My mom’s dad turned 100 today. I want to give him a shout-out here because, along with both my parents, Popa had no small part in turning me into an outdoors-loving, adventure-loving person. No coincidence I just happen to be departing in the morning on a 6-day trek around the Yorkshire Dales!
Popa was, among other things, a wooden canoe builder. (Other things included his day job as a continent-hopping geologist, and in his retirement, a volunteer restorer of the paddlewheel steamboat Ticonderoga and supermodel for a garden supply company.)
I have fond memories of hiking with Pop up Mount Wantastiquet overlooking Brattleboro, Vermont, or paddling down the Connecticut River in one of his canoes. On one of our adventures circa 1985 I gave him a minute-by-minute recounting of the plot of Back to the Future. It’s crazy to think that the +/- 30 year jumps back to 1955 or forward to 2015 don’t even begin to cover my grandfather’s experience on this green and blue planet. Who needs a DeLorean with a flux capacitor when you’ve got a Volvo and above-average health?
As Seth and I set out hiking in Grassington tomorrow morning, I’ll try to imagine what life might be like in the year 2075, and whether in the meantime I might have a chance to inspire someone’s lifetime love for the great outdoors. Happy 100th, Popa. This hike’s for you. ❤️
I meant to blog every day of this journey as it happened.
What was I thinking? We hiked all day. We drank beer. We ate dinner. We slept hard. We ate a big breakfast. Lather, rinse repeat.
The best I could do was occasionally offload the footage from the VR camera and make room for more. Especially after I filled up my SD card with footage of the interior of a sock. (I still think it made a fine camera case.)
And then once I was back home, forget it. A million other obligations take priority. And every step of editing, previewing, re-editing, and uploading VR content takes hours, even days when it comes to YouTube processing it. Compressing all the visual quality out of a decent video takes time you know!
Anyway, a month later it’s finally finished. I’ve watched this video in its entirety 6 times now. 37 minutes seems like the perfect length to really capture the spirit of our walk, while definitely feeling like you’ve earned yourself a beer by the end of it.
For Ma
While I hope you all enjoy the video, I wouldn’t have made it if not for my mother. Just 6 years ago we were hiking through the Yorkshire Dales together, just one section of the amazing Wainwright Walk, 192 miles coast-to-coast across England.
Shortly thereafter she received a life-altering diagnosis of ALS, which has put a significant damper on her hiking career, to say nothing of her Olympic dreams. (Luckily her sense of humor will be the last to go!) With that said, she just so happens to have a VR headset and is kind of a maven…
Don’t watch the video at the end of this post
I’m not just saying this. It’s the difference between watching someone else hike vs. being there yourself. If you watch on regular old 2D YouTube, you’ll get the gist of where we went and what we did. It’ll show you a monoscopic view that you can pan around. Better than nothing, sure. And if that’s the best you can do, at least maximize the YouTube window size and set the quality to the maximum available via the gear icon.
If you do have a VR headset, or know someone who does, watch the video in YouTube VR. It’ll be stereoscopic 3D, with a 180° field of view. (Trust me, if anyone you know has a VR headset, they’ll be thrilled to demo it for someone, anyone. Just ask your people!) Also, I make house calls, and my Oculus Quest 2 travels easily on a plane. Or they’re $300 at Amazon, Target, and Walmart.
Just download the YouTube VR app onto your headset if you don’t have it yet, and enter the title of the video into the search field, or even just “yorkshire” will work when combined with the 3D or VR180 buttons.
I tried to be sensitive to those with weaker stomachs while filming, avoiding fast camera pans. But there are a few spots that may make you queasy. Just breathe through it! Deep breaths work great for me.
About the camera
For those curious, the best sub-$1000 (and maybe the best sub-$5000?) camera I could find for this trip was the Vuze XR by Humaneyes. (Get it?)
Released in January 2018, almost 4 years ago, it’s a bit long in the tooth technology-wise. Yet its only real consumer-level competition for a 3D VR180 capable camera, the Insta360 EVO, is no longer available for sale at all. The only newer 3D video cameras since then are big heavy professional models in the $5000 to $15,000 range, and beyond! So I’m pretty happy with the results from my little $430 camera.
It’s really only when I was in motion that the compression artifacts really creep in big time. And I can’t blame it all on YouTube. The Vuze XR simply can’t record to SD faster than 120 Mbps. So the shots where I’m stationary, and not much changes frame to frame, look a lot nicer than the ones where I’m running down a trail. But even when, nay especially when, I’m running and it’s blurry, or there’s rain landing on the lenses, or there’s lots of wind noise, or Seth’s farting in Surround Sound, I feel fully immersed and right back in the Dales.
I hope you feel like you’re there with me and Seth, too. 🍻
84 miles in 7 days of hiking across England. And a farewell tour for MA. Join us, won’t you?
Welcome to another installment of Adventure Time with Benj!
In this episode my usual partners in crime, Moe, Eric, and Seth, will again join me to cross from the Irish Sea to the North Sea. But this time we’ll cross a stretch of northern England that’s a straighter shot and less than half as far as the Wainwright Walk we did in 2015. And instead of carrying pebbles across the country, this time we’ll carry MA with us in our hearts. And in a jar.
My mother was diagnosed with ALS upon returning from our 2015 coast-to-coast Wainwright Walk. What perfect timing! She started being tested for neurological issues before the 192 mile hike, trying to figure out why her feet were becoming numb. We had no idea what was coming, and that ignorance was bliss. She wouldn’t have risked the trip, possibly ruining it for anyone else. So in hindsight her presence in Northern England was a gift to us.
Within hours of stepping off the train in St. Bees 7 years ago, Ma met my friends for the first time down at the beach. Maurice, Eric, and I polar bear swam in the Irish Sea, Seth looking on in amusement, while Ma and Ealish filmed us for posterity. This would be the beach where we’d kick off 16 days of “walking” the next morning, my 40th birthday. Also where we’d select pebbles to transport to the finish line in Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Sea, a Wainwright tradition.
When my 100yo grandfather passed in October 2021, MA was done. She had been holding onto life with a tight grip so he wouldn’t outlive his daughter and mourn her loss. Indeed, she had made the most of the challenging life ALS gave her, surviving much longer than we could have hoped. She even became adept with VR in her final months! But MA left us just a few weeks after Papa in November 2021, with my brother Paul, sister Maggie, and me by her side.
This time back on the Cumbrian coast, I brought some of Ma’s cremation remains along in a jar. (Thanks, Maggie!) With Maurice, Eric, and I recreating that polar bear swim of 7 years ago, and Seth filming from the beach, I scattered half her ashes in the Irish Sea. The other half will hike along with me in my backpack for the coming week, in lieu of pebble, and then take another swim during a short side-trip to Robin Hood’s Bay after Hadrian’s Wall is finished.
Seth concluded the celebration by raising a whisky toast to MA’s memory, with a fist-bump for Moe who doesn’t touch the stuff. We poured one out for MA, too, but a small one because she would have hated to waste even a drop!
With that solemn mission behind us, we can head to the west end of Hadrian’s Wall, at Bowness-on-Solway, for Day 1 of hiking! MA’s packed up and ready. Are you?
I didn’t start blogging until the end of our first day of hiking. Long story short, I was locked out of my own blog! So instead of trying to maintain a 3 day lag for the rest of the trip, I’ll just quickly bring you up to speed!
Day 1: Where’s Walldo?
The entire first day of hiking, 15 miles from Bowness-on-Solway to Carlisle, saw no actual wall. On the Ordinance Survey map (UK’s version of USGS topos) we could see where the wall used to be. Occasionally there would be a bench to sit on and a sign pointing out where a milecastle — the taller structures every mile along the wall where Roman soldiers would take turns sleeping and keeping watch — used to be.
Apparently 19 centuries is too long to expect a farmer to avoid the temptation to borrow a rock or two or two thousand to repurpose in their fields and their homes. So day 1 of Hadrian’s Wall was much more… theoretical. But the weather was gorgeous, sunny, cool, and dry, so this was a great day to just remember how to walk far.
Day 2: Okay, that’s a lot of wall. And rain.
It rained all day from Carlisle to Gilsland. A light, steadily saturating rain. It was too warm out and too much bother to break out our raincoats, so we just embraced it. After all, today’s 20 miles would just fly by, right? Mile after mile of sheep, and cows, and green pastures, and hedgerows, and sheep, and rain, and what was this path named after again?
Then there was wall.
And forts, and castles, and ditches… When it rains, it pours.
Day 3: Already taking shortcuts for beer!
Today, Gilsland to Once Brewed, was a lot of up and down compared to the last 2 days. Luckily it was offset by perfect whether and only 9 miles of hiking. Once you’ve seen enough old wall, you also start wondering if there might be a shorter path to get to your next pub. After all, who needs to religiously stick to an arbitrary millennia old path? (Answer: Moe, who could care less where the next beer lives.)
We front-loaded our schedule with the longest, hardest days of hiking. We’re already past the half-way mark after only 3 days out of 7. So perhaps more time to stop and smell the flowers tomorrow!?
Day 4 involved 13 miles of hiking from Once Brewed to Chollerford. It’s 11:30pm, and I’ve only just finished my Charitocracy homework. So forgive me for being a man of few words today! Instead, I’ll leave you with some pretty flowers encountered along the path.
Day 5’s hike, 10 miles from Chollerford to East Wallhouses, was our smoothest and easiest yet. Maybe we’re just getting good at this, but we’re estimating our arrival times within minutes.
Other than 10 minutes of rain this morning, the only annoyance out on the trail was me to Seth, courtesy of my Duolingo Spanish audio lessons. Whenever I caught up to within earshot of him, Seth would hear something random like, «Un sándwich con carne pero sin tomate, por favor.» Or «Yo necesito un boleto de autobús a la Ciudad de Morelia. ¡Muchas gracias!»
In lieu of your regularly scheduled green grass, blue skies, gray wall, white sheep, and cow-colored cows, I bring you a selection of notable signs from my journey. «¡Disfruta!»
Jessica has had a few less than stellar days back home. I think subconsciously, deep deep down, she’s starting to miss me. So I took a picture of some flowers that are her favorite color.
Day 6 today was an easy breezy 9.5 miles from East Wallhouses to Newburn on the outskirts of Newcastle. We’re definitely in the city now. Like when Buddy the Elf hikes through seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then emerges from the Lincoln Tunnel. It’s kinda like that.
Meanwhile, tomorrow is our last day of Hadrian’s Wall! So I’m going to get some extra sleep before our long day of hiking, celebrating, and onward travel. But first I’ll put a smile on your face:
“I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men.” ―George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
If you’re wondering if George had Hadrian’s Wall in mind when conjuring the wall in Game of Thrones, apparently that’s a big yes.
Day 7’s 12 mile walk from Newburn to Wallsend went by super fast. We wanted time to properly celebrate before going our separate ways beginning with Moe’s 4pm train. So we averaged sub-16 minute miles without stopping, banging out this last leg in barely more than 3 hours.
After breaking company, Eric and I took a train to Whitby. Unfortunately, it arrived 15 minutes late, which gave us just enough time to wave at our bus to Robin Hood’s Bay as it pulled away on schedule. Fortunately, there were taxis available, which would get us to RHB before the bus would have! Unfortunately, the taxi only took cash. Fortunately, Eric had an old £10 note in his hat (don’t ask), and I found an old £5 note in my backpack. Unfortunately, our cash was so old it’s now out of circulation and the taxi driver wouldn’t take it! Fortunately, we convinced him to take a $20 bill instead.
So now we’re back in Robin Hood’s Bay, the finish line of our 2015 Wainwright Walk. I have some unfinished business with MA, who’s also completed Hadrian’s Wall with us now, and is itching for a swim tomorrow. Seth and fam are planning to drive up from York as well. So more on that tomorrow!
Yesterday morning, while the sun was still just rising on August 6, MA’s birthday, I scattered the rest of her ashes in the North Sea at Robin Hood’s Bay. She’s hiked along the length of Hadrian’s Wall with us in a jar in my backpack. This was the same spot of our glorious conclusion to the 192 mile Wainwright Walk back in 2015. (MA hiked herself across that one!) Eric took photos to mark the occasion.
Walking along the beach back to the village, Eric told me how several of his elder family members had instructed him to scatter their ashes on the family farm, though he doesn’t totally understand why. I suggested maybe it helps give them peace as they get older, knowing that they’ll eventually make it back to their Happy Place. And it’s nice to think that MA has many happy places. My sister Maggie has already brought some of her home to her beloved Florida Keys, and there are probably some other Happy Places in store…
And if you can believe it, with Eric as my witness, when we walked back to the Wainwright Bar next to the beach, the Beach Boys were playing this blog post’s title track. It brings me right back to the end of Love Actually, with the mosaic of family reunions at the airport. Kills me every time. ❤️
Big props to Hadrian’s Wall Wingman Eric, who made possible a post-hike weekend in Robin Hood’s Bay. I had given up on finding lodging, as everything was booked months in advance. But he found the cutest little AirBnB, one of the many cottages along the alleyways halfway down the steep hill. (If you’ve been to RHB, you know what I’m talking about!)
Only downside: the seagulls are VERY active between the hours of 4:30am and 11:00pm. Right over my head in the attic bedroom!
Thanks also to Seth, his mom Anne, Ealish, and Sophie for joining us in Robin Hood’s Bay for a lovely beach afternoon. We revisited the Bay Hotel for dinner, the same place where we celebrated 7 years ago after finishing the Wainwright Walk. Such great memories it evoked.
Until our next adventure… Adios! (A tip of the sombrero to all the Duolingo Spanish we were all doing by the end of the trip. 🤓)
Having escorted pebbles from the Irish Sea to the North Sea on the Wainwright Walk, now Benj is eyeing the Appalachian Trail…