A fairly long walk...

Latest Posts | New Discussions | Hot Threads | Forum Topics
Help | Settings | Followed Threads
reply
1 to 20 of 30 messages
Page:
Andrew Terrill
07/05/2012 at 04:39
In May, fifteen years ago, I began a fairly long backpacking trip from the bottom of Italy to the top of Norway. I wrote about the walk for a few newspapers and magazines at the time, and had a handful of stories from the journey published in TGO, but these were all fairly general accounts, limited by the space available, that skipped a lot.

Before I forget most of the details (it's possible, I frequently forget my kid's names) I thought I'd write them down and share them in a blog, and include a great many pictures that I've never yet shared. I know it's ancient history, and likely no one is interested, but in case anyone is - what the heck - you can find the blog here:
http://northacrosseurope.wordpress.com/

If you enjoy the blog, please do share it! A blog is only worth something if it gets read...

Andrew Terrill
07/05/2012 at 05:17

http://s3.outdoorsmagic.com/members/images/17683/gallery/clodseaalps.jpg?width=350&height=228&mode=max


Montgomery Wick
07/05/2012 at 06:42
Andrew, that looks interesting, but in some parts of the world, Wordpress can be blocked. Have you thought about self publishing on a site like Smashwords? I'd happily take a punt on something like that for a quid, bung it on the Kindle. It all adds up.
scardycat
07/05/2012 at 08:13
i agree, get it on kindle, i love reading other peoples travelling stories, mainly cause i cant write eloquently and when i write these things their boring and uninteresting
Matt C
07/05/2012 at 12:52

Thanks for the link Andrew. I remember seeing your TGO accounts at the time, plus of course some of your infuriatingly spectacular photos here on OM! I'll certainly look forward to dipping in to the blog and reading more about the trip (especially bits like the Dolomites and Norway that I'm more familiar with).

And if I enjoy your account I may even forgive you your RATJOBA thread... - so, did you ever get over here and run a Trail Race?

Andrew Terrill
07/05/2012 at 19:28

Thanks for the Smashwords suggestion. I'll definitely look into that.

And thanks for your comment on Wordpress Matt; I'll try to make the story good enough to warrant forgiveness for the running thread! But really, you should be thankful for the running thread... for opening your eyes to the joy that mountain running can be!

I'm still running lots... I'm out on my Colorado hills most days... even today, with snow falling. I haven't been back to Britain in a while, not since 2008. My life choices make air fares an extravagantly expensive luxury... and then there's the carbon footprint thing.

One of these days though. My family are starting to wonder if they'll ever see me again!

I'll have another North Across Europe blog up tomorrow. I'll let you know when...

Metric Kate
07/05/2012 at 19:55

Wow, Andrew, you're alive!

I'll have a read of your blog in due course... possibly when I've finished sorting out after a camping trip to Snowdonia that included snow and rain.

Anyway, now you've finished writing up that trip, how about completing the Bennachie index?

Paddy Dillon
07/05/2012 at 20:05

It's good to be able to read someone's experience of a mega-trip like that.

Years ago I met a little Belgian fella who walked out of his house one day, and finished at Ultima Thule in Norway. Later, he left his house again and walked all the way to Finisterre. As he didn't speak much English, he wasn't able to tell me much about it, and I always thought that was a great pity.

A couple of months after meeting the guy, I met him AGAIN, in another country!

Andrew Terrill
08/05/2012 at 03:19

Of course I'm alive Kate! Just quiet because I've been slaving away on the Bennachie Index. And like I've said before, I'll have the index finished and mailed to your inbox the moment you all stop yabbering on... and on... and on... and on...

Edited: 08/05/2012 at 03:19
Andrew Terrill
08/05/2012 at 20:36

Sounds like an interesting man, Paddy. Maybe next time you run into him he'll have learnt enough English that you'll be able to hear some of his stories! I bet you do run into him again...!

As for my walk... I added a new post about loosing myself in the woods of southern Italy for two days. It wasn't the most promising start to an 18-month long adventure...

http://northacrosseurope.wordpress.com/

Just wondering, is it... erm... bad form to promote my blog on here? 

Matt C
08/05/2012 at 21:00
Bad form? I wouldn't say so. Plenty of folk do. And yours is outdoorsy, interesting, well-written and you're not selling anything!
Andrew Terrill
10/05/2012 at 18:29

Matt: thanks for the kind words. Not selling anything? Hee hee... that's what you think...

Just added a new post to the blog, anyway. About the most effective wake-up call one can have while backpacking, if one can arrange it...


A Cracking Start To The Day

rob dixon 3
11/05/2012 at 19:12
Andrew - brilliant!  I'd always enjoyed your writings in TGO - quite inspirational.  So keep it up - looking fwd to reading what the gunshots might have been.  Had a very slightly similar experience on a bike ride in Albania 3 years ago - makes you jump when you are already in a potentially dodgy area.  In this case, someone had crept up behind us while we were having lunch just off the Kukes Pass.  Two barrels were loosed off just over our heads - at a pigeon on the ground just in front of us!  Given the Foreign Office warnings about the place, land mines, bandits and all, it was a little un-nerving at the time...
Andrew Terrill
13/05/2012 at 20:11
Rob, I'm sure it was! Un-nerving sounds like an understatment...

In my case I didn't find out who it was who had fired the shots, or why they had been fired. For some reason I wasn't too keen on investigating more closely!

I enjoyed an entertaining day after that episode, and a fabulous camp that evening:

Paradise Glade
geekinthesticks
13/05/2012 at 21:40
Thanks for publishing it. Did you keep diaries at the time? In the early 1980's I kept a diary about what I was up to in the mountains. I stopped doing it about 1984, but have started again when I had children (1998 onwards). I enjoy re-reading my diaries from the 1980's, but am surprised by how much I had "forgotten" from those days and wish I had kept up with writing things down.
Andrew Terrill
14/05/2012 at 04:59
Thanks for taking a read, geekinthesticks... and thanks for the comment!

I did keep diaries... I have ten thick excercise books filled with my nightly scribblings (and with many squashed mosquitoes!) Most of it hasn't been read since it was written 15 years ago. You are right, it is amazing how much one can forget... but also how much one can remember! The funny thing is the journey was such an intense adventure it still feels like it all happened only yesterday. So much of it remains so freash. What I saw, how it smelt, above all what it felt like. It's fun undertaking the long walk all over again...
geekinthesticks
14/05/2012 at 08:56
It's all buried in the memory somewhere. Just need a trigger to bring it back to the surface. I remember reading how WH Murray found all his memories flooding back when he was a POW and started to write his books on toilet paper. The Germans found and destroyed the first version, so he had to start from scratch again.
Andrew Terrill
15/05/2012 at 06:31

I'm glad we don't have to do that! 

Here's another 'report from the trail', at the point where the walk became longer than the more typical two-week long summer trip...

15 days in... and no end in sight

Montgomery Wick
15/05/2012 at 06:44
Like I said, Wordpress is behind some firewalls. I'd like to read this. I'd humbly suggest to the OM ed that it might be more interesting than what certain sponsored individuals did (or rather, did not) do over the winter.
Andrew Terrill
15/05/2012 at 16:22

I'm sorry if you can't read the blog because of firewalls. And thanks for your kind words. Just out of interest, where are you based? The statistics that Wordpress give me show that my blog has been viewed from 35 countries so far.

Perhaps somewhere down the line, if I make more time for it, I'll approach the story of this walk in a different and more structured way. But for now it is what it is, just a simple and straightforward blog about an old walk, an easy way of sharing a few photos and memories because they may be worth sharing...

1 to 20 of 30 messages
Page:
Forum Jump  
Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Shopping

Most popular

Competitions

View all competitions
Sign up to our twitter feed

Promotions

View all promotions