuses to allow me to shuffle my blister-clad feet up her driveway come late Aug/early Sept, I will re-arrange the walk to finish at St James’ Park, home of Newcastle United. It’s a similar distance, give or take. So. There you have it. All further details are in the Frequently Asked Questions document. Please, please, please do comment and contact me regarding this. I will need help, I will need information, I will need publicity. I will need accommodation, food and blister-easing salves and plasters. I will need your kind donations to make this worthwhile.