10th March 2011

Just come across this i hope you find it a good read.

“You have got to do the miles!”

I can remember looking at the weather map on the BBC and thinking “am I really going to drive ‘Alex’ my power chair, all the way from one end of this wonderful country of ours to the other, namely Lands End 2 John O’Groats?”

The reality of the task that I had set myself, did not really hit me until I had secured a team of people together, managed to raise the money against all the odds, got all the equipment together including hiring a second van, and with my team assembled, we slipped away from my home at 0630 on Friday 17th July 09.

The Journey to Lands End was an adventure in itself as we realised when we packed the hire van, I had hired a van that was too small, and had to be changed ASAP. The guys in our team pushed boxes and stuff bags into every corner, just managing to get the side door closed. We could not wait for the hire company to open to see if they had a larger van as we need time to get to Lands End and as the hire company was a national company, we decide to press on and deal with the situation on the road putting Addy, one of my care team, on the case. Using her female power of persuasion Addie did resolve our problem but the new larger van could not be picked up until the Monday.

We arrived at out first campsite at midnight feel very cold, tied and in need of a good hot drink. Just a couple more things to tell you, it was raining and the guys had never put the tens up before! The campsite owners at the Bone Valley Holiday Park could not have been any more helpful. They held a strip light to help the guys see while putting up the tents as it was pitch black and drizzly and went step further by bringing out the brews all round! Me, I just sat in my van dry and warm.

I could tell you of more wonderful stories like this of campsite owners just going that extra mile to accommodate us. Of church halls, Boys Brigade Halls and village halls that stepped in to help us when we had problems with staying on a campsite due to the appalling weather. To you all, thank you.

The journey that we were to undertake was to start at Lands End on Saturday 18th July 09 at 1400 hours. I had been in contact with the Royal British Legion and they promised a standard-bearer and a few other people to send us off. This they did and more. The official photographs were taken at the signpost and we made our way to the start line. Philip, my cyclist for the journey and I got kitted up, crash hat, flag on the back of Alex, and crossed the official starting line at 1430. The journey had started.

The first day was only 10 miles back to our campsite. Distance enough to get use to Alex on the open road; I had only had Alex 2 days before we set off. That evening the team, with Alex, went out to dinner and we had an early night.

Putting me to bed is not any easy task due to the extent of my disability, and usually took up to 1/2 an hour and the morning get up always took 3 hrs no matter how had we tried to cut it back. Revally was always at 0600…I started the day with two cups off good Fairtrade coffee and Organic rice milk. Just one big point I have not told you. The whole team were feed on Organic and Fairtrade food. Well for 80% of the time.

The first full days ride was to me be the tester. I was sure I could drive 40 miles, but had only put this to the test once. The riding team consisted of Graham our team leader. Philip our cyclist. One person from my care team and myself. The first day and a few more to follow, were to be the hardest. I had to get use to the way that Philip would give out his instructions while we are on the road. I soon realise that while Philip was not too polite while we are on the road. He would not say while approaching a junction, “Mary when we get to the line I want you to stop and I will tell you when to go”. No Philip would say, “Go to the line and stop at the line, pointing to the ground. When I say go, go”. I knew that when Philip said go no matter where we were, I was safe to go, and seeing I am blind in my right eye, I would not see the traffic on my right without moving Alex, I trusted Philip enough and went on his command. Philip was the sort of guy who would say, “Stop” for whatever reason, and I stopped dead. There could be many reasons for this command, but one stood out to me above all others, location I am not too sure as one place blurred into an other. Any way Philip said his usual stop, turn 45 degree to the right and I stopped. I said to him we are either going the wrong way, which did happen on many occasions, or there is a beautiful view I had missed due to my blind right eye. I turned 45 degrees to the right and was meet by a breathtaking view. Why people have to go abroad for holidays when we have such a beautiful countryside I will never know.

The idea behind accommodation was we would stay on campsite and use YHAs; we had three YHAs booked for the whole trip. This worked well for the first few days due to the weather not being too bad. We stayed on our second campsite for just one night, “Treyarnon Caravan and Camping Park”. this was a real tester for all the team, as we had not had a trial run before.

By the time we, the power chair party arrived at “Treyarnon” if I remember rightly the campsite took some finding but was well worth it, the advance party had to put up four tents... Addie was in charge of the kitchen and the mess tent and as well as doing the cooking in this tent, she was to be sharing we also had to charge Alex’s batteries. Besides a lot of the cooking equipment and food in various boxes and cool boxes, we had only two gas rings and a small oven; from this tent hot, tasty food for eight people would emerge. Being organic of course, it tasted superior, and the team admitted that. At the end of a days long run for wheelchair team and the forward team, Adie would put on the table, and so would other team members during our 4 weeks on the road, meals that were hot, very tasty, and tasted as if they had been cooked at home, not in a tent in the middle of a field with rain pouring down. We drank good Fairtrade coffee and the odd bottle of organic wine. I took along some organic bear for the guys. We were all drawn to the mess tent like families to the kitchen. The person who had been with me during the day had the job of feeding me my evening meal…Thanks to all the cooks, and I think everyone had a hand at some part of the challenge at producing a meal. Graham is a dab hand at putting full English breakfasts on the table. I kepted to my diet so only got my full English towards the end of the challenge. Well worth waiting for.

So how did it all work, putting a roof over the heads for eight tied and hungry people for 4 weeks? Feeding them, making sure they had adequate personal washing and cooking facilities as well as looking after me. Looking after my care needs is no easy no mater where we were, in a tent, a church hall, YHA or a hotel…

Our tent consisted of a tent for the guys, a tent for the girls, my tent, which I shared with who ever was dong, the sleepover, the mess tent and Alan our driver of the support van, took his one man tent. We discovered that my tent was too small for the hoist and we had to buy a new one, this had to be exchanged due to the zip breaking...

Due to the extreme bad weather, many of the campsites we hoped to stay at were a bit too wet underfoot so we made a few phone calls to people that Graham knew. I did not know how many people he knew until I found myself, and the team, staying in a selection of church halls, churches, Boys Brigade halls and a Black Watch Community Centre.

Some of the halls did not have different rooms, so we all bunked in together in one large hall. I was sheltered at one end by various means, as I had to have my personal needs seen to including toileting and washing. This did not mean that a good hot meal would not appear O no. Who ever was duty cook for the night produced meals to feed us all. Jason, one of our team and who plays a guitar, got us all singing after the meal. So has the rain poured down outside, we were warm and dry inside.

Not all our accommodation was in village halls and campsites. We did stay in Premier Lodges, which I am very disappointed to say, did not have suitable accommodation for wheelchair chair users. I think that for any hotel to get starts they must have a portion of 1% of their rooms suitable for wheelchair users with a walk in shower.

While I am on my soapbox about accommodation, in this the 21 century, all accommodation should cater for disabled people. Why they do not, to me is just pure discrimination.

We booked into three YHAs along the route. The first one I arrived at at midnight, we found that even though it had a ramp up to the door, there were still two steps we could not negotiate with the power chair. Sleeping in the dudgeons was out that night and we moved onto a hotel that said it had a lift. The lift was so small, to get in, I had to be transferred onto my commode to get up to my room. The next YHA though it had a shower I could not get into it and our last YHA I knew I could not sleep in so a tent was put up for me and Jenny, she had the short straw that night and was on sleeping duty in my tent..
Let us talk about the route
The route we took, as I have said, was the CTC YHA route and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to do the E2E. I was to be taken; using this route, on mainly minor A & B roads thought some f the most stunning countryside of the UK. We went down country lanes, along some major roads, but only for a short distance, we went over beautiful more lands and saw rivers, lakes and beautiful causeways. Along the route, we tented to eat from a packed lunch eaten at the side of the road and were usually at a battery change stop. People passing us were quite surprised to see me hanging in my hoist while the two guys were busily changing Alex’s batteries. They got battery changes down to six mins.

The appalling road surfaces were a big slowing down factor. If you want to see the real state of our roads do by cycle or power chair the E2E. Alex was reduced to about 4/5 miles per hour a lot of the time when he could have been going flat out at 7 mph.