The Great British Row 2022

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 WALK WALES? DONE IT MATE 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

We've only gone and walked the entire length of Wales, 292km, South coast to North coast via the Offas D**e Path 🥳

Part 1: Row the width of England ✔️

Part 2: Walk length of Wales ✔️

We are raising money for the Cancer Charity - please donate if you are able at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thegreatbritishrow and help us reach our goal!

Total distance walked: 292km/181miles
Steps: 393,000

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 14 days in Wales
🚶🏻‍♀️11 days hiking carrying all our kit
⛰️ 9000m elevation gain (Wales is definitely not flat - thats the height of Everest!!)
🌦 less than an hour of rain in total (who knew you could go 2 weeks in Wales without rain!)
🤴 all the history (for history loving Andre)
🐑 thousands of sheep
🏞 so many amazing views
🦶🏻 two sets of very very very sore feet!!

As much as we like putting ourselves through torture, we walked Wales to try and continue our fundraising for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. If you are able please help us make the past 2 weeks worth it by donating the cost of a beer at the link above, it will really make our very sore feet happy and worth it!!!

Part 3 coming soon...

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Day 13 walking the length of Wales

Please help us raise money for the Cancer Charity by sponsoring us at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thegreatbritishrow

Distance: 36.4km
Steps: 47,667

Today was all about the hills (7 of them infact). We've spent the day walking up and down the Clwydian Range which was tough but gorgeous 😍

Elevation gain was around 1,050m, which means we climbed the height of Snowdon whilst also walking 36km. Go us 🍾

Our longest distance to date, the good news is the hills felt much easier than the hills we tackled last week which hopefully means we've got a bit fitter! The even better news was we spent most of today staring at the sea in the distance which means... THE END IS VERY NEARLY HERE 🥳 (we are having a good time, we are just getting a little over walking to be honest 🤣)

The biggest disaster today was the single cafe enroute and highlighted in the guidebook WAS NO LONGER THERE. We presume a casualty of covid, usually this wouldnt be so dissapointing unless you'd spent the previous 10km talking almost exclusively about what you might get for lunch 🤣🤣

266km/165 miles walked. Can we reach the sea by tomorrow?!?

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Day 12 Great British Triathlon.. Walking Wales.

Raising money for Cancer Charity at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thegreatbritishrow

Distance: 29.5km
Steps: 37,715

After 2 days off because of the heat we were back on the trail today. SO MUCH BETTER! Finally had a day where we weren't a sweaty mess after the first 10 minutes of walking. Sadly we were a drenched mess due to rain, but after the past 12 days, I'll take rain over sweat!

If you don't like edges, today on the trail was not the day... I HATE EDGES. I thought the worst was over this morning after a (very fast on my behalf) walk over the very high (but cool - I mean, where else do you see canal boats that high in the sky!) Aqueduct this morning, however post lunch treated us to steep scree slopes and narrow little paths, with what i am convinced were death inducing edges. Obviously it got really windy whilst we were up on the slope and i may have panicked slightly inside whilst trying to pretend i was totally fine... but it resulted in a lot of laughing (at me) from Andre and the most concentration from me to keep putting one foot in front of the other 🤣

Pretty sure I am not going to become a mountaineer any time soon ❌️

🦶🏻🦶🏻 We are both suffering pretty badly with plantar faciitis which is making our feet very sore, to the point it wakes us up at night in pain and feel 🤮. Ironically the advice is to 'avoid walking or running' so we are grinning and baring it knowing we have less than 100km to go. No pain no gain or something like that?!

The other disaster is that we are a few weeks early for blackberry/raspberry season. Devastated as they are everywhere!!

Apart from all that, today was another great day of sheep, views and forests 🐑 ❤

230km/143miles walked so far... the end is (kind of) in sight 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

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Day 6 walking the length of Wales (Offas D**e Path)

Distance: 31km
Steps: 40,442

Todays 22km section from the guidebook was actually over 30km and we broke the 40,000 steps barrier for the first time! Sore feet, sore knees (walking downhill can not be good for you) and one wrong turn which resulted in us walking up a big hill and then realising the path went round the bottom of it 😭 but lots of smiles and some smashing views!

One of the best things about walking in Wales is the fields tend to be full of sheep 🐑 and not cows 🐄 and today we spent almost the entire day walking through fields of sheep. Hundreds of sheep and 7 cows. I call that a good day.

When we weren't walking with sheep we were getting attacked by overgrown paths of stinging nettles which have now become Andre's nemesis. My tactic is to go fast and try to get through as quickly as possible, Andre does his best slow motion ninja impersonation attempting to avoid them 🥴

Andre 'I'm South African I know a snake when I see one' Van der Walt also finally agreed once Google had been consulted that the 'snake' we had seen was in fact a slow worm. Pretty cute and I've not seen one for years so was excited. 1-0 to me in the wildlife knowledge category 🤣🪱

Officially half way, tomorrow is our planned rest day to give our feet, knees and hips a bit of time to recover before the next stage which the guidebook refers to as... brutal 🤣🤣

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Part two, Great British Triathlon: Day 3, hiking length of Wales.

Steps: 41,832
Distance: 32km

Please help make our very painful feet worth it by sponsoring us: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thegreatbritishrow

What to do on the hottest day of the year? Accidently walk 32km 🤣 We'd planned on splitting today's hike into two due to the temp being above 30degrees most of the day and the route having below par shade.

But like most of our plans, that went out the window as the campsites were either closed or too close to where we started this morning 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️

So we pushed onto one which was marked on the map next to a pub 🍺 Sadly, google didnt inform us the pub is closed Mondays 😭 Thank god we only found that out when we turned up and after we had stopped at a pub 7km previously having run out of water (somehow Andre's water refill became beer 🍻) because I have no idea how we would have made the last few kms if we had known that 🤣🤣

Apart from our feet being very sore, dripping in sweat and us being slightly dehydrated (we drank over 4.5l of water each which is alot when you have to carry it!) we had a glorious day of mostly undulating open fields, country lanes, cidar orchards and crop fields.

Going to sleep tired but happy 😊

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Part 2 Great British Triathlon: Day 2

You can support us by donating to at www.justgiving.com/greatbritishrow

Steps: 32,400
Distance: 25km

Jinxed it yesterday wishing for downhills.. today we got a lot, along with a lot of uphill 🤦🏻‍♀️ roughly 600m elevation and thanks to me reading the trail book wrong, what i thought was going to be a 18km hike was actually a 25km hike. Safe to say in 30 degrees, and alot of time no shade available, it was bit of a hot and hilly slog... but a beautiful slog!!

We've had rivers, farms, ancient woods and a few pretty little villages today, one of which sold ice creams (cue 2 very happy hikers) and after realising we might just make the shops in Monmouth before they closed and picking up the pace, we made it to Lidl with 5 minutes to spare and never have ice cold drinks tasted so good!

Currently lying outside the tent because it's too hot to be inside the tent, doing a very scenic shoulder rehab session (carrying a heavy bag is not helping the shoulder 😳) whilst Andre cooks up some dinner courtesy of !

Tomorrow is supposed to be a 28km day... given the forecast we might have to split it into two days so we don't melt 🥵

Concluded today rowing GB is mentally harder as you can't switch off, hiking Wales is definitely physically harder 🚣🏽‍♀️🚶‍♂️

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Part 2: Day 1 Offas D**e Path

Steps: 25,236
Distance: 20km

Please support us in raising money for by donating at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thegreatbritishrow

Only we could decide to try and walk the length of Wales in a heatwave 🥵

Today has been HOT, and the bad news for us is its only forecast to get hotter... Never have we wished we were in our rowing boat more 🤣

Andre's Great British Castle Tour continued today with a short detour from the official path to visit Chepstow Castle 🏰, and then the rest of the day spent winding our way through fields with stunning views, beautiful old forests, lots of walking up hills (but not many downhills.. I have high hopes for tomorrow) and walking on the actual Offas D**e which was built in the 700s! The history in the area is pretty mind-blowing!

20km might not sound too far, but we are carrying all our kit and camping gear (and most of our food) for the next two weeks, so our bags are pretty heavy atm, weighing in around 13kg. Having to jump straight into the walk with no training has been a shock to the system! They will get progressively lighter over the coming days as we eat our snacks (mainly ) and meal packs but we are pretty sore tonight!

Excited for tomorrow, praying we find an ice cream van (or a pub beer garden 🍻)

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The Great British Row becomes THE GREAT BRITISH TRIATHLON 🚣🏽‍♀️🚶🏻‍♀️🚵

We are back!! As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make some lemonade (or a g&t) AND SO WE HAVE 🥳

The concussion and shoulder injury i sustained on the row have made planning rather hard, with medical experts rejecting most of our back-up plans 😭 I've had to follow a 30 day no activity plan (which i have religiously followed because concussion is really no joke 😵‍💫). Now I have a 7-week shoulder rehab plan. After suggesting plan a, b, c, d etc the medical team came back and said walking. You can walk for now and THAT. IS. IT. And so walk we shall 😃🚶‍♂️🚶🏻‍♀️🏕

Part 1: Row the South Coast of England ✅️

Part 2: Walk the length of Wales (200 miles / 320km coast to coast along Offas D**e National Path)

Part 3: 100 miles, the width of Scotland via the Great Glen Way (hopefully paddling but might be walking or cycling... TBC!)

Im not sure when they said I could walk they meant 300km+, but we are heading to Chepstow early Saturday morning to swap hand blisters for feet blisters and set off on what we hope will be a super fun, rather hot 🥵🌞 looking walk from the south of Wales to the North of Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

We will be self supported, hiking the route carrying all our kit, food and tent and enjoying seeing the country from a slightly different viewpoint from what we had initially intended, but a similarly slow pace and physical excertion 🤣🐌. Sadly, we won't have any tides to help us out this time round 🌊

This means we can carry on our fundraising for the Cancer Charity. Personally, having to carry all my snacks and not sit on my bum all day sounds much worse than rowing around the coastline, so I hope you can still get behind us and help us raise as much money as possible for this wonderful charity 😃

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Day 13 update:

www.greatbritishrow.com

Please help us raise money for Cancer Charity by donating at the link above

Dartmouth has quickly become one of our favourite places, not only because of its beauty but also due to the kindness of the people that live here. We may have spent far to long scouring rightmove today for our future house 🤣🤣

We've been blown away by the amount of help we have been offered here, from those who own boats and have been following our journey, to those who have just seen our boat moored up and come down to speak to us. Thank you to everyone for all your help, offers of help or just kind words, it's meant a lot and put a smile on our faces when we've been feeling a bit sad about what has happened! We feel that we owe a lot of people a lot of beers in Dartmouth!!

A huge thank you also to who kindly invited us up to the BRNC for lunch and a tour today - my parents both met and passed out from there in the late 70s starting their naval careers so it was really special to get a look around!

The Great British History (Row) tour has continued throughout the day with a lovely walk around Dartmouths hidden bays, beaches and down to the castle. A day full of (maritime) history... Andre is very pleased 🤣

We've sorted getting the boat out the water tomorrow (thank you to everyone who has helped with all these logistics, especially Yorkie!!) which allows us to head back to Lboro and get the bikes and sort out the logistics for next week. The Great British Row On Wheels will be continuing!!!

On that note, lots of people have messaged asking about our cycling experience. We own mtb bikes. We've used them four times. It's fair to say cycling is not our forte and we are much happier on the ocean than land. But perhaps we will become cycling enthusiasts over the next few weeks 🤪

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Day 12 update:

www.greatbritishrow.com

Please help us raise money for Cancer Charity by donating at the link above

And here the madness starts...

It's become clear since Sunday that rowing in the foreseeable future is not going to be possible a) because of my shoulder and b) because of the concussion symptoms I'm getting 🤕 Head injuries are no joke and I've been well and truly floored by this one 🤣 Doc said 2-3 weeks and I feel for once it's best to listen to medical advice and not take any risks out at sea.

So we have a new plan. Thursday we are planning on heading back up to L'boro to grab our rubbish mtb bikes, buy some bike packing kit and cycling shorts, find our tent, load everything back into the car, drive back down south and continue from the weekend around GB on our bikes for a while. Hopefully this still appeals to everyone following along that we are doing our best to get round GB under human power!

We won't be able to follow the coastline, but we will be able to head north, ideally sticking to bike routes and backroads as much as possible as my bike packing (or riding in general) is equal to zero days experience 🤣 The idea is this will give my shoulder some time to heal and if any of the concussion symptoms don't fade away we have quick easy access to medical services.

We are hoping to somehow get the boat up north and meet it around Oban in a few weeks time, where we can relaunch and continue the row as intended. From a timeline perspective we only have until start of August so if we don't keep moving we know we have zero chance of making it round the UK!

We aren't great at asking for help, but given we are trying to do this for charity, if anyone is able to offer any hand in logistics of getting the boat moved, towed, travelling up the country, offer any bike bits which will come in useful (or know any bike companies who may be willing to sponsor us some bikepacking kit!), or has any ideas that may help us out we would be so so so grateful for any help.

We aren't 100% sure if we can logistically make this happen, but we know not trying is worse than trying and failing... so we are going to give it our best shot 💪🏽