Well boys and girls, I have been on and off homeless for the past 2 years and Newcastle has become quite a depressing place for me lately and so I've decided to move away, even if it is just street sleeping somewhere else. My choice of desitination is 300miles south in county of Kent. Being homeless I'm sure you can imagine that I dont have any money to my name inparticularly, infact I haven't even got a penny to my name.
So my journey is going to be on foot, yes 300miles on foot, oh lord!
Day 1
My aim was Newcastle to Middlesborough 38.4miles
Thankfully, I managed to get the metro train to Sunderland which saved 10miles straight away, bonus!
My NEW aim Sunderand to Middlesborough 28.8miles
It was a simple start, around 9.30am, I got off the metro and proceeded south to a small towny, village type of place called Ryhope, I cut through Ryhope like my map directions indicated me to do, then I was brought to a pretty major road and I coulnd't really see a pathway to walk along it. 2 miles into my jounrey and I'm stumped already? great!
Thankfully I noticed in the distance a small sign that shows the cycling routes, I got a little closer and looked it had a bike symbol and the number 1. Right I totally understand....Ok I didn't understand at all, all I knew was it pointed south'ish so I started to walk along it.
All seemed good, I walked about 2 hours then came to this fork in the pathway, with no indication of what went where. A quick game of "eeny meeny miny moe" later I choose to go left. Within the next 2 miles a futher 3 more forks appeared great! After using my playground deciding methods to get carry on my journey I just kept my head down and walked and walked, wow did it get boring.
Around 5pm, I came across this frial old man, just shuffling along with his walking stick. The shuffling speed he was going at was the sort speed, that he'd have to leave for the conrner shop on a Monday to get Wednesdays paper on time. Anyway, I spent about 5 mins talking to him and I was on my way, I felt for him though, he was about 3 miles from anywhere I had come across, but he seemed to know the inner workings or all the paths in the local area so he must know what hes doing surely?
Got to 8 pm and I finally came across a sign for somewhere, "Thorpe Thewles 3, Stockton 6" 3miles argh! so far, by this time, I'm sure you can imagine after walking all day carrying around 30-40kilos I was shattered. I walked and walked and walked and came across this abandoned train station in the middle of no where, sign posted Thorpe Thewles, this cant be what was on the sign 3miles ago surely? I had a walk around it, but it was too spooky to be honest. I was half expecting Scooby Doo and the gang to appear to solve a mystery. It was around 9pm now, and I was going at a pace, matched by my shuffling friend earlier on in the day, but finally I came across the real Thrope Thewles. I crossed over the main bypass and entered this quaint little village hoping to just find somewhere quiet to rest my head. Instead I was met my gorping locals at the pub staring through the windows at me, as I walked past. I came to another pub, where they seemed to be standing looking out already for me?, were these to pubs communicating with eachother? honestly, it felt like the sort of village depicted in the film 'Hot Fuzz' All the villagers, know eachothers business and saw me as an outsider, possibly fresh meat. Needless to say I didn't hang about, my shuffling soon perked up and I left Thorpe Thewles. I found the continuing path for Stockton (still 3 miles away!) and began to walk along it, best I could.
I came across these 3 wells that had been filled with concrete, so placed my bags down, remembered how my shoulders felt once again and layed down for abit just staring at the stars, and drifted off for a bit. zzzzz
2am comes round, and I thought to myself I need to get to Stockton!. I plodded on best I could, but was some halted by the worst fork in the pathway yet. to my right was just a dark, straight pathway with a dim orange light at the end, and to my left was a brightly lit area with street lamps and the faint outline of the tesco's sign too. Left it is then!. I had to scrape and squeeze between this huge hedgerow and the fence to this power station type of place, I even came face to face with a badger, life doesn't prepare you for such encounters, what do you do? well the moment it started growling like a ravenous rottweiler, a made myself 'big' and screamed at the poor little bugger, sure enough though it worked. I continued on my path following the North Star that was the Tesco sign, but came to a grinding halt, when met with this electrofied fence with a little wooden step over section in the fence, yeah me and my crown jewels weren't risking it at all, back to the fork in the road!. I must have walked another mile, mile and a half before coming to this bridge with big boulders beneath, I simply had to call it a day and get some rest, not too bad though for day 1!
Rather Hungry work.
Day 1 - 27 miles covered.
Aimed to Middlesborough finished 6miles west.
No comments:
Post a Comment