I have retired and embarked on the next chapter of my life, with plenty of time to enjoy many activities that I have previously been too busy to do. I have always enjoyed being out doors and revelled in active holidays, even as a teenager.
I was preparing to taper my work and I started to plan for retirement in a more active way in early 2020. However, in common with the entire World, my big plans were shaken up radically by the even bigger plans of the microscopic Corona virus which resulted in the Covid19 pandemic.
I had already completed several long distance treks in UK including The South West Coast Path, Wainwright’s Coast to Coast, Glyndwr’s Way, South Down’s Way, my own version of The Hebridean Way and the Cape Wrath Trail. I had also walked from Lizard to Dunnet Head via Lands End to John O’Groats (LEJoG). This was a 1395 mile walk during which I tried to keep on footpaths and off-road as much as possible. It included the entire Pennine Way and West Highland Way as well as almost all the Cotswold Way and large parts of the Great Glen Way and St Cuthbert’s Way.
Further afield I had completed both the Walker’s Haute in France and Switzerland and the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland.
With the exception of the South West Coast Path where I kept a diary and wrote a book https://www.lulu.com/shop/kathryn-hough/keep-the-sea-on-the-right-walking-the-south-west-coast-path-in-winter/ebook/product-1mw6dwnr.html?page=1&pageSize=4 there was little record of these expeditions. I had numerous photos and some notebooks detailing my LEJoG., but I hadn’t looked at them for a long while and assumed they wouldn’t be legible enough to understand so many years after the event.
I was keen to write about my adventures both for personal satisfaction and to share with others who may learn from my experiences.
I decided to start developing a blog page. Unfortunately the first Covid lockdown was announced within a couple of weeks of my initial blog publication. Of course that meant that any travel plans were halted as the rule was to “Stay at Home”. It also meant that there was no incentive to taper work – in fact as a health professional, my services were more in demand than ever. However I was excited about my blog and keen to write some posts. Amazingly when I perused my LEJoG notes and photos I realised that I had plenty of material to develop. The opportunity to relive the experiences of my 2013 journey as I edited my notes to form blog pages turned out to be extremely therapeutic for me during the uncertain times in the early weeks of the pandemic.
As the restrictions lifted, I was able to complete some real-life walking and adventuring, initially close to home and then further afield. I started exploring Dartmoor, completing the Dartmoor Perambulation and then embarking on tor bagging as an ongoing project.
I developed and started a further long term challenge to have an adventure based on each of the 1:50 000 Ordnance Survey map sheets (204 adventures). I even managed a journey across Switzerland, which had been planned and booked in 2019 – there was just a small window when travel was permitted and my start date fortuitously fell within the time.
During 2021, following the beginning of the vaccination roll out, I did begin to taper my work. This resulted in an amazing summer of adventures, with Scotland featuring heavily in my programme and my 204 adventures project coming along in leaps and bounds. I retired in September 2021 and continued to visit various parts of UK.
Unfortunately a broken ankle sustained in The Outer Hebrides in May 2022 curtailed my activities. However my plans provided motivation for recovery and I have started a further project walking the Scandinavian part of the E1 route in sections. As of the end of 2024 I have completed the route through Denmark and have started walking the Swedish section from south to north.
Where's Kathryn? 