My plan is to walk all 1000k (624 miles) of the Ulster Way – basically a hiking route around the whole of Ulster touching every county.
WalkNI recommend that people walk the red sections and use public transport for the blue sections but I plan to hike every inch of the route. I estimate it will take me about 6 weeks, 1 pair of boots, 4 pairs of socks, and an uncertain number of indulgent “thank yous” to friends and family who I will be sponging off en route.
The whole project is really only a vanity undertaking on my part, indulging my long held aspiration to do the walk – before age and better sense erode my ambition. However, so that people more worthy than me might benefit from my indulgence I am using the exercise to raise money for the Huntington’s Disease Association of Northern Ireland (HDANI).
For those of you who don’t know, Huntington’s is a really dreadful progressively debilitating and ultimately fatal genetic disease that rarely makes the headlines but devastates the lives of many people in Northern Ireland – and also the lives of their family and friends. Despite this bleak prognosis those same sufferers and their families display the most astonishing courage and determination and HDANI works tirelessly to help them as well as promoting research and treatment into the disease.
So, even if you think I’m a bit of a plonker for attempting the Ulster Way hike you would be doing a good thing by going to my donations page and putting a bit of cash toward a really deserving cause. The following link will take you straight to the donations page: Click Here To Donate. If you are a UK tax payer, please click on the Gift Aid button on the donation page – it may be the only chance you will have this year to get some money back from the Government.
I hope to walk the whole route in “one go” as it were, allowing for roughly one day of rest each week but also accommodating a couple of days in the middle when I have some trainer assessment work I must attend. My initial plan is attached (insert link to WORKPLAN DOC).
For the map-geeks among you, I attach a suite of maps showing the route I intend to take on each of the planned 38 legs (just a turn of phrase I know but I suspect there will be times when I will wish I actually had 38 legs).
Click here to download the 38 legs
Once I start, I’ll try to maintain a commentary along the way and this will be available on this blog.
Click here for a full kit list
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