h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today is W for walking.

I remember the first walking holiday I went on at the age of seventeen. It was run by the YHA and involved walking on the North York Moors. When the group assembled in the hostel, our leader told us there were three servicewomen joining us, and we were worried that they would be very tough. On the last day, we walked from Whitby to Scarborough, which I remember as a beautiful walk along the cliffs. However, it's a long way and our servicewomen, who'd joined the Army because they wanted to play in the band, lagged behind!

It was some years later that I went on a Ramblers Holiday in Majorca, where I found myself the youngest of the group. I remember the bus going down to the town of Soller, where we were staying, looping round hairpin after hairpin. At some, it had to stop and reverse a bit before it could get round the bend. Some of our walks followed a stream that cut through white rock, leaving blue pools, amongst yellow and orange spurge plants.

The next walking holiday was in the Cevennes in France. It was May but the weather was varied, and the leader of the group often put up his umbrella. I remember sitting on a stone bridge over a stream eating cherries. The event that stood out, however, was meeting a young man who knew about wild orchids and butterflies. I subsequently married him!

After that, we went on walking holidays together. The last one before our son was born was in Andorra. Here, we crossed snow fields and climbed to about 3,000 metres. The memory that lingers in my mind is of sitting, looking at a grand circle of dark rock walls around a blue tarn, while our local guide played on a kind of recorder. Unfortunately, several of our group had stomach upsets, which rather spoiled the holiday.

After that, our walking became tamer - mainly the South Downs, Ashdown Forest and the Surrey Hills. But I am quite proud that, this summer my husband and I(both in our sixties) and our son, climbed Ben Vorlich in the Scottish Highlands.

W for wonderful memories! Beautiful imagery

I'll bet that last one was fabulous - the Highlands are very beautiful.

Deb

I Scotland.

I loved your journal, MVP.

I used to go on family mountain-climbing expeditions. Even my mother, who was not athletically inclined. Sometimes her slow gait worked to her advantage, as on Mount Madison, when she was about two thirds of the way up with my younger brother [who was about six at the time], when dark clouds gathered at he summit. The rest of us had to hurry to the top and then come back down as fast as we could. My mother and brother never did get to the top, but they didn't have as far to go to reach the bottom and safety.

Thanks Paulh.

I remember climbing a mountain in Ireland. It started pouring with rain as we started down and we were soaked to the skin by the time we got back to the car.

[Amy P]