Day 5 Porthtowan - St Agnes

A bracing, shorter day as we wanted to make camp before it was getting dark. Still superb coastline.
Barney getting lots of treats!
The response we've had over the last few days has been outstanding - thanks to those who have donated both en route and online. Also to all who we have met and chatted - it helps us on our way!

Day 4 Gwithian - Porthtowan

Sunny morning and a wet end. Friends who go out with Jos & Barney will recognise the painting pics messy hands & Barney resting!
Late in to campsite after making a mistake with the route!

Day 3 St Ives - Gwithian

Still windy!
A morning in St Ives including the Barbara Hepworth Museum and a surprise encounter with another flat coat!
Then more ups and downs as we made our way around to Hayle, just getting to Asda before they shut at 4!
Dramatic walk along the beach to Gwivian - vsry similar to our Northumberland coast and another excellant camp site and pub. The wind has finally subsided - rain tomorrow...

Day 2 Pendeen -St Ives

Pendeen -St Ives. An initially wet and finally very windy day.
Path rugged with many ups and downs, the gps recording 6400ft of ascent. This is always an over estimate but still probably 5000ft plus. Between showers Jos still found time to paint! After the mistake of taking a 'short cut' on the last headland we arrived at the campsite as the wind was increasing. A number of tents didn*t survive the night!

Day 1 Land's End - Pendeen

Great to be seen off by kaye and her guide dog jackie who barney got on very well with.! Off into the mizzle for our first day on the cornish coast. Lots of mine shafts and chimneys , just like home .good to camp next to pub The North Inn at Pendeen.!

Dog tired

11 hours on trains was quite enough! Barney was the topic of many conversations & 1 unfortunate man even missed the station he was supposed to get off at!
Another conversation resulted in a 10 pound donation!

On the way

On the train south -pic was taken at Haydon Bridge and it was snowing as we left!

Bothy Story

An old friend turned up yesterday on his way north - Robin stopped off for the night and is helping us out on the trip by taking one of our parcels and then bringing it to us just before we start the Pennine Way. Thanks Robin!
A story here about the M.B.A. (Mountain Bothies Association) which both Robin & I are members...
We had not been in contact for many years (approaching 30 I think!) when Robin spotted an entry in the logbook of a bothy near Blair Atholl. We had used the bothy just the night before and Robin, recognising our name was able to get in touch (I think via Jos's website).
Looking forward to using bothies again when we get into 'bothy' country!

Walk Start

For anybody who is around, we're planning on being at Land's End 9:38am on 27th March (Friday). The plan is to be on the no. 1 8:45 bus from Penzance (we're camping in Penzance overnight having travelled down by train from Northumberland).
Might see you there!

Eclipse

Here's a picture of our 'Camera Obscura' which I constructed as the eclipse started. We got occasional images as the cloud went and came.
As I'm sure many people experienced, the birds went quiet and inside the house was dark.
I think Barney wondered what all the fuss was about and eventually went out into the garden to get on with his bone!

A night in the pub

Normally, Barney would be found asleep under one of the tables when the Thursday eveing Crown session is taking place, this time though he was enjoying all the attention!
Many thanks to those who came and donated, we collected over £70 and another £40 appeared online.
It's our last Thursday night in the Crown for a while so see you all when we get back!

Pub Night

Tonight's the night!

We're holding a 'See Barney off' do at the Crown in Catton, our local pub tonight - everbody's welcome and Barney will be showing off his 'Dogs Unite' bib and other sundries.
We'll also have a map on display to show our proposed route.
The pub does a good range of food if you fancy a meal and Andy always has a selection of beers to choose from including our local award winning Allendale Brewery range.
It's our usual Thursday night folk music session which normally kicks off about 9 so you can expect entertainment as well! Barney is a regular to this and normally curls up and falls asleep under one of the tables! Tonight we'll have to try and keep him awake!
Hope to see you!

Geocaching!

Out Geocaching on Sunday with our friends John & Penny from near Sterling who have been staying with us for the weekend.
Barney thinks geocaching is like being with Jos on a painting trip - we go for a walk, do something strange & then have a sandwich before moving on to the next place!
John and Penny are keen geocachers and guided us to this lovely spot at Jerry's Linn in the Kielder forest.

p.s. If you don't already know, geocaching is an outdoor recreation where you search for hidden 'geocaches' using a GPS and your own search skills. It's great fun and can become addictive! I don't think we'll be doing it on the long walk!

Another hiccup

Organising something of this nature doesn't always run smoothly (at least it doesn't for us!) and we had another potential 'gotch-ya' yesterday when we lost our prospective house sitter due to a communications misunderstanding.
As you may imagine, finding somebody to live in your house for 3 months starting in under 2 weeks could potentially be a problem! We did have a contingency plan partially sorted - friends would take on the basic tasks of looking after 2 cats & 4 hens. This however meant the house being unoccupied for long periods of time - not ideal.
Jos however, set to and soon had names of potential occupants. Within a few hours we had this problem resolved with a local couple moving in when we leave, quite happy to have the space which our house offers.
The 2013 pic. above of the view from Catton Beacon up the hill from our house has nothing really to do with the trip other than that it was snowing here this morning - are we really away camping for 3 months starting in under 2 weeks!?

Artist's load

Here's another topic which will, hopefully, re-appear from time to time through the walk that is nothing to do with Barney other than he gets a welcome break - sketches & paintings created as we go.
As I think I have mentioned before (at least I think I did - if I didn't, put it down to my memory playing tricks due to my age!), Jos is a landscape artist and looking forward to producing work along the way. This however, brings its own problems - that of weight & logistics...
Painting can be a heavy business - I have seen her take a whole (heavy) rucksack out just for a days painting in the wilds.
For this trip, she is limiting the materials to pre-cut sheets of paper packaged in sets along with a backing card and water colours. These are shortly to be posted off and hopefully ready for collection en route. With an estimated 3 per day average this has meant cutting up and sorting over 300 pieces from a variety of different paper types. The image above shows the process of cutting & sorting the paper.
If all goes well, the result will be a very different record of the trip.
To see Jos's work, visit www.josmahon.com

The last Munro

I mentioned Munros in the last post - for those of you who don't know, Munros are Mountains of Scotland with a height of 3000ft or more.
Barney has been to the top of about 220 of the 282 total which we compleated (the spelling is correct!) in 2012. This pic. shows Barney viewing what was to be our last outstanding Munro (An Stuc, near Ben Lawers) in October 2012.
We started properly logging our Munros in 2000 so it only took 12 years to get the lot!
Barney joined us in November 2008 and did his first Munros in April the following year. They were almost his last - it was on the top of one that we found out he has a love of rolling in snow (see earlier Happy Dog post) and rushed off to roll on the cornice near the summit! (a cornice is the overhanging build up of snow on a  mountain ridge or summit which often hides a big drop!)
The following picture isn't him rolling on the cornice - we were too busy dragging him back from the abyss to worry about taking pictures!

Crufts 2015 Gundog Section Winner

2015 Crufts Gundog Group Winner!

Almost certainly related to Barney (as Barney is from the flatcoat rescue centre we don't know his pedigree). But has it done over 200 Munros like Barney??

Gas

Fuel for cooking is always a problem on long backpacking expeditions (not for Barney - he always has cold food and drink!)...

• What type of stove / fuel?
• How much fuel to carry?
• Where to get fuel?

For this trip we are taking a Koro gas stove from Alpkit -  a lightweight (titanium), stable, remote canister stove made by a major manufacturer.
Slightly heavier than our previous top mounting stove, it gives us more flexibility with a larger burner to better spread the heat.

 Gas canisters however, do weigh something - about 600gm for the large size shown above. We'll have to carry a number of these on the more remote sections of the walk, so we were pleased to get confirmation of supply from a couple of shops in Scotland today - Out and About in Peebles and Killin Outdoor Centre and Mountain Shop. Just hope they aren't sold out when we arrive!

Happy dog!

What Barney enjoys best! Any sloping patch of snow and given the chance, he's off !

We've just had the results form Barney's operation last week and they confirm he had a benign tumour so OK to proceed with the long walk!
Now we can get back to getting ready having been unsure of whether we were going for the last 10 days.