I always find this point in any calendar year to be slightly frightening time, with the possibility that there is suddenly ‘only one month of summer remaining’. When you’re making something of your weekends and trying to bypass the wasted time at work each week, the time can appear to accelerate.

Let’s look at all the mileage I covered in July 2017.

01/07 – Win Green Walk, North Dorset (led by Brunel)
01/07 – Sixpenny Handley evening walk, North Dorset
02/07 – Melbury Abbas, North Dorset (walk leading)
07/07 – 4.5 miles – Wrington, North Somerset
09/07 – 23 miles – White Horse Trail #6, Wiltshire
(led by Brunel)
12/07 – 3.25 miles – Wrington, North Somerset
15/07 – 18.5 miles – White Horse Trail #4, Wiltshire
17/07 – 3.25 miles – Wrington, North Somerset
22/07 – 6.75 miles – Wrington and Congresbury
23/07 – 12.5 miles – Malvern Hills, Worcestershire (led by Brunel)
26/07 – 3.25 miles – Wrington, North Somerset
27-30/07 – 8 miles – Port Eliot Festival, Cornwall

Total for July 2017:

105 miles

This is the first month in a long time – possibly since I started this #walk1000miles challenge in 2016 – where I’ve not done even one of my two-mile evening walks around Wrington. I’ve grown tired of treading tarmac, passing slow-moving people and stepping aside to allow cars to pass. Instead, I’ve been taking to the hills and woodland, with an increased challenge and where a greater sense of freedom can be found.

Over the coming weekend, we should complete the final twenty-miles of the White Horse Trail in Wiltshire. I’ll be pleased to have finished this, while the individual walks have also been a great source for topping up my monthly miles.

I don’t currently have any intention to continue with other long walks beyond an average of fourteen miles.

July started with a group camping trip to Cranborne Chase in North Dorset, close to the Wiltshire border. Only twelve of us attended and I could only arrive for the final two of potentially four days. But we enjoyed good walks and countryside in an area few of us had even heard of! I managed to successfully lead one of the walks, without having pre-walked it.

In recent months, a lot of my walks have required driving more than one-hour each weekend in order to get to the start point. While this is great for experiencing new places, I’m always conscious of the fact that I don’t need to keep doing this and could soon start saving fuel to remain local.

Late last night, as I site here to write this, I returned home from a weekend at the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall. I’ve allowed myself to include some of my mileage, here… Partly because being at the festival prevented me from going hiking elsewhere; but also, because I did a lot of walking around and up and down the estate. I’ve accounted for two-miles per day, without making any calculation or tracking any portion of my distances.

In reality – and, according to my friend’s FitBit – we more than likely walked double that each day, plus a bit more! But I don’t want to get too specific about it. Right now, I’m just pleased to have completed another hundred-mile-month, which I wasn’t actually expecting!

Current total for 2017:

641.5 miles

Thanks for reading.