Their story, in their words…..
During the October half term we decided to begin our trip from London to Paris. Before we could even begin we encountered a problem, our initial plan of completing the walk in summer had fallen through due to COVID so now we had to deal with a tighter schedule and worse weather, this forced us to make the decision to cut the first day of our trip and begin instead half way to Newhaven.
On our first day we ran into some significant problems as we had the realisation that we had been far too ambitious in our initial planning. We walked late into Saturday night before talking to a local who kindly gave us a lift to our first campsite, without this we would have arrived at the campsite in the early hours of Sunday. For the rest of the 5 days walking we tried to ensure we would not walk late into the night again, however, this became more difficult as the days went on as waking up earlier became increasingly challenging. Walking late at night was one of our biggest challenges as it pitch black aside from our small torch lights and motivation dropped to its lowest.
The walk took a heavy physical toll, as our feet blistered and our bodies tired. This led us to make the decision of booking a hotel room for our penultimate night instead of camping. This was one of our best decisions as it made the final walk into Paris significantly more enjoyable. Finally seeing the Eiffel tower and the Arc de Triomphe made the whole walking experience worth it and showed us what we could achieve with our hard work.
Aside from finally reaching Paris, the greatest part of our trip were the local people we met in the small villages of Northern France. From filling our water bottles to giving us fruit and fresh bread, their kindness and interest in our walk helped our motivation significantly and allowed us to make it to Paris.
