Beyond the Setting Sun

Welcome to America

'Are you unwell, sir?'

'Oh... no, I'm fine.'  I was sitting aboard a Boeing 747.  My face was pale and the tray holding my breakfast had just slipped, leaving me juggling with a buttered roll before the alarmed flight attendant.  This was my first long haul flight and all was not well.

On boarding the plane I'd noticed that all the seats were of different colours, then the fold-down tray had collapsed for the first time.  The idea that the plane had been put together from bits of other jets not lucky enough to make it across the Atlantic soon crossed my mind and then we had take off.

Through the window I saw the wing wobbling up and down, almost flapping.  With my ears popping as the plane climbed higher, I felt queasy.  As we cleared heavy clouds, I glanced outside and saw moisture jetting away from the engine.  'Is that fuel?'  I wondered.  I gulped to clear my ears and looked through the window.  Below was a white skyscape and below that the unknown.

I had taken the cheapest flight available, which explained why the inflight movie had no English translation.  At that moment I didn't care too much, I just wanted to make it across the Atlantic in one piece.

There had been a hijacking on this airline the week before, so I figured the odds against that happening again were pretty good.

In one thing I had been lucky.  Beside me sat Roger and Sandra Wenley, a young couple from New Zealand.  We soon started talking.  Roger was a physiotherapist, with his own business in Auckland, whilst Sandra was a doctor.  Business was good and they had decided to see the world before settling down.  Selling up house they had journeyed through Indonesia, Nepal, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, experienced Paris, then London and were now set to 'do' the States.  They had seen the Himalayas, the Parthenon, the canals of Venice, the Alps, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.  Between these landmarks, the Wenleys had many an adventure.  Staying in native huts in Nepal, Roger had contracted dysentery.  In the Alps, they skied and tried some climbing.  Yet, with all their side trips and sights, their journey was a far cry from mine.  I told them tales of my trip through Britain and my plans to walk to San Francisco... via Death Valley.

'You'll have to wortch out for those dizzurts, it could get nasty with yer electrolytes... stress fractures, muscle fatigue... not ta mention heat stroke ta worry about.  Still, I guess you'd be in pretty good shape after yer warm up in England.'

My thoughts went back to the 1100 miles of Britain.  After my near collapse in the ancient burial grounds of Strath Naver, the journey had improved.  In six days I reached the West Coast of Scotland.  There was beautiful, warming sunshine as Enard Bay appeared, flat, shimmering and hazy at the foot of rocky mountains.

From there my route swung south and through the Western Highlands, where the last snows of winter still clung to the 3,000 foot peaks that I crossed.  Epic days followed, as I walked into moonlit nights and camped by lochs, drinking fresh water, free in the wilds.  Like fjords, the lochs cut into the mountain ranges from the sea and mist would roll in at night.  In the corries were deer, and the snow-veined mountains gave rise to waterfalls where frogs and lizards would hop and scurry about as I clambered my way to the sky.

From the wild highlands the way stretched on.  My tent became infested with midges that fed on my blood.  A week's nightly search followed to remove their unwanted presence before I slept.

The peace of the wilds of Scotland, with their cold, cold nights, gave way to lowlands, as the journey took me on to Edinburgh.  There I appeared on local radio and handed over money collected en route to Cancer Relief.  Over the Pentland Hills, on to the Pennine Way and all was well until Hadrian's Wall.  Leaping over a fence, I came face to face with a frisky bull that took one look at my red coat and decided to charge.  A record-breaking dash across the field followed, before I jumped over the next fence.