RUMBLINGS…

Many congrats to Gayle and Mick who completed their Land’s End to John O’ Groats walk early yesterday afternoon.

The couple, who’ve kept a great blog account – read it here – throughout their progress, started on April 15 and have been raising funds for MacMillan Cancer Support (you can make donations here).

I’ve completely neglected the UK Triple Crown sections of my website pages in recent months (actually, I’ve neglected most of the pages there, since the site was set up!) but hopefully a quick glance will help Gayle and Mick realise that they’re now a third of the way to becoming Triple Crowners!

This afternoon the Government released its response to the petition, on the Prime Minister’s own website, for wild camping to be legalised in England and Wales.

Guess what? The government is going to do nothing.

Ho hum.

Let’s have a look at what the Government says, bit by bit. Along the way, purely for the sake of interest, I’ll compare it with the response I received from Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, via my local Tory MP, David Curry, way back in February.

“This Government appreciates the potential benefits of wild camping in England and its attractiveness to campers who already have the opportunity to camp in the wild in Scotland,” says the Government today.

Compare that to what Mr Benn said in February: “I do appreciate what Mr Manning says about the potential benefits of wild camping in England and its attractiveness to campers who already have the opportunity to camp in the wild in Scotland.”

Spot the similarity? There’s more…

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Steph and I arrived back home in Stainforth at the end of May after spending a fortnight on the TGO Challenge, that annual west-to-east crossing of Scotland that is, quite simply, the finest backpacking event in the world.

Chances are that if you read this blog you already know about the Challenge but for latecomers I’ll summarise: every May, over two weeks, around 300 good folk backpack coast-to-coast across Scotland. They start from more than a dozen check out points on the west coast and make their way, via a route of their own devising, through the mountains and glens of the Highlands, to the eastern seaboard, where they finish at a point of their own choosing between Fraserburgh and Arbroath.

Your route can be as sociable or as lonesome as you like: I make no excuses for having taken the sociable option one each of the nine Challenges I’ve completed to date – the folk who take part are some of the most friendly types you could wish to meet and stories, advice and beers shared along the 200-and-odd miles that most routes involve shouldn’t be missed.

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Many thanks to my good friends Robin and Paul in California, who alerted me to the on-line clip that now appears above.

Watching it made me feel just a bit dizzy at times and I have to say that, as I’m currently organising an outdoor festival in the South Pennines, I’m now going to check the liability cover is adequate!

Unfortunately I don’t know the video’s source, other than “dfi”, but thanks for the thrill, dfi.

Congrats to “Weird” Darren Christie (pictured – click on the pic for a bigger-than-life nasty fright), John Hee and all those who are pushing for wild camping in England and Wales to be legitimised.

Their e-petition on the Prime Minister’s website clocked up its 1000th name at the weekend – there’s a still a long way to go but with every new signature it gets harder and harder for ministers to overlook the growing call for us to have the simple right to camp responsibly, quietly and – let’s face it – invisibly in the English and Welsh countryside.

Deadline for signatures is May 24 this year – that’s less than two months now but with the total standing this afternoon at 1085 signatures, hitting the 2500 target must suddenly seem so much more feasible.

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