Two Degrees West

Nicholas Crane - Read June 2013

   Nick Crane, before he came to our notice on the TV series "Coast", did long and strange walks for a living and wrote about them. I read one of his other books Clear Waters Rising. In this book Nick walks the length of the prime meridian of British Isles. The meridian is two degrees west of the Greenwich meridian. He walks from the Berwick upon Tweed by the North Sea to the English Channel near Poole in seven weeks. He never uses road vehicles in all that time and more surprisingly walks the 400+ miles never deviating more than 100 meters either side the the meridian. Again we meet his unique father and the folks the walk throws up.

   My kind of book. Essentially a diary with anecdotes, wit, anger and ways of dealing with aggressive people. Very easy to read.

A Time of Gifts

Patrick Leigh Fermor - read December 2012

A travelogue of a nineteen year old Patrick Leigh Fermor and the first part of his walk from Rotterdam to Constantinople. This book takes us up to Hungary. The walk was in 1933. He has a family with connections and he gets to stay with the old families of the ruling classes as well as sleeping in barns and being looked after by local town and country folks. It is vaguely interesting when he talks about the old families and the changes they are seeing.

He does like the sound of his own voice and waxes lyrical about writers, philosophers and Germanic folklore when he is not talking about them he is prattling on in flowery descriptions of the landscapes and the folks he meets at great length. He started off a self indulgent nineteen your old and ends up that way.


I am not interested in reading about next part of the walk. He survived the walk and WWII and went on the publish more books. I shall not be seeking them out.   

Hops and Glory

Pete Brown - read June 2011
One man's search for the beer that built the British Empire

The thoroughly entertaining read. As with all the best things it starts with an idea in a pub after a few beers have been sunk with mates. Part travelogue, part history of beer and part history of the British in India.

Pete is a writer on beer. HERE is a link to his blog.

Thanks to Steve for suggesting the book. Steve, a chap equally as keen on beer as Pete.

Clear Waters Rising

Nicolas Crane - Read August 2011
A Mountain Walk Across Europe

Nick did this walk in 1992/3. He started this 10,000 kilometer walk at Cape Finisterre on the Atlantic coast of Spain and walked, in one continuous trek, to Istambul on the border of Asia. It took him eighteen months. All the more mad because he had just got married shortly before embarking on the walk. This journey was done before he did the "coast" series. We find out about the umbrella. He had an unusual up-bringing.

I enjoyed it. I have no urge to go to the Balkans.

First Pass Under Heaven

Nathan Hoturoa Gray - Read September 2011
One man's 4,000 kilometer trek along the Great Wall of China.

Having just finished Nicolas Crane's book on walking from Finisterre to Istambul the difference in their mental approach to the trek is interesting. Even before finishing the book I am glad I did not walk with Nath. Nath started the trek with four mates and finished by himself...enough said about him and his "mates". He did the walk in a series of stages and often broke the journey.