The wonders of walking (plus a shameless plug for sponsorship)

Once upon a time, before the children, and back when I thought I was fat but had no idea of what was yet to come, Lee and I decided to walk the Cotswold Way. We both liked walking and would think nothing of walking eight miles on a Sunday afternoon, so a walking holiday seemed like a good idea. Neither of us saw the point in staying in one place and going for a different circular walk each day - we wanted a walk with a purpose, with a starting point and a separate destination. We opted for the Cotswold Way, a 100-mile walk between Chipping Camden and Bath, partly because we were under the (total) misapprehension that it was fairly flat (it isn't). (On the subject of misapprehensions, I was also under the mistaken impression that desert boots are the same thing as walking boots. They're not.)

As you may have guessed, I'm not a fan of hills. Another thing I don't like is carrying stuff. I'll carry all the essentials, of course - phone, tissues, inhaler, etc. - but if I can sneak the lunch and the water bottles into Lee's rucksack, I'll do it. Hats off to all these 'proper' outdoors types, who carry their tents, sleeping bags and worldly goods on their backs - simply carrying spare clothes and overnight stuff is too much for me. To be fair, we were planning to do the walk over six days, so that's an awful lot of changes of clothes. We hit on the perfect solution when we discovered the company Sherpa Van, who transport all your bags for you. You can opt for the simple baggage service, where they pick your bags up from each of your stops and transport them to your next place of rest, or you can go for the advanced service, where they also arrange all your accommodation, according to the route and the stops that you have chosen. Not the cheapest way to walk a long-distance trail, but certainly one of the most pleasant.

So, bags packed with comfy clothes, trainers, desert boots (yes, I know...!) and wash stuff, we drove to Chipping Camden, having arranged to leave our car there for the duration of the walk and with the plan of getting the train back from Bath at the end. Our B&B, as I remember it, was very pleasant. It was one of the more traditional ones, like a small hotel, unlike many of the other places we stayed at. Several of the B&Bs were basically a room in someone's house, which felt rather strange, and the frequent lack of en-suites was not particularly accommodating to our desperate need for a shower after a long day's walking. Still, we did pick the cheap accommodation option! On the plus side, the personal touch came in handy on more than one occasion, with one B&B owner picking us up from and driving us to the appropriate point on the trail, and another driving us to a restaurant for dinner. The surprise factor in terms of where we were going to end up certainly added a certain je ne sais quoi to our walks!

Our first walk was around 20 miles, by far the longest distance either of us had ever walked. On the plus side, it was dry and sunny. On the negative side, it was hot and sunny - and I'd forgotten to put sun tan lotion on. It was also very hilly (my favourite), which meant that 20 miles felt more like 30 (I'd imagine). Walking 20 miles up and down hills in the blistering heat was every bit as exhausting as you'd imagine. To make it worse, I'd worn trainers and my poor weak ankles and flat feet did not cope very well. The final straw was arriving at our B&B, only to find that our room was upstairs - never has a flight of stairs felt so much like a mountain.

The next day I resolved to give up on the trainers and wear my desert boots. By the end of the day, my ankles felt much better than they had previously, but my feet were killing me and the first of many blisters had formed. The rest of the Cotswold Way carried on in much the same vein as far as blisters and sore feet were concerned. The weather varied, from boiling hot on the first day to torrential rain (when, I'll shamefacedly confess, we ended up getting a bus for some of the walk, as we were soaked to the skin!) on another. One of the hardest parts was always the walk from our B&B back out to dinner in the evening, after our muscles had stiffened up. The blisters multiplied and grew to sizes never seen before (by me anyway). We didn't really stop for lunch, as we knew it would be difficult to start moving again, and we were fairly oblivious to our surroundings, focused as we were on not getting to our next destination too late. Our nicest day was a short walk of around ten miles, when we got to our destination at around lunchtime and had time to look around and relax. The worst day was the last one, when we saw the city of Bath ahead of us. I think my body did that giving-up thing, as I thought we were nearly there - unfortunately, we still had around five miles to go, and it was like that dream when you're walking towards something but never get there. By the time we reached our hotel in Bath, my feet were in agony and I was literally in tears.

Still, we made it. And, apart from our short bus trip (which I pretend to myself never happened), we felt like we'd really achieved something and were pretty proud of ourselves. We kind of enjoyed it and said we'd do a walking holiday again, but shorter distances this time, so that we could actually enjoy it instead of feeling like we were on a mission.

So why, over ten years later, and having walked no more than seven miles in one go since, have I signed up to walk a marathon? Yes, on May 16th, two friends and I will be walking 26.2 miles across London in the middle of the night, in our bras. We haven't gone entirely mad - this is how the London Moonwalk works. It seemed like a good idea. In an attempt to get fitter (and thinner), I had started doing some short walks around my village, so when someone suggested the Moonwalk, I thought it would be a good challenge, and easier than the Race for Life. After all, I liked walking and had walked 20 miles in a day before - how hard could it be?! Well, I seriously underestimated what a difference the last ten or so years have made to my fitness levels, as walking is nowhere near as easy as it used to be. Still, with regular training, I'm starting to see a real difference. The walks are feeling easier, the weight is steadily falling off and my resting heart rate has gone down dramatically. I've opted for proper walking boots this time, although they sadly haven't stopped the blisters completely. This week we completed our first half-marathon - hopefully, by the time May comes around, we'll be able to complete the full 26.2 miles and keep up a reasonable pace too (while I say I have no time-goal and my only aim is to complete it, I still don't want to be last...!). If you're feeling inspired and would like to help the amazing breast cancer charity Walk the Walk, which funds both treatment and support now and research for the future, you can sponsor my team, the BBs, here. All sponsorship is greatly appreciated!

 

Emu Walk Apartments, Ayer's Rock Resort - Australia Part 2

Here's the second in my long-overdue series of reviews of where we stayed in Oz. To put this into context, in the red centre of Australia is a massive rock known as Uluru by the aboriginal people (and still called Ayer's Rock by many of us), as everybody knows.

What fewer people know (and I didn't) is that near Uluru (relatively speaking) is a group of strangely-shaped rocks called Kata Tjuta (or the Olgas).

These are in the middle of a national park, which is basically hours away from any town. However, there is an airport and there is a small 'town' nearby called Yulara, which basically consists of Ayer's Rock Resort. The resort is made up of several accommodation options plus restaurants, supermarket, etc. Unless you undertake an unbearably long day-trip from Alice Springs, staying here is basically your only option - hence the astronomically high prices, unfortunately. We stayed in the Emu Walk Apartments, which were a good option for travelling with children - we always prefer staying in apartments, as it gives us somewhere to sit (other than the bathroom!) once the children are in bed. I understand they're currently in the process of refurbishing the apartments, so my video may soon be out of date, but hopefully it'll give you an idea of what they're like. Anyway, cut-and-paste Trip Advisor review coming up:

We stayed here last August, so I can't remember as much as I'd like to, but I'll do my best! We had a one-bedroom apartment, which was fine for our family of four. We found where to check-in with no problems (perhaps because we'd been reading the reviews here!) and found our apartment okay. It was on the second floor and consisted of an open-plan kitchen, dining area and lounge (with sofa bed), a double bedroom and a bathroom leading off the bathroom. The kitchen wasn't massively well-equipped, but we weren't planning on doing much cooking! It did have washing-up equipment, tea and coffee sachets, milk, etc. The dining table and chairs seated us easily and the lounge area was comfy. There was a TV, although it didn't get much use! The apartment was fairly spacious (to a Brit, at least!) and didn't feel crowded. The only downside was the bathroom being off the bedroom meant that the children had to come through our room to use the toilet. Staff on reception were very friendly, the supermarket was well-stocked and we had a nice takeaway from the amusingly-named Ayer's Wok. The only less-than-pleasant experience was dinner in Gecko's, where we found staff unfriendly and were basically ignored - maybe we were just unlucky. We would recommend hiring a car from the airport and making your own way to Uluru and Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). Although you can get a free transfer to the resort, the hire car enables you to get there ahead of everyone else and avoid the crush. You can also pay for a permit for Uluru National Park, which allows you to drive to and around all the sights, with various parking, walking and viewing opportunities. There is a free ranger tour around Uluru every morning to give you some first-hand information, and the park was very easy to navigate. We preferred seeing what we wanted at our own pace (particularly with children), and it was an awful lot cheaper than the official tours. Parking at the resort was always easy to find - although not necessarily that close to the apartment. The price for the apartments, of course, is pretty extortionate, as the resort has a monopoly on accommodation. However, I would say these apartments are the best price relatively speaking, and they are a good option if you are travelling with children. I just wish we'd stayed more than two nights and been able to see a bit more of the resort!

If you'd like a little tour of our apartment, you can watch the YouTube video below. You can also visit my YouTube channel (Holiday Obsessive) for more holiday videos (with more to come soon).