Land’s End to John O’Groats

Today we made it to John O’Groats a month earlier than we originally expected. The journey has had several twists and turns and we both got to the famous sign post with mixed emotions.

It was also incredibly foggy. On the drive up this morning there had been points where we couldn’t see the car 20 metres in front of us at all despite it having lights on. It was interesting to look out over the cliffs at Duncansby Head (the actual most north-easterly point on the British mainland) and not be able to see the sea. By the time we had made our way across 12 miles or so to Dunnet Head (the most northerly point) the fog had cleared a bit so now we have some sunshine.

We met some walkers heading south (they had started from the top of Shetland and were going all the way down to the Scilly Isles. We passed on our insect repellent and water purification tablets as we thought they may be in more need of them now than we are. That was nice.

We also stopped in Wick for lunch and had some amazing cakes.

So we have done it although it wasn’t exactly how we expected. We have enjoyed lots of the experience and have learnt a lot too. We’re still trying to work out exactly what though. Hopefully we will post soon when we have collected our thoughts on the matter.

Yesterday we went to an amazing church in Inverness. It is part of the Destiny church movement and has a fairly small but incredibly passionate young congregation. We were so welcomed and challenged by the teaching and hopefully will remain in contact with some of the people there.

We have arrived in the Lochs! Hooray! And just in time for the midge season and everything…

On Sunday morning we went to Falkirk baptist church. It was really enjoyable though we were slightly surprised when one of the notices given at the start was , “now I understand there’s a couple from Bristol here, why don’t you come up and tell us what you’re up to”! So we got to talk briefly to a church which was really good as it meant people felt able to come up to us at the end and chat. It was funny, a few people seemed to be really taken with our “story” of our summer whereas we sort of feel that we’re now on a bit of a strange holiday. However, as we’ve been struggling a bit to see what the point of all this is now we’re not walking it was encouraging to hear people’s conviction that our prayers for the places we pass through are being heard.

After the church meeting we drove to Loch Long via a little peninsula that sticks out into the Firth of Clyde. Our accommodation here overlooks the loch and the mountains opposite and is absolutely beautiful. We had dinner of haggis, neeps and tatties and sat in the sun overlooking the water.

Yesterday however, we decided to stop slacking and climb some mountains. Ben Narnain is only a little mountain really, not quite a Munro at 926m, so why not take the quick route up the East face? This route was quick due to many sections being pretty much vertical and requiring you to free climb up wet rock faces with the added excitement of the occasional small rock you’re standing on crumbling as you lunge for the next handhold. But if you’re not muddy and scratched by the time you reach the top of the mountain you clearly haven’t been trying hard enough! After lunch at the top we took the “gentler” southern slope down a few hundred metres though that took an hour as “gentle” just means we occasionally had some flat things to stand on and really we were just falling down boulder fields. From there we climbed up to the top of Ben Arthur - aka “The Cobbler” - at 881m (the beautiful sunshine having given way to rain at this point) and then finally down the easier path back to the Loch. Best fun we’ve had in a long time!

Today my knees are very sore from the descent so I’m not sure what we’ll be doing in the next few days but all being well we might just give Ben Nevis a go. Only if the weather’s good though as every few months someone dies up there - we’ll get to Fort William and see I guess…

From Paul and Chloe to the church in Bristol in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (and others!): grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

From Windermere we sailed to Hadrian’s Wall, passing Aira Force waterfall on the way. In both places we had the chance to crack out the National Trust membership to smugly avoid paying. We stopped off for lunch at Greenhead before continuing on to view the fort of the Roman army at Housesteads. We spent the night at Alston a small and strange town on the Borders. It was friendly enough to start with but it had a strange ghost like feel to it. There was a sign on the church saying there was no vicar currently but the church bells rang to a largely empty town at random times of the day. We were eating tea in the pub we were staying in when we noticed in a glass fronted cabinet there was a skull with horns and a black hood with lots if other strange figures around it. All the more strange as Paul had looked at the tank earlier and not noticed anything odd. Add to this the shop next door selling ouija boards and spell books and we weren’t sorry to leave…

We spent the following day with out dear big sister Naomi B in Durham, playing on swings and eating too much cake. From there we spent two days in Bellingham where we went for a walk round Kielder Water so Paul could get bitten by midges then took a wrong turning and nearly ended up in Scotland. Noticing there was a gap of a few metres between the Scottish and English Borders we hastily claimed it for the Banks clan as an independent republic before going to visit Cragside.

Cragside is a big rambling house built by a guy who just wanted to build a big house. He created the worlds biggest rock garden and a pine forest around it, converted it into the world’s first house powers by hydroelectricity and invented lots if cool stuff like a way for turning a spit using rainwater and a prototype dishwasher. It was amazing (God bless the National Trust)! We’re thinking of buying it.

Today we looked at big things: big castle, big crane, two big stages with big speakers, big extinct volcano (which we climbed), a big view from the volcano, two big bridges (over the Firth of Forth) and a big boat lifting wheel. So Paul’s happy.

In amongst all these things we have been praying for things and reading Thessalonians. Tomorrow we are going to join Falkirk Baptist Church in the morning as they were the ones who sent he prayer points for Falkirk then head off to the lochs.

We always thank God for all of you and mention you when we pray. Though we have been separated from you but a short time we want very much to see you. Brothers and sisters pray for us. Give each other a holy kiss when you meet. We, Paul and Chloe, type this in our own typing. This is the way we type. The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

PS. If anyone can explain Thessalonians 2:2 to us we would be greatful!

I feel like we should come clean… We’ve joined the National Trust. There are many good and practical reasons for us doing so but that doesn’t stop the fact that we have just aged thirty years and will now be recieving magazines advertising pottery displays and the sale of bird feeders.

Anyway, apart from being middle-aged what have we been doing since we last had an Internet connection? Well if you have some minutes to spare I’ll tell you…

After we left Knighton we went to Oswestry. The trouble was that whatever illness it was that we’d both had it had completely knocked us out. We spent the whole time in this town really tired and unable even to walk for half an hour without getting breathless and really tired. However, we managed to visit the church and pray for the kids about to get confirmed, visit Chirk Castle and have a chat with people from The Haven - a Christian group from many different churches who offer healing prayer to members of the public and have seen many people both healed and saved -so it wasn’t a completely wasted couple of days.

From Oswestry we moved on to Glossop. On the way we thought we’d try and do some walking of some sort so we did a little mile and a half circular walk along the Macclesfield Canal from Bollington but even this wasn’t easy. We just no longer recognised the people who had walked 250 miles carrying heavy packs…

A member of a church in a tiny village called Pott Shrigley had asked us to pray for them so we stopped off their before reaching Glossop. We only had a few minutes to enjoy arriving before we had to set off back to Congleton to pick up a bundle if maps at had left with friends there. This took most if the evening as we were suddenly diverted through Macclesfield due to road closure and then the diversion itself was diverted! We got there though and would really like to thank Dave and Helen for the maps and so much more.

The rest of our time in Glossop was really great. Although we’re both still coughing, we did finally begin to feel better and we were staying in the best place we’ve stayed so far (thanks Lynda). It had a really beautiful garden and we took a trip down to visit the Ladybower resevoir which is just one amazing part of the Peak District - a place we’re now both totally in love with!

We left our little Glossop paradise yesterday morning and drove to Hebden Bridge to pray through the things we had been asked to pray for by a church there before heading on to Malham. We’d really like to have spent more time in the Yorkshire Dales as they were very pretty (enough to put us in a mood for joining certain well known organizations while we were there) but we had to get to Winderemere by seven o’clock. The roads through the dales where somewhat exhilirating - narrow and winding with drops so steep the road disappeared from in front of you - but we arrived in one piece (or two pieces I suppose).

This morning we had the great pleasure of joining the local Methodist church for some worship and enjoyed it very much. Interestingly enough we’ve been thinking a lot about planting seeds of God’s word where we go and that was the topic if this morning’s sermon - all the more of a “coincidence” as we had tried to go to a different church today but couldn’t find it. Perhaps God is trying to tell us something!

So that’s our journey so far. We’re leaving a card with some words of scripture behind us wherever we go and, while we’re sure much will be falling on stony ground, please join us in praying that some of it will be fruitful. We’re off to see whether we can hack walking more than a mile without coughing our lungs up this afternoon and all being well we will perhaps be able to start doing some proper walking and running soon.

We’ll update again when we can. Thanks for all your comments and prayers.

Having spent 3 days in Bristol, mostly on the phone cancelling and making new accomodation bookings, we left on Sunday morning for Knighton to meet Chloe’s parents. While in Bristol, I had a bit of a cold. Chloe managed to catch it and was feeling generally a bit blocked up yesterday on our way here.

Unfortunately she hasn’t felt better today, in fact she has had a really high heart rate and been very shaky today. It was worrying enough that we went and saw a doctor this morning who agreed that her heart rate was high but since her temperature and blood pressure were normal couldn’t say much else. She has been in bed since and is now sleeping. Hopefully she will feel much better tomorrow and ready to continue our journey.

We really feel like this is more than physical though and are aware that there seems to be considerable spiritual opposition to our journey. Please pray for rest, healing and protection for us so that we can continue. We are determined to continue praying and praising God for the towns we will pass through whatever may try to stop us.

Thank you so much for all your messages of support, they really are a great encouragement to us.

If the state of our plans is not common knowledge amongst our close friends and the wider church, please feel free to make it so! Obviously there are a large number of people who knew we were walking who won’t read this blog. I have visions of us getting back in august and having to tell lots of people the whole story to explain why we are back so soon!

Well we’re home again. We’ve been delaying writing this post for a day or so until we decided what was to be done but here it is…

My foot is no better. In fact it’s worse. The rest days did nothing. It’s hurt now for 150 miles and it can’t take any more abuse. We got to Chepstow on Tuesday after 20.7 mostly painful miles and made the decision to take the following day off to think about things alone. We were looked after magnificantly by Roger and Jenny Taylor and for that we are extremely grateful. Our decision, however, was to come home for a few days to sort things out and ultimately to stop the walk. It may sound like a bit of a rushed decision but it is one that we’ve really agonised over.

The problem is that this is no new injury really. It’s an old enemy of mine from my days on the running track. I had an operation on that ankle two years ago which seemed to improve things slightly but although I hung up my running spikes it’s come back to haunt me. It’s been caused by the impact of carrying weight over so many miles so many days. With a few days rest and without a pack I’m pretty sure I could return to doing shorter walks easily but no amount of rest is going to make my foot properly able to cope with the strain (I know, last time I hurt this part of my foot it took well over 3 months before I could run without pain) and it would take us far too long to get to John O’Groats on 10 miles a day. We also don’t want to carry on pretending we’re doing what we set out to do and actually just cheat every other day. We’re obviously both pretty disappointed, it’s been a dream of mine for a long time, we’ve spent all our final year of uni wading through mud in an effort to get fit and the whole thing’s been two years in the planning. Most of all however, we regret the choice we faced because of the support we have had from so many other people. A lot of people, including readers of this blog, have put time, money and love into this enterprise and we only walked 250 miles. That might be seen as a reasonably long walk but it wasn’t what we set out to do and what we told you all we were doing and so for that we apologise.

However, we are not going to just forget it all happened. There were two other elements to this walk and my foot needn’t get in the way of them… Firstly we were raising money for Christian Aid. We have put a lot of our own money into this walk but we have had one or two very generous sponsors who have given us money specifically to fund the accommodation and food costs etc. Any money that either we have been given or we have saved ourselves to fund this walk we will donate to Christian Aid when we get back from John O’Groats…

…yes that’s right. we’re still going to John O’Groats. Like I said, we don’t want to pretend that we’re doing what we set out to do or that we’re changing our plans and that it doesn’t matter, which is why we’re declaring the end of the LEJOG challenge now. We don’t want your support under our false pretences! We are still going to get up to JO’G, we’re just not walking. Our plan is to leave Bristol again this weekend in a car we will then spend the rest of this month driving a certain distance and then stopping somewhere for a few days. We will spend those days taking shorter walks around the area praying for it as we go. You see, before we went to Land’s End I contacted churches up and down the country asking them what their area needed prayer for and so we have a list of prayer points for areas all the way from Cornwall to the HIghlands of Scotland and we WILL go and pray for these places and my foot is not going to stop us. We hope that over the next three weeks we will be able to put in quite a few more miles, they’ll just have to be in shorter bursts, and that maybe we’ll get around the 350 mile mark altogether with the 250 miles we’ve just walked.

So there you are. Hopefully this way Christian Aid will get just as much (perhaps even more!) money from the whole debacle and we will get to do some of what we intended to do even if it doens’t look quite the same as when we set out. We’d like to thank all of you for all the support and if you wish to keep praying for our safety please do. We’d also really like to spend some time praying for other people so if you have any requests let us know and we’ll find somewhere pretty and pray for you! We’ll kep this blog updated but don’t expect any of you to feel obliged to read it any more!

God bless you.