Recently I
turned 25. I'd set aside 3 days around my birthday, to do something,
go somewhere, meet anyone. I didn't know what I was going to do, but
I knew I had 3 days. The time came, the forecast was bright, and none
of my friends were available at such short notice. So I dusted off my
touring bike and hopped on the 5.10am train from London Euston to the
coastal town of Whitehaven, which straddles the land between the Lake
District and the Irish Sea.
When
considering my motivations behind taking those 3 days to conquer the
coast to coast, I suppose it ticks a few boxes; getting out of the
big smoke, going on a bike ride, but most importantly and most
difficult to define - it was satisfying a hunger for adventure, the
wild outdoors, the exploration of a place that I've never seen
before. I wanted to see lakes and hills and people with unusual
profiles and accents, turn corners not knowing the landscape, animal
or vehicle that lay beyond. That's what I found, within a pebble's
throw of the bullet-shaped Virgin train, which turned into a rickety
coastal carriage leaning worryingly close toward the water, which
turned to me dipping my back wheel in the Irish Sea, soon peddling
without a map (but with a packed lunch) towards the grassy peaks and
rocky shores of the Lakes.
Last Summer
when living in Brighton I tried to make it to Penzance by bicycle (I
made it to Dartmoor and decided I'd had enough), and I've cycled
hundreds of miles in England, Wales, France and even Cuba. Each time
the process becomes more streamlined. My kit evolves, now never
missing essentials such as a portable stove, emergency bin-bag,
emergency hat (interestingly, a beret), and inner tubes - despite a
concerning incompetence in changing tyres. Fortunately I've not yet
had the bad luck of encountering a puncture - an inevitable
probability that I tried very hard not to think about whilst cycling
through the Northumberland moors.
What good have
these trips done me? Aside from the obvious benefits of health and
happiness in the outdoors, they've taught me many things about myself
and other people. Resilience, resourcefulness, patience,
how-to-make-friends-in-a-pub-car-park's-questionable-“campsite”,
how that even if things get really bad, and I mean, sitting on the
hard shoulder of the A35, exhausted and woefully stuck betwixt
junctions, in the rain, 10 miles from the nearest train station
kind-of-bad, I will survive, and get out of the hole I've rather
unhelpfully dug and pushed myself into, and hopefully next time I'm
cycling from Bournemouth to Bridport, I won't take the motorway but
instead take a map.
The people
I've met in hostels and roadside cafes have offered me generous
insights into the unpredictability and kindness of strangers, whose
faces and names I can't remember, but whose offer to do my washing up
because my legs were so sore, I'll never forget. The unique and
exquisite jams and honeys that you can only buy from little
pensioners on the side of the road, the home-grown plums you can buy
for 5p from a delighted 7 year-old boy, the honesty-box eggs, the
ice-creams, all gratefully inhaled in order to fuel the 13% incline
that follows the next bend in the road. And I'm not a sporto. These
majestic hills aren't graced with the sprightly dash to the top that
I rather naïvely imagine whilst sat bleary-eyed on that rickety
coastline train. Realistically, an energetic sprint to the top of any
incline is an unlikely scenario when carrying side panniers filled
with tent pegs and berets. Those nasties have taught me a thing or
two, I'm now proficient at reciting the alphabet backwards - but
above all, I've learned that it's not shameful to stop and walk every
now and again.
My experiences
in the wild have fed into my attitude to some significant moments
with work and friendships. Once you've prepared the essentials, you
just have to turn up and bring positivity to the equation, the rest
is often blissfully beyond your control.