At King’s Cross Station – (no wizards to be seen)
Louisa and I arrived in the UK last Thursday morning and have spent the last four days with Louisa’s parents at their home in Barnack, a small village in Lincolnshire. Although suffering from some jet-lag we have managed to keep busy and have spent a day in Norwich, visiting our daughter Isabelle who is studying at the University of East Anglia for six months and we also managed to fit in a trip to visit Woolsthorpe Manor House, the birthplace and family home of Sir Isaac Newton.
The house is a wonderfully preserved 17th century manor farmhouse run by the National Trust. It has fantastic and informative displays about Newton and his life. While living in this house, Newton performed many of his experiments on the nature of light and began to formulate his theory of gravity after watching an apple drop from a tree. The orchard beside the house contains the original tree which despite being blown down in a storm in the 1800s, resprouted from the trunk and though gnarled, twisted and aged is still alive and about to blossom again after winter. (The orchard also contains several clones of the tree of various ages and sizes). We had a great time exploring the house and gardens accompanied by the requisite lunch at the cafe.
Woolsthorpe Manor House – birthplace of Sir Isac Newton
The Apple Tree
Everyone was Lou height in the 17th century
The rest of the time since we arrived, we have spent doing last minute gear sorting and preparing for the big day on Tuesday. The weather has been the typical UK spring mix of cold grey days interspersed with some beautiful sunny warm periods. SInce leaving the UK five years ago we have certainly become accustomed to the warmer weather of Australia and have tried to speedily acclimatise over the past few days.
We travelled to London today to stay overnight before catching a 06:30am train to Penzance and then to Land’s End for the start of the walk tomorrow. We feel a little daunted by the undertaking (particularly the first few days of high mileage on the hilly South West Coastal Path), but also have that thrill of anticipation and expectation that occurs before a big event.
Lou in London
London turned on its best performance for us with beautiful sunny weather highlighting the amazing city it has become. We took the opportunity to make the most of it and walked the 4km from St Pancras to Paddington down the Euston and Marylebone Roads. I also took a ride on the Elizabeth line, the newest tube line, which is an awe inspiring feat of architecture, engineering and design.
We lived in London in the late 90’s/early 2000s at which time many parts of London were quite grubby with poor infrastructure and public transport that never worked that well. London today seems a world away from those memories with its gleaming new tube stations and modern developments.
I wonder though, if something is being lost. The Paddington Basin, where we are staying, is a modern development based on Regent’s Canal in Paddington, a quirky area I remember from when I used to work at St Marys Hospital. Now it is full of towering apartment complexes, restaurants, bars and beautifully landscaped public area. Despite this it seems a little soulless, lacking in charm and interest, identical to any other modern city around the world.
We wondered a few hundred metes out of the Paddington Basin area towards Church St and we instantly found ourselves back in the old London of ancient churches surrounded by a mix of grand houses, run-down Victorian terraces all interspersed with modern council developments. We found a street market, old pubs, and caught glimpses down twisting streets. Maybe the modern developments are needed to counterpoint the old?
Nigel’s Gear
We returned to the luxury of the Paddington Premier Inn and following dinner at Pizza Express (an old favourite restaurant chain of ours from when our girls were young), we performed the rite of final gear pack and assessment of weight. As always, we probably have too much stuff, but it has been difficult to anticipate the cold weather and the clothing requirement when we have not been living in the UK.
We are not crazy acolytes of the ultralight cult, but clearly the less weight we carry, the easier the walk will be. Ease of walk however must always be balanced with comfort and enjoyment in my mind. I don’t fancy spending 75 days cold and wet.
Overall, however, I think we are happy with pack weight. We always have the option of posting some gear back home to Louisa’s parents, or jettisoning gear when we meet them on day 30 if we think at that stage we are carrying too much.
So with packs ready to go, all that is left is to finally set off tomorrow and begin our journey following the long winding path from Land’s End to John o’Groats.
Note – Ancient pilgrims often carried a symbol or badge of their pilgrimage. I found these great LEJOG patches which we have decided to carry as a symbol of our journey and our intent. We hope they will stimulate conversation with people we meet on the way. When we (hopefully) finish, we will keep them as badges of completion.
2 Responses
Great stuff and very much enjoyed the caption of Louisa in the doorway. Funny to think that there was a time many hundreds of years ago when Louisa would have been seen as tall for a woman. Ah well – that’s evolution for you.
Enjoy day one of the walk and don’t fall down any tin mines!
This primitive woman thanks you Marcus 🙂