I Would Walk 1000 Miles

Today was a day for dead things - a sheep, a snake, a lizard and I thought a horse… until it got up and walked off.

I had a long walk today. I arrived in Saorge around 9:30, over an hour ahead of schedule. I’d taken a different route to the advertised GR52A along the nearby valley rather than climbing up and down. Saorge is a beautiful little town poised on a hill overlooking a monastery and a river. It’s made up of a maze of little streets with overhanging houses. Pure medieval loveliness.

I spoke to a man about an alternative route via Fontan, but I worked out it would be just about as long as the one I was intending to take anyway. It is a hell of a climb from Saorge to Baisse d’Anan - 1000m vertically. The direction markers (red and white painted stripes along the way) were very sporadic so I stopped at a cottage on the way to make sure I was going the right way. The brought out a map, assured me it was fine and offered me food and water for the trip (which I had to refuse as my bag was full and I’d had breakfast in front of the monastery an hour earlier).

The climb up almost killed me. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything more difficult, including climbing Fansipan in Vietnam. At least then I only had a small daybag. Psychologically it’s a nightmare as you can never see the end. There’s a plateau at around 90% of the way up where the signage just vanishes again and you have to more or less guess that you’re going the right way. At the summit I found what looked like an abandoned camp and wolfed my lunch down there before starting on the steep, gravelly descent. Freeze’dried cous-cous followed by jam tarts.

At Col de Géréon I encountered a very helpful lady who advised me to take the road route instead of the GR52A as it was quicker. As I walked down, she caught me up in her car and told me of another short cut just after a junction coming up. Great stuff. I arrived in La Brigue at 5pm - good time - and asked some locals directions. I ended up chatting to them for about half an hour and they offered me a lift to Tende as they were heading that way anyway. I turned the lift down (and the offer of a beer!) and they beeped their horn when they passed me about to rejoin the GR52A at the other side of town.

The reason I keep asking directions is that these hiking paths can become a little disjointed where they pass through a town. It’s often hard to get from where you arrived to where you need to go. This was a great excuse to talk to some lovely people and I’m glad they understood my limited French, though one of them spoke pretty good English. They all seemed pretty impressed with the whole "Walk" thing as well, and they remembered that we’d once had a Frenchman play for us ("Ginola! He play for Newcastle!").

I climbed around 200m and then walked down a long, winding road into Tende where I found signs for a G&icarat;te which I followed. EURO18.6 for B&B isn’t too bad when you’re feet are aching and you’ve not slept properly in two nights. I was also lucky to get the last bed - they were full the next night.

The g&icarat;te had a wonderful view, a hostess who spoke English, hot showers and comfy beds (though they squeaked something rotten). I made use of the shower, tidied myself up and went in search of food. I felt I’d earned a decent meal and found the Pizza Fue de Bois fit the cost/meal size bracket very well indeed. Highly recommended! EURO20 including a beer for three very delicious courses indeed. I can’t believe how quickly I went through all the food, including two baskets of bread.

Back at the hostel I got through another four chapters of Harry Potter before donning earplugs (snorer in the bunk above) and plunging into sleep.

I was awake at 8am to find the inside of the tent covered in condensation. Apparently this is something that does happen, and I need to leave the vents open a bit more next time. My aim was to be in Sospel by 11:00 and I made it… just. It’s a nice town and I bought some fruit and Coke, bothered another tourist information person for directions and began the hike to Breil–sur-Roya. I intedned to catch up on my original target of getting to Tende by the end of day three. Making Saorge, the original day 2 target, would have been great but a step too far.

I got to Breil-sur-Roya just as the information office was closing, but found out where the GR52 continued before buying some grub to cook by the riverside from a nearby Spar. I walked until night started to fall and picked a fairly poor spot to camp as the ground was rather bumpy. Not to worry, my aching feet stopped me nodding off for half the night anyway.

Sounds ominous. It was. The tent hadn’t appeared even as I was packing, but we ended up being late as I had too much to do. As luck would have it, just as we were about to walk out the door, a second post appeared along with my accommodation for quite a few nights over the next two months. Thank you, Viv, for sorting and sending it! No thanks at all to La Poste for not getting it to me sooner.

Traffic was a nightmare getting to Monte Carlo, so we were even later getting there than I’d hoped. Eventually, we parked in a lot under the famous casino, I grabbed my stuff and we walked into the sunshine. This was where it would all begin.

Why Monte Carlo? Well, there are a couple of reasons, some of which only - in honesty - came to me as I was walking. Firstly it meant I could add another "country" to the list of ones I’d be going through. With some more thought, thought, other things come to mind. The kids I’m doing the walk for have very little. Some are lucky enough to have great families, but in most cases they’re involved with Blue Dragon because of poverty.

Well, look at Monte Carlo. It’s the exact opposite. Flash cars everywhere. Posh buildings. Jewellery. Bikinis costing more then most people’s wardrobes being flaunted on the beaches. Sums of money some of us will never own being frittered away in the casino each night.

The thing is, a lot of the people here managed it through hard work and luck. Sure, some inherited, but not all. It proves that if you work your backside off and luck falls your way, no matter what your start in life, you can get somewhere good. Blue Dragon give these kids that kind of start that they’d otherwise not have. And all the children I saw were prepared to work hard with what they’d been gifted to make the most of it.

Well, charity rant aside, I walked along the beach for a while with Delphine until it came time for me to start plodding by myself (after the first half mile). I strode along the coast to Menton - hard work in the sweltering heat - and popped into a tourist information place for details on where to find the start of the GR52A. It’s located round the back of the train station in case you’re interested. From there, a hard walk upwards got me to a junction where I opted to walk along an "old" GR route to Castellar as I’d stupidly run out of water and I knew I could get some there.

It took a while to find my way, but finally I arrived and downed about two litres of water before refilling my bottle and setting back off into the hills. I bypassed a farm offering camping space and made my way about another hour into the hills where I pitched tent as darkness fell. My pedometer read 7.87 miles, but in honesty I’m not sure how well I had it configured at the time. I certainly hadn’t managed to reach Sospel, my original destination for day one, but the view was great and the night drawing in.

I managed to bend one tent peg (great start), read Harry Potter, boiled some canned ravioli and went to sleep.

The tent arrived…

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.

Nervous? Yes. Panicking? Yes. Organised? Hell, no. We just checked the post this morning and the tent which Viv kindly shipped express/very fast/urgent/should be there in 2-3 days from the UK still hasn’t arrived. According to the Royal Mail tracking system it’s "in France". Which helps. Not. The post arrives here "sometime before midday" which means it’s highly unlikely to arrive before I have to set off in the morning. Therefore I have options:

1. Buy another tent - expensive as the lightest one-person one here is almost three times the cost of the one Viv’s sent
2. Borrow Delphine’s 2-person one - this weighs three times as much as the one I’m waiting for and takes up at least twice the space in my rucksack
3. Set off without one and hope it turns up and Delphine can drive it to Sospel for me… or I end up staying at (and paying for) a Gîte for the night. And possibly many more nights after that

I’m not having a go at Viv - far from it. She’s an angel and a sweetheart. But I’ve had problems with postal services all over, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the French one’s one a par with everyone else’s! And as usual, the Law of Sod comes into account as well. The worst possible item for them to delay at the worst possible time. Oh, and the NUFC shirt I’m waiting for via ParcelForce hasn’t shown up either. Grr. Regardless. Still got a million things to do, and half a day to get through them all. Including an interview for the Evening Chronicle - will someone please get me a copy once I know what issue it’ll be in? Thanks! I just got off the phone to a nice lady at TFM who’s taken a short statement for their news as well. Hopefully the interest will raise some more cash. As far as the route goes, I will definitely have to make some changes. The roads I intended to go along are potentially too dangerous, but fortunately there are some well-mapped hiking trails which follow the same general direction. I will be using the pedometer that Sheilah got for me, so I’ll be able to calculate any shortfall in mileage as it occurs and make it up later on. 1000 miles I said, and 1000 miles I’ll do! I’ve also been making full use of the hospitality of the Couchsurfing community and have accommodation sorted in a handful of places up to and including Turin and Geneva. In fact, I have more offers than I can accept in some places! Here’s hoping this will result in a few get-togethers for some people who live near each other. I’ll try and get at least one more post up here before I set off. Wish me luck. I obviously need more of it than I anticipated!

Many thanks to Graham Mack, a North East DJ who’s been in touch to grab a few words from me. I recorded a brief interview this morning for broadcast on tomorrow’s (July 31st) breakfast show on TFM, available across the Tees Valley and surrounding area. I used to be able to get it as far afield as North Yorkshire. Of course, you can also listen online as well. Graham will be calling me every couple of days for updates as well, so keep listening to the show if you want to hear - verbally - how much my feet ache as the walk progresses. Please listen to the show and ring the guy to tell him how amazing you think I am - even if you don’t! The more feedback he gets, I’m sure the more coverage I’ll get in return which - hopefully - means more cash for the Blue Dragon!

Last night I sent somewhere around 350 emails, all to people I know or who I’ve met while travelling. I also dropped messages to every local newspaper and radio station back in the North East that I could think of.

So far I’ve had some nice responses from one donation already sent, to some ideas of where else to contact. Scaryduck (not safe for those with a nervous disposition to four letter words and bowel-shaking humour) has promised me a dedicated post on his rather popular blog at the weekend. A few of you mentioned using JustGiving.com but I can’t - BDCF is registered in Vietnam, not the UK. I have already looked into that. A shame as it would make things so much easier!

For those who’ve come to the page because of the email - thanks for clicking on the link and please do tell everyone. And open your purses, wallets, savings account, jam jars full of twenties you hide from the taxman, spouses’ wallets, kids’ piggy-banks and so on. Every penny that PayPal doesn’t filch in transaction fees will go towards helping some incredibly hard-working and deserving kids.

I’m off hiking for three days as of 5pm today (French time) and won’t be back until Sunday night but please do mail if you want. I’ll get back to everyone on Sun/Mon/Tue before I kick off from Monaco on Wednesday.

OK, folks - time to ask a favour. I’m not after a freebie but some help getting hold of something for which I’ll pay in full. I’m after a Sony Mylo for the walk, which will help no ends in keeping me in touch with the masses (i.e. you lot). Thing is, Sony in its infinite wisdom has decided that this particular little toy will only be marketted in the US so I can’t buy one without going there or incurring insane import duty by purchasing mail order.

Is anyone going to the US in the very near future who can pick one up for me and bring it back? I’d need it sent to somewhere in France or Italy ASAP. Or is there anyone out there who works for the US Armed Forces and it based somewhere in Europe so they can get one sent in a diplomatic / military shipment thus avoiding the duty?

Let me know if you can help. As I said, I’ll pay you in full on delivery.

OK, here’s a weird one. I was walking through Bratislava today, as you do, when I came across some posh cars (and a Rover) with little Union Jacks flying from them. Obviously something slightly diplomatic. As I strolled past, I heard a voice say something. It was a gentleman in somewhat smarter clothing than mine commenting on my Newcastle shirt. We got talking very briefly. It turned out he’s a Member of Parliament in the UK and I am a mad Brit about to do a charity walk. And courtesy of the generosity of one Mr Brian Binley (MP for Northampton South), the fund is now 1000 Slovakian Crowns (approximately $US40) better off. I don’t know about this guy’s politics, but I can’t fault his generosity. Brian - thank you.