UKY Ramblers

So girls-perhaps TMI, but when you ramble and ummm, have to pee, do you have perfected squatting technique or do you use something like a she-wee -or do you just hold it and pray you don't explode?     
I have a squatting technique that isn't very good, so I'm looking for ideas. Any she-wee users out there? Are they easy?

The blokes have it so easy! 

I meant to answer this.  We do our rambles in less remote places so I can usually count on using a pub toilet or something like that along the way.  Like Mrs. R I try not to drink tea before I go on the walk.  Other than that I just hold it for as long as I can.  I'm not good at squatting so I dread that situation.  Sorry, that's not really much help to you.

We did another 8.5 mile ramble yesterday - this one a bit more up & down (not much, but more) than last week's:

http://www.walkingenglishman.com/leedsharrogate4.htm

We are training every weekend now until our big walk (not long to go now!).  DH says it's hard to find flat-tish training walks of 10-12 miles (most walks of that length around here involve scrambling up something like Penyghent/Ingleborough/Whernside - that is so not happening!), so we'll probably be doing more in the 8-10 mile zone with increasing levels of difficulty.  As the long walk we'll be doing is mostly flat, hopefully it'll all even out: shorter, harder training walks vs 12 mile flat walks to prepare.

I guess my fitness must be improving because I thought last week's 8 mile completely flat walk was a killer.  This week's was 1/2 mile longer with some ups & downs & I didn't think it was that bad.

Well done Mrs. Robinson! 

Our walk last weekend consisted of wandering around London all day Saturday, watching the Changing of the Guard, etc.  My legs were way more tired out by that than by the 8 mile ramble the weekend before.  I think it was all the stopping and standing that did it but my husband thinks it was because I was wearing loafers not walking boots.

Thanks all for answering my *wee* question!  I guess I need to improve my squatting technique!

Well done on all the ramblings. I have not been out in a while, too busy trying to grow my own veg!
 

I think it was all the stopping and standing that did it...

I think you're right.  I get waaay more tired out standing around, stopping & standing, etc than I do if I'm on the move.

PB, if you want a she-wee, get one - why not?  For me, I'd rather keep on with the squatting - we have enough gear already that we carry around with us - lol.  And I don't know how I'd feel about carrying around the contents & having to dispose of it & all that.  Peeing behind a bush is much simpler for me. 

PB, if you want a she-wee, get one - why not? 

Aye, wouldn't mind trying one, but I don't want to waste the money if they're crap. Hmmm - maybe I'll give it a go...   

Aye, wouldn't mind trying one, but I don't want to waste the money if they're crap. Hmmm - maybe I'll give it a go...   

Pulling them up on Amazon, under a tenner so not too costly really? 

Pulling them up on Amazon, under a tenner so not too costly really? 

Ta.  Think I will try and report back 

After not being out rambling the weekend of May 14-15 due to bad weather, we braved the elements (crazy strong winds & some rain  ) yesterday to get this walk in:

Studley Park and Fountain's Abbey Walk

Got a bit soaked during about the first third of the walk, which wasn't great fun.  But the wind had blown us dry by about the halfway point.  We saw the deer in the deerpark & there were some lovely woodland bits to the walk.

I think we went a little further than 10 miles, as we decided not to cross a field near the end - it was full of cattle that appeared to be very interested in us & it was an almost-not-there stone stile over a tall stone wall, which would have meant scrambling over & possibly falling right into the midst of the cows (and lots of cow pats), no thanks!  The cows weren't threatening per se, but a group of them all wandered up to the corner place where we needed to scramble over the wall as soon as they saw us, putting their heads over the wall & checking us out, trying to make friends or see if we had food.    And there were a lot of cows in the field beyond that - big field, big big herd of cattle. 

So we detoured around there & had to do a bit more road walking than we would have liked, back to the walk start point & the car.

I was flattened by the time we got home. 

I love Fountains Abbey!    Well done on the long walk Mrs. Robinson.

It's a nice day today a half-term holiday, so my 11 year old and I are going to do a mother-daughter walk together.  I don't think it will be very far...but it will involve seeing as many animals as possible.

That is waht drives me insane about walk paths here. I suppose they were designed in 1920 when there weren't many cars and no one drove over 25 mph. 

We went to Dunstable and walked a path near the Downs over the weekend.  Lovely but they always have a waymarker in the middle of a field when the only obvious path is the one you are on and never have any at the point where there is a turn off or where multiple trails meet. 

My main issue is that wheil 90% of the trip was lovely there was about a mile on a no shouldered, blind curved, not quite double lane that cars were doing 60 on.  No where was this mentioned in the description.  We wound up walking on the border of a barley field as to avoid the boy racers who were zipping between two villages. 

It didn't ruin the walk, but it certainly coloured it.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of road walking - especially in those conditions.  We had to walk about 3/4 mile along a road yesterday as part of what we did, and it's just no fun having to keep jumping onto a thin verge while the cars whizz past - slow going, boo!  (After we did it, we then saw/remembered there was a permissive footpath we could have taken as an alternative, although strictly speaking - that wasn't part of our planned route.)  Little one-car-width country lanes aren't too bad though - the ones where you rarely ever see a car.

We did 13 miles yesterday - a little piece of the Dales Way (familiar ground), what is basically the first leg of it - only we walked it in reverse of how we originally did that back in 2007.  Parked at Ilkley & took the Dalesbus up to Burnsall, then walked back to Ilkley from Burnsall (all along the River Wharfe, goes by Appletreewick, then all through the grounds of Bolton Abbey, Addingham and finally Ilkley).  Oh man, I was Knackered with a capital K, and my feet hurt something fierce.  I collapsed on the sofa when we got home & promptly fell sound asleep for an hour before we ate dinner.

I think the Dalesbus is a fabulous idea!  In the summer, they do a Sunday & Bank Holiday service (along with a few other extra days) but basically, if you don't have a car or maybe you want to do a one-way walk, you can get up into the Dales without taking your car - which is a win for everyone!!  The schedules are kind of limited though, so you do have to time it well.  And I was so glad to see how busy the Sunday bus was, so that means it's working!  At the same time, it made me so irritated to see so many people up there with their ginormous 4x4 vehicles (they could have taken the bus!) making it difficult for the bus to pass those hulking beastly cars.

So we're nearing the end of our training & our great big walk starts the weekend after next.  Our longest days on it will be 12 miles:  4 12-mile days, 2 11-mile days, and one itty-bitty 8-mile day.  Glad that we got 13 miles in yesterday, because that's one mile more than I'll have to do in one go on the big walk.  Not sure what we'll try next weekend - I'm thinking something in the 10-12 mile range.

Also encouraging - despite being super tired & hurty after both the 10-mile (Fountains Abbey) walk & yesterday's 13-mile, I do feel mostly recovered by the following morning.  We really had to get our skates on for yesterday's so I might have been pushing it a little too hard over the first 5-6 miles - we couldn't start from Burnsall until 11 am because of the Dalesbus schedule.  (Sad because I love Burnsall & would like to have paused awhile there.)  As it stood, the 13 miles took us about 6.5 to 7 hours, but we stopped a lot for rest, water & food breaks - especially nearer the end, when I was starting to get cranky with fatigue (need sugar!).  We have learned to stop & address it when that happens, otherwise DH's poor sweet little head could get bitten off.  

phatbeetle, I bought a She-Wee yesterday (had never heard of them before this thread, so thanks for that!) and gave it a go. It was super easy and worked perfectly! I got it for £7.50 at Tiso (I believe there is a big one in Inverness), so definitely worthwhile!

phatbeetle, I bought a She-Wee yesterday (had never heard of them before this thread, so thanks for that!) and gave it a go. It was super easy and worked perfectly! I got it for £7.50 at Tiso (I believe there is a big one in Inverness), so definitely worthwhile!

Thanks for that! At only £7.50, I think I could try it 

Welp, our great big walk is coming up end of this week!  (Now that I'm on the cider to calm my nerves, I can speak of it.  )

We didn't do a training walk this weekend, because we weren't prepared to do one on Saturday & the weather was absolute rubbish Sunday (as expected) by noon.  So this is it!

Very good chance we'll be walking in rain come Saturday.  

Oh well how bad can it be?!  Right?!    (I know I know, I still have flashbacks of the Yorkshire Dales Way, the 2007 June floods, and water over the top of my boots, squish squish squish, wringing out my socks...arrrrrgggghhhh!)

Anyway, if you're with me on Facebook, I'll try to post a little something from the trail each day.  (send me a PM if you're not with me on Facebook & you want to be)  Only possible problem with that plan is it's entirely possible we won't have mobile reception where we're going to be at some points.  

I'd like to say that I'll keep a little day-by-day diary & then post it somewhere blog-style afterwards.  I always have the best intentions of doing that.  Except that I'm so dog tired by the time I've walked 12 miles, that I'm lucky if I can remember my name much less string semi-coherent sentences together.  So we'll see.  

PS - And Mrs Busby, I'll be seeing you in July!  You're my escape clause from the in-laws holiday.