Etherow Park - We've FINISHED!!

These are the lovely ladies that took us to Etherow Country Park where we did our last big walk, which leaves us only half a mile to Christmas Pie House!

We completed the last half mile and have now OFFICIALLY FINISHED OUR WALK!!

So, anyone who was waiting til we finished to sponsor us - you can go right ahead and go to our JustGiving page and help us raise a packet for 1Voice.
Thank you so much!

No photos of south Manchester

Doh! We have set off from the equivalent of Pratts Bottom and are heading fair and square for Christmas Pie House, and I didn't take a photo of the 4 people who joined us!

Carl, Soy, UE and Lewis donned their wellies and joined us for a walk in south Manchester. It's amazing how far a 4 year old can walk.

And now it is only 35 miles to our goal!

Rivington

Lynn and Stewart joined us up to the Pike in Rivington.
1019 miles done and the end of leg 11, which started at Piddle! We are at the equivalent of Sandy Balls (thank you Simon for that hilarious suggestion).
Not far now! (147 miles in fact)

If you want to donate, by the way, click on the just giving link on the right of this page...

Westport Lake

What a great team for a walk round Westport Lake in Stoke.
My oldest friend, Jo (I won't tell you how long we have known each other, it will only make us all feel old) and her lovely children.
Becky, Zac and JJ took control of the dogs, with a strict 5 minute timer on to make sure everyone got their turn. For future reference: 3 children divided by 2 dogs does not come to a whole number!

We managed a circuit of the lake and kept out of the blue algae, which was very very green.

Just time for an ic
Our stats for the week bring us to 983 miles. Nearly at Christmas Pie House now!

Knott End

We have joined forces with Hazel and John. Hazel was the person who gave me the idea for this whole "virtual" walk thing. She swam the equivalent of the English channel.

Hazel and John took us along the coastal route so we were opposite Fleetwood. We were too late for the ferry though.

We met cows, horses, dogs and llamas on the way, and several rabbits crossed our path on our 6 mile walk. Thank goodness there was a chip shop on the way home!

Buxton

Last weekend, we met up with an old friend, Cazza. We did manage to stop talking long enough to boot up and set off for a walk near Buxton. Unfortunately, the GPS has had to be sent away for repair, so I have guestimated the walk at 5 miles because it took us about 5 hours and we did stop for lunch. We also had to clamber up a bank and walk around a herd of cows.

It was great to see you Cazza! Here is our map:

and we have now done 860 miles and we are on leg 9, which is the equivalent of being between the Gower Peninsula and Tolpuddle. Just over 300 miles to go ...

Dartmoor

Abz and Loki took us for a walk on Dartmoor.
Even that 7 month old border collie was tired by the end. Plus he ran in water for the first time.
We made it to the top of a hill. Or a moor. Or something (we didn't have a map)

I think the GPS has broken. Can't seem to charge it. This was half the walk, and now I need to try and fix it...

Well, here is our mileage so far. We're doing well and seem to be on track.

Parbold

A nice little 7 mile stroll around Parbold Hill, in the lovely company of Helen :)
This time I remembered the map, and we didn't end up walking around the sewerage works.
We did canal, Fairy Glenn, up to the pub for lunch and back down through the fields where we saw a couple of stoats or weasels (or somesuch).

I am ashamed that I have not been great at keeping up with which equivalent leg we are on. We are currently on leg 7, heading (virtually) from llanfair pwllgwyngyll (you know, that really long place name) to Tenby.

Back to the Beach

We had a new team member on another beach themed walk: Baby D. Ok, so he wasn't all that fast, what with getting distracted by the wonders of sand and the splashy sea.... oh and the shells, and the pebbles ...

We didn't get very far, but we had a wonderful time. James and Sarah get a mention too, although it's more than my life's worth to put a photo of them on here ;)

South Coast

From this map you'd think we had done a bit of a swim.

Don't worry though, the tide was out

And we clocked up a couple more miles, morning and evening in our sun-soaked weekend. Welcome to new team member, AP.

Because of being on holiday, I have completely lost track of mileage and will try to work on it asap...

Leg 4 - Lancaster to Ramsbottom (featuring David Bellamy)

We have now made it to leg 4 of our journey, and are doing the equivalent of Lancaster to Ramsbottom.

Who do you think we have roped (unknowingly) into our 1Voice1Walk Team?
Why, DAVID BELLAMY!
Yes, as we walked today, we managed to walk alongside Dr Bellamy himself, who was doing a talk about flora and fauna, and told us that in the olden days they used bluebells to act as the glue which held feathers onto arrows. Don't say this blog isn't educational.

Here is our photo evidence and I hope David B won't mind us adding him to our team, as we did do nearly half a mile with him as he pointed out points of interest about our local plants.

Here are our stats, 676 miles to Christmas Pie House!

"Arriving" in Ambleside

And so, as our stats reveal, we have completed leg 2 and have arrived at the equivalent of Ambleside. This is a very special place to us, as it is important to our friend Nadia and her family.

The next leg of our walk will take us the equivalent of going from Ambleside to Lancaster (33.5 miles). We might actually really go to the actual Lancaster, if we can fit it in during our holidays!

Here we go...

Blackpool

This weekend, we clocked up 11.07 miles around Blackpool with Angie. We saw donkeys and some people kind of surfing but being pulled along by kites. Does anyone know what that is called?

I am behind with adding up how far we have walked, but will get on the case very soon...

2nd leg

We went on a lovely walk today with Ange and Josephine - although the sun was kind of out, it wasn't time to caste off our coats quite yet. We clocked up 5 miles and are now on the equivalent of our second leg - Hobson to Ambleside.

And here is our Sunday update on the numbers:

Bear with us!

We have been walking, but not so very very far because over the past two weeks, each dog got ill, but at different times. Plus I kept forgetting to turn the GPS tracker off so it kept telling me we have walked 26 miles overnight (which obviously we hadn't,but is a quirk of GPS trackers apparently). So then I had to edit each walk to cut it down to the right amount. Plus we hit our target for the first leg, but I hadn't worked out the total or route for the next leg so I didn't have anything to put on here!

But we are still going, and have now done over the 366 miles equivalent of Sandwood Bay to Hobson! Hooray

So, in the meantime, here is a picture of Hobson from Google Earth, which doesn't prove anything at all, but is educational none the less!

Sunday Summary

278 miles done. Wow, at this rate we will be on leg 2 in a couple of weeks.

Pack of 7

This evening, Anita, Andrew, Brewster, Cassie, Milly, Hook, Peter, Belle and Amber joined Team 1Voice1Walk. This was the best we could manage by way of a photo. It's hard to keep 7 dogs in the same place, so we will have to settle for 5 and you will have to take the other two on trust.

Sunday Summary

Time for Sunday stats. 234 miles done.

Rivington Pike

We went to the top of Rivington Pike today, with Ann and Nero.

It was one of those walks where the dogs do disastrous things. Chips climbed down a sheer drop to a stream where a sheep had drowned, and started trying to eat the sheep. I had to get a long stick, risk my neck climbing down the slope (hoping to the powers that be that I didn't go the same way as the sheep) and poke at the dog from afar to make her leave her treasure and rejoin the trekking party.

Then Nero took a sandwich off a small child. In his defence, he has a medical condition that makes him ravenous all the time, but the child was too young to understand that!

So, that is how we clocked up another 4.6 miles.

Thornet Wood

We went back to an old haunt of mine from years gone by, Thornet Wood. The scene of horse riding, sketching for art O level (yes, I am that old) and walking Spitzi the dog on a daily basis during the school holidays for 20p a shot.

This time, we met up with Sandra, a friend I haven't seen in 3D for about 20 years. It was just like the old days :) We walked and talked and Dylan and my two got on with doggie exploits like getting stuck on the wrong side of a fence and eating horse poo.

All the fun of the old days, plus couple more miles on our journey. 2.368miles to be precise.

Sparrow Wood Part II

A couple of miles this evening with Hez and Soz. Not bad for an eight year old and a three year old. Well done kids! I messed up the GPS, so only one mile shows up on our table :(

And now for the Sunday round up:

192 miles down, 173 to Hobson and about 800 to Christmas Pie House.

Sparrow Wood

Easter morning and a quick walk round Sparrow Wood with my dad. Unfortunately, it has been raining for a few days, and our path had turned into a stream...

That's another 5.9 miles under our belt.

236 miles left to Hobson...

1st Leg - Didsbury

This evening we went for a walk in Manchester, along the river Mersey. We went with Alice and Julie. I would love to say that the weather was great for this time of year, but I can't. It would be a lie. Sleet and nearly snow would be nearer the truth.

Here is our route of 3ish miles.

I was delighted that Alice had baked a vegan chocolate and banana cake, which we had on our return home. Fabulous! Thank you Alice! And thank you Julie for a lovely tea :)

Only 200 miles to Hobson (and the end of the 1st leg!)

Haigh Country Park

We walked with some new team members today! Hollie, Sue and Daniel walked 3.04 miles with us this afternoon. That brings us to a grand total of 148 miles since we started on 7th March. Christmas Pie House here we come!! 218 miles to Hobson :)

Here is the route we took this afternoon Dan! Cool huh?!

And, just so you know we are not cheating, here are the week's stats:

1st leg - Unusual Team Member(s)

While we were walking this week, during a 3 mile loop, in the middle of this field...

... we saw this little thing.

Do any of you nature experts out there know why a toad would lay eggs in the middle of the field and then hug them? Or is it doing something else? Eating someone else's eggs? I have no idea! Please advise (leave a comment at the bottom...)

The nearest water is way over there. Looks like those little tadpoles will be doing their own 1Voice1Walk. That's got to be well over 1000miles in tadpole distance...

Sunday Stats on a Monday

At the risk of being a geek, I think I have worked out why the software was shortening our walk. It's to do with rounding off the edges of the walk. So we are going to use the sports analyser which seems to take a mid point. And we have 11 extra miles done! Yay!

If we walk 100 miles in 2 weeks, it's no wonder I get through wellies at a rate of knots. 11 month old wellies is starting to look like excellent quality!