At Yestival I had overheard someone doing something in every state and I thought thats a great idea, why don’t I do something in every county? Especially as I’d always wanted to see the more of the UK. I decided the adventure wouldn’t be cycling. After 16 months living in Holland I’d built some serious thighs of steal and so I wanted to get rid of those bad boys (those and the 3 stone overweight I was). So it had to be something me powered to try and shift this fattiness and something I could just start without training. I trekked in Nepal 8 years ago and I thought you know what, I could just walk in each of these counties, 10 miles seemed like a good enough amount.

So that was it, 10 miles in each county, but I also wanted experience these counties so i would do something fun/unusual there aswell.

For any of those who know me I’m extremely competitive and I didn’t want this to take over my life so there was to be no time limit (but secretly in my head i’m aiming for 3 years… thats a lie 2)

First things first how many counties do you think there in the UK? You’d think I’d have checked before thinking this was a good idea right?! Wrong! I also thought it would be easy to find out, you know, it’s in peoples addresses! But it also turns out there are too many options, do you go ceremonial counties? do you go historical counties? do you go administrative counties?

So i decided I’m gonna make MY list and go with the 92 historical counties but if on exploring I decide I want to split them to administrative then sod it, its my challenge and thats what i’ll do.

I mentioned in passing my adventure to my other half who looked weirdly at me and said “ok… but i don’t need to come with you on all of them do i?” “no” I said “just the ones you fancy” which appeared to be enough of an answer and he went back to looking on cars on Autotrader

That hungover Saturday morning after a night in baratuxi (our local pinto restaurant) with the parents in-law I got out my excel spreadsheet and populated it from the counties website. As I populated the spreadsheet I found 3 counties in wales might only be one (relief? I dunno)

Sunday morning I creeped downstairs whilst my other half was sleeping, hoping he wouldn’t wake so I could enjoy the morning watching and hearing the rain on the conservatory patter down as the sun blasted through. A little peace I sat next to the boxes from halloween. The minimalists podcast keeps ringing in my head to “minimise you’re things” and this stuff is doing my head in!

At Yestival Anna Mcnuff mentioned her facebook page Adventure Queens so I put my challenge out there to try and get ideas for walks and I was surprised at all the responses and offers to catch up and plan and walk, what lovely people! I also posted it in the Yestribe and Dave Cornwaite said ‘keep me posted’ and got me super excited! clearly my high for this weekend

 

It’s interesting even when feeling all positive the fear creeps into my mind and all of a sudden I’m worried someone else is doing this, did I steal this idea? Does it even matter? I googled ‘adventurer counties uk’ nothing came up, Why do I even care? pushing that thought to the back of my mind… focus Kell

I stubbled on a really good interactive map (link) and started to google “bucket list UK” and some amazing things came up and skye definitely entered the list at this point. I’d totally recommend the telegraph’s ‘The ultimate UK bucket list: 29 things to do before you die” it got me some good ideas. I discovered the thames path and pennines way. Also discover inverness-shire has suprizingly lots of stuff to do.

Just in the midst of serious googling reality check hit as the Ocado man called early and i greeted the guy at the front door in Pj’s, marks jumper and mascara down my face. Not a good look! At that point the Ocado delivery had clearly disturbed Mark as he plodded downstairs so I concluded that planning stage 1 was complete, I had my list! yay!

 

 

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