Our Grand Tour of Europe

Photos of the highlights of our week on Loch Ness (25 photos) are posted here.

July 24 - July 30

This is our first visit to Scotland. We had a wonderful first week… right on the famous Loch Ness and quite removed from conveniences like grocery stores, gas stations and internet access. Our house had a beautiful view of the loch, and we enjoyed interacting with the owner, Mrs. MacDougall, and her visiting daughter and granddaughter.

The scenery here is spectacular! We had three of the best days of our whole trip—a daytrip to the Isle of Skye, a day of hiking in the area around our village, and a very strenuous hike up to the top of one of the tallest mountains surrounding Loch Ness. I would love to come back to this area again.

We have completed 117 miles of the 190 mile Coast-to-Coast walk... with the hardest sections (across the mountains of the Lake District) behind us!

The walk has been harder than I ever imagined... but we are getting stronger every day. We had only 11 miles today, but have done as much as 18 miles on a day when we took a long route due to fog on the mountain-top.

We have really enjoyed the camaraderie among the other walkers on this journey... on the trail, over a beer at the end of a hard day, and over breakfast in our small hotels.

Late on Day 2 we found ourselves stranded on the top of a mountain in dense fog... and could not find the route we needed to follow. We found our way to the Black Sail Hut, a tiny youth hostel... the most isolated in all of England. Fortunately they took us in for the night and fed us a warm meal. The people were so friendly, and a couple led us out over a mountain pass the next morning so we could get back on our route.

I just wanted to let everyone know that we're over halfway on this journey across England. Thanks for your wishes and prayers... we'll post a more detailed report once we're settled in France.

This is just a quick update to let everyone know that the Wood family successfully completed the Coast to Coast walk late Tuesday afternoon! 190 miles across England, including almost 20 miles on the last day! We arrived at Robin Hood's Bay about 5:15 pm and made the traditional trek down to the sea to dip our toes in the water and toss in the rocks we had carried all the way from St. Bees.

After last year's heat wave, England has been hit this summer with rain and even floods in some places... we saw our share of bad weather and sometimes our trail turned into a stream, but we also had some beautiful sunny days... especially while we crossed the North York Moors. We thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. What a beautiful country England is! We met so many wonderful people too-- there was a true camaraderie among people on the walk. We had 16 friends who finished the walk on the same day we did.

Kelly did really well on the walk... she actually led the way on our most aggressive day on the Moors. After a difficult beginning, we all got stronger and more confident as the walk progressed. We ate hearty English meals in the pubs each night, but we're all more fit and trim than we've been in years.

After almost 11 weeks in the UK, we took the overnight ferry from Hull, England to Zeebrugge, Belgium on Wednesday. We have two days in Brugge (beautiful place!!!) and travel to Paris tomorrow. That marks the beginning of our 7-1/2 month stay in France.

Sometime in the next few weeks I?ll post an update to my blog with an overview of our C2C experience. It was truly a peak life experience.