I’m off again! This time it will be a short break to walk up Scotland’s most famous mountain Ben Nevis at the end of September.
However I need to get a bit of walking in first as I seem to find it harder to keep my fitness these days.
I have read it can take between three and a half to five hours to get up Ben Nevis (https://bennevis.co.uk) by the easiest route of course and the first bit is quite hard going. As a friend put it when I told her what I wanted to do… “Take sticks!! Not sure what’s harder….going up and trying to breathe or coming down and your knees hurt!”
Today as starter I walked a five miles on and off the South Downs with my friend Sarah and her two teenage girls Izzy and Jasmine and their dog Luna.
We started at Harting Down with its lovely views across Sussex. I love this place I find it so up lifting with its big sky and rolling Downland. While it’s always busy near the car park you can often be the only person about if you walk a bit further out.
I set the pace and plotted a route with as many steep hills as possible in a short distance in order to get my legs building muscle. Sarah is a distance runner at a good standard so she was chatting away while I could hardly get a breath on the first incline up to Beacon Hill. Izzy was taking pictures (including the one at the top) and every bit as fit as her mum. Jasmine set her own elegant pace and always managed to look as though she’d just stepped off a photo shoot!
Beacon Hill is an Iron age hill fort and has a trig point and is a favourite on Hill Bagging tick lists. The view was worth the hyperventilation on the way up!
Our walk then took us down a steep slope into woodland and then back up onto the Downs again. We saw a fox and a buzzard on our travels. As you can see it was pretty breezy too.
We manage 5 miles in well under two hours and my legs will probably feel it later!
The Travelling Bee 