The Penistone Boundary Walk – Discovering my foot’s boundaries!

I attended recently a work-related workshop which in my opinion was one of the best facilitated ones that I’ve been to. One of the things that made it a good one was that the facilitator asked everyone on the each working group to note down on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being low and 10 being high) their Engagement level and their Energy level both at the start of the workshop and at the end as well. I observed with great interest that participants felt quite honest about noting their true levels and how these were changed for each work group.

As I was thinking about setting the scene for the Penistone Boundary Walk it came to me naturally that I could borrow this concept of Engagement and Energy levels registry. But I’m getting a bit ahead of the set up.

The set up

This walk took place in August Bank Holiday weekend while visiting my dearest best friend up in Yorkshire for a good catch-up after my summer holidays. It was one of the first times that I’ve been up north in a T-Shirt and sunshine, so what better activity planned than discovering the countryside. As my friend knows my love of walking and how easily I can be amused by such a simple adventure she proposed the discovery of the Penistone Boundary Walk. The link of the walk with an old annual tradition where boys were beaten, bumped, thrown in brambles and rivers so that they wouldn’t forget the boundaries certainly gave me an extra thrill to discover the route!

On the eve of the walk both my friend and I were pretty apprehensive about following the written directions of the walk as neither of us can boast of strong navigational skills. We have always been followers rather than leaders…this is true for walks only! My best friend’s husband concerned look about our competence when he discovered that we missed out at planning stage that we could start the walk from our house and save miles and time, was unmistakably a sign of worry. Topped up with the question “Have you got the mountain rescue number handy on your mobile honey?” it definitely bode a sense that and we were in for a true adventure.

Being a true loving and caring husband though and thinking prudently that there may not be mobile signal for us to call the mountain rescue team, he patiently sat down with both of us, showing us how to use the ordinance map, what is a compass and how to use. Not leaving things to chance, he also programmed the route on a watch gadget. And so with our newly acquired navigational survival skills and tools we were ready to start our walk the next day.

The adventure begins!

Engagement level for me after a good breakfast was a 10 and energy level was mentally 10 but physically I was scared it was going to be 4! I luckily surprised myself that I was at level 7 at the start of the walk.

Right from the outset we assigned responsibility and my friend was in charge of the written directions while I took the role of map and compass co-checker. It was evident in the first 20 minutes or so, that our strategy was working very well and we were cross-referencing each point, which to our delight proved that her husband’s crash course in navigation hasn’t been lost in translation. We were both keeping our expectations low at the beginning and wondering how long it be would till we got lost. As we kept exploring, with each milestone that we conquered, we started gaining more confidence and started believing in our ability to navigate ourselves through the Yorkshire pathways, stiles, cows and brambles.

Ah stiles…a word I didn’t know existed until I actually crossed over 100 stiles in one day. At least that is how many they felt to me. Wooden stiles, rock stiles, double stiles, you name it. We came across all different kinds! Stiles became a sign of going the right direction.

Needless to say that the scenery was beautiful. For this I will let the photos narrate the story and charm you through the wonderful pathways and scenery that we encountered in our adventure.

Blenheim Palace in autumn

And as confidence and hopes that we are doing well were on a high route-wise and time-wise (apparently some people did the walk in just over five hours), we inevitably received the doubtful text from my friend’s husband “It sounds good hun that you are doing well, but do you actually know where you are?” Not deterred at all by it we kept on walking! Nothing could spoil our team effort and bonding.

We had some small casualties at lunch point – “sandwich down” as my friend called it. While trying to find better comfort on the walls of a reservoir lake which served as our resting spot for our lunch break, I managed to overthrow onto the ground with amazing grace, my nutritious sandwich, that was prepared with love by my friend. It was salvageable though and not all was lost!

Things got a bit rough in the afternoon as we went through brambles – another new discovery for me – that blocked the pathway and some steep hills with overgrown grass that made the climb difficult. We got through it all in the end. Breathless for a few minutes but not enough to keep us from walking on.

While engagement level was still at 10 late afternoon entering into the evening, energy was starting to decrease slightly to 5.  Clearly we were taking more than 5 hours but it didn’t matter to us. However, the denial of acknowledging that the last leg was going to be uphill all the way was probably unavoidable as no one wants to accept the truth after 10 miles. I think though that team morale and a notion of “we are not going to give up, we are going to get through this” made us last till the end.

It was in the last 2 miles that my left foot started showing signs of discomfort and distress. But being a good sport it sustained itself till the end. When we reached home – after 8:50 hours and 16 miles of walking – we surprisingly didn’t collapse as we anticipateds. Instead we devoured a deliciously home-made dinner of Jamie Oliver’s beef cannelloni which my friend wisely had pre-prepared and topped it up by a wonderful poached peach dessert.

The aftermath

It was a week after that my left foot gave up on me totally as I developed metarsalgia …a stress like injury that occurs after jumping or running! For the first time ever I was unable to walk at all for about two weeks and slowly limped my way back to walking through physiotherapy and painkillers. I’m still not there yet physically but I wouldn’t have changed though one minute of my simple yet so very special time with my best friend.

P.S. You will be surprised to hear that I was so enchanted by the whole adventure that I didn’t talk non-stop for a change throughout the day. Instead I was very content with being there in the moment with my friend and the Yorskshire moors!