Ways you can help

Here are a few ways you can help us with some of the practical challenges of our walk

 

Accommodation along the route

Do you know someone who can give us a bed for the night on any of the stages of the walk? Or perhaps you can recommend a not-to-expensive hostel or hotel? Please see our route plan for dates and details.

Publicity

Do you know someone at a local newspaper or radio station? Or can you spare a few minutes to write (e.g. email, text or tweet) to a journalist or DJ? Please point press contacts to our blog's home page and in particular the For Press page.

Donations in-kind

Do you have a skill or a talent we can cross-promote or sell in exchange for sponsorship? For example, a musician who can donate proceeds from sales of a song? Or a great cook, knitter, or tradesperson who can auction something to the highest bidder? There are lots of creative ways you can help us raise money without it costing you anything - please get in touch!

Feeding and Watering

We're going to be burning serious calories on this walk so having good hearty meals along the way will be essential. Some sections of the walk don't have any shops or food places so we'll need to plan where we're going to be able to get stocked up and refuelled. Please see our route plan and if you can offer or suggest where to eat, please get in touch.

Picking up and dropping off

If we need to stay overnight at the nearest large town we'll need to get from the finishing point on the walk route to the accommodation (and back to the walk route again the next morning). Can you offer transport when we're in your area? This ties in with accommodation and food, so please see the route plan for the different stages of the walk.

Moral support and encouragement

It means a lot to know you're there! Keep the tweets and messages coming in and feel free to share photos and links and make comments on our blog, Facebook and Twitter (plus this really helps spread the word). We hope to see lots of you along the way and maybe you'll even join in walking a mile or two to keep our spirits up!

Sponsorship and training update

Snow Time!

The fluffy white stuff has slightly put the brakes on our intended walking schedule this weekend. But it could potentially snow in March so we're taking the opportunity to do a bit of "adverse weather" training.

Check out Alex's red wellies

We also made the most of the snow to do some un-subtle promotion (you can find the pic on Facebook and Twitter and share it)...

Thinking up all sorts of terrible snow-related puns, such as "there's SNOW time like now to sponsor us" as the caption for this picture...  Hmm, maybe the picture speaks for itself!

The sponsorship money has started coming in via our Virgin Money Giving page (http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/walktotnes) and we'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has already sponsored us. We'll soon be putting out some info and ideas about other ways you can help. We really appreciate anything you can donate - whether it's via sponsorhip, or helping publicise the walk, or practical help with the walk itself.

A mission to photograph the "Totnes Walk" sign

Camberwell to Hampstead

via Totnes Walk

 

Whilst researching our route for the London to Totnes walk we Googled "Totnes Walk" and it turns out it's a road in north London.

So we walked there - and took the photo that is currently the cover photo adorning our Twitter and Facebook profiles.

On-street advertising for our charity walk

Totnes Walk is just north of Hampstead Heath so we set off from Camberwell on a walk which took us up through central London to Camden, then Kentish Town and almost as far as East Finchley. See Totnes Walk on a map

We thought about starting the walk in March from Totnes Walk N2.  It's either that or we'll be starting from the centre of London (at Charing Cross, because distances to London are measured to/from there).

"Totnes Walk to Totnes - walk"

Maybe that's a bit confusing to explain!

I think we'll stick with "London to Totnes walk".

Anyway, we got our photo and had a good walk in the process. It was just a 13.5 mile stroll and we felt we could have kept going and exploring for longer but we had to cut it at Hampstead tube station to get to somewhere else by a certain time.

Camberwell to Hampstead via Totnes Walk

We might return to Hampstead and use the heath as the start or end of another walk as it's good to get a few hills involved in our training. We really need to get out of London for some proper hills like ones we'll encounter in Dorset and Devon.

The training continues....

16.7 mile South-east London circuit

Interesting circular London walk route

Camberwell - Dulwich - Peckham - Lewisham - Deptford - Surrey Quays - Bermondsey - Camberwell

In preparation for our 250-mile walk we're doing a series of training walks to get our fitness levels up.

The aim of this walk route was to pass through as many of south-east London's parks as we could find whilst walking a circuit heading anti-clockwise from our starting point in Camberwell.

With this rough plan in mind, we set off and headed through Ruskin Park.  Next, we went via East Dulwich to Peckham Rye Park. We then wove our way towards Brockley where we climbed up to Hilly Fields Park to find the Stone Circle.

Stone circle in Hilly Fields Park

From here, we dropped down to Lewisham and followed the creek up to Deptford where we joined the Thames Path, heading west.

View where Deptford Creek joins the Thames

Passing through two small parks, Sayes Court Park and Pepys Park, we reached Greenland Quay and spotted Russia Dock Woodland so we diverted from following the quayside to keep up the theme of walking through as much greenery as possible.

After Canada Water, we reached Southwark Park and followed Jamaica Road to Tower Bridge. Pit stop for lunch in the Bridge House, then south via Burgess Park back to Camberwell. The idea here was to roughly follow the route of the former Grand Surrey Canal.

The final park of the day was Myatt's Fields Park, which we skirted the edge of, back to our starting point and completing the 16.7 mile round-trip.

Our walk route

It was a very chilly January day when we completed this walk so this kept us moving at quite a pace. I would happily retrace a similar walk in Spring or Autumn and allow time for exploring the parks in more detail.

Training session route (Woolwich and the Isle of Dogs)

A circular walk with two foot tunnels

Woolwich - Greenwich - Isle of Dogs - Silvertown - Woolwich

Training route

Starting at the top of Shooters Hill Road it's a nice downhill stretch for a couple of miles through Greenwich Park and into Greenwich.

Next to the renovated Cutty Sark we found the entrance to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel.

The Cutty Sark

Walking through the tunnel, the acoustics down there are a little confusing - you can easily find yourself having a phantom conversation with someone many metres ahead or behind you as if they were standing right next to you.

On the other side of the river we headed north towards Canary Wharf and got a bit lost around some new hotel/housing developments and ended up following the main road for quite a time.

This was a fairly unscenic part of the walk, mostly following the concrete sky train structure that is the Docklands Light Railway along North Woolwich Road. When we came to Thames Barrier Park after a couple of miles the sight of greenery and the prospect of being able to walk next to the Thames drew us in. Strangely topiaried lines of hedges led us towards the view of the Thames Barrier.

Thames Barrier from Barrier Park

Unfortunately there was no way to continue alongside the river from Thames Barrier Park, so back to the main road and continue east aiming to find the Woolwich foot tunnel.

Passing the second of the Tate & Lyle factories the smell of Golden Syrup was in the air. Before we knew it we'd reached the entrance to the foot tunnel to take us back to Woolwich and to complete our circuit with the climb back to the top of Shooters Hill.

Setting up for a charity walk

This charity walk is really happening. Alex and I have come too far down the line to change our minds now.

- Training for this 250-mile epic trek has started.

- The charities have been notified and they have offered an amazing level of support - we didn't expect that!

- We know our route (more-or-less).

- Alex has bought special lycra walking shorts (so we know this is getting serious).

- And I have spent many hours creating accounts on websites and social networks in preparation for promoting the walk in the hope of raising lots of money.

Keep track of our progress and show your support by following our blog. If you're on Twitter - tweet at us (or rather, @ us). Facebook users please engage with our Facebook Page, and of course most importantly if you like what we're doing and want to support two brilliant charities, please SPONSOR US!