Day 1: Arrival at Edale

Well, I’ve arrived safely at the start of my Pennine Way challenge. Edale is a lovely spot, though just at this stage the hills look dauntingly large…

Incidentally, this is the view from the front door of the place I’m staying!

One of the questions people ask me is how I prepare for a walk like this. I do walk around the parish a lot, and as a general rule clock up at least five or six miles each day (sometimes as much as ten), but that’s small beer compared to something like this. I do some long walks in the run up to the start (I don’t think I’ve had chance to do enough this time though!) but the big challenge is actually psychological.  It’s one thing to walk sixteen miles in a day up something like this:

It’s another to do that day after day for fifteen days. The other challenge is that I’m on my own this time- my wife, Sarah, is at home looking after the extended family. So it’s a double psychological challenge. I was feeling very nervous this morning, so it was lovely to have so many good wishes from the congregations (and to have raised over one thousand pounds already) but let’s see how the psychology is in a week or two’s time…