The wandering is over – Reflections and recollections
Hello to everyone who kept up with my intermittently published blog during my wanderings over eastern Europe (1) . I meant to complete it over the summer, but unfortunately it didn’t happen, and now I feel that I need to take the whole blog down imminently. I begin my new job as a secondary school […]
Slovenia – July 2017
Welcome to Slovenia – a little different from the other Balkan countries On my last night in Croatia, I stayed in a guest house in the wonderfully named town of “Lazi” run by a policeman and his wife. I told them I was going to head off very early in the morning, at around 0500, […]
Croatia – June 2017
Disclaimer: The first half of my Croatia blog deals – in debatably unnecessary and gratuitous levels of detail – with two bouts of illness of rather sensitive areas, brought about or exacerbated by walking in hot climates. If you think that you might be sickened or offended by reading such material, then you are welcome […]
Bosnia Part III – north-western Bosnia – Late May 2017
Banja Luka, back into Republika Srpska After my pleasant stay in Babanovac, I kept heading in a northerly direction, along a long low ridge, having to take some care when passing over the old front line from the war, I could see mine fields marked all over the area on the minefield map I had […]
Bosnia Part II – Central Bosnia – May 2017
Sarajevo – where East meets West I approached Sarajevo from the East, traversing across the flanks of Trebević mountain. The Mountain towers over central Sarajevo, and was made notorious during the 4-year siege of the city by Bosnian Serb forces in the Bosnian War (1). It was one of key artillery positions from where […]
Bosnia Part I – Eastern Bosnia
Bosnia Part I – Eastern Bosnia Into the unknown Failing to spot anywhere suitable to camp on my last evening in Serbia; the dying of the light forced me to camp far closer to a village than I’d have liked. I wasn’t quite in somebody’s back garden, but I was close enough to keep my […]
Thoughts after 8 months on the road – a new purpose…
Firstly, you might have forgotten that this blog exists, so tardy have I got with updating it. I apologise for this, summer turned out to be busy, and I didn’t get around to giving the blog the TLC I should have. But keep an eye out, because I have no intention of letting it […]
Serbia in springtime – ups and downs
Exit from Bulgaria – flat route, flat emotions, “arrest” on the border I stayed quite long in Sofia, battling with the curse of procrastination, trying to finish up my write up for almost 2 months of being in Bulgaria. So when I was finally finished writing and posted up my last blog post (probably a […]
Bulgaria Part III – Rila, Musala, Vitosha, and Sofia – Winter to Spring
Rila I left Velingrad refreshed after the birthday celebrations, and feeling as if I could conquer any mountain challenges that stood in my way. Just like previous times when I was getting complacent, the gods of the mountains decided to punish me for my hubris and give me a white whipping to remind me that […]
Bulgaria Part I – Introduction, expectations, arrival
Introduction – Sofia in Springtime As I sit down to write this blog post, almost two months after arriving in Bulgaria, I am sitting in a sunny, warm Sofia. Bird song can be heard, and the flowers are blooming everywhere. Spring has arrived both astronomically and empirically. I have posted almost 10 kg of winter […]
Istanbul -> Edirne, Stage One of the Walk, Turkish Thrace.
In retrospect the first part of my walk wasn’t too strenuous, after thinking about it so much whilst planning and imagining everything that could go wrong, in fact it was fairly straight forward walking. The first few days put a few challenges in my way: On the first day my proposed route over green rolling […]
Leaving UK, arrival in Istanbul
Sunday – 15/01/17 It felt unreal, a huge bag on my back, taking a final picture with my parents before my mum drove me to the train station. I had a one way ticket to Istanbul, this was really happening, and it was happening right now. All the preparation was over, now was the […]
Final Preparations – and how did I get here?
The journey to get to this point has taken a lifetime, but I am now finally just about to leave for the walk. What lead me here, about to depart – well I suppose that could take a whole book, but to summarise… The initial germ of the idea entered my head aged 18 after […]