Maps, Mud and Second Chances: How I Found My Life Outside

 

Maps, Mud and Second Chances: How I Found My Life Outside

 

Childhood and the small town that shaped me

I grew up in a town that smelled faintly of industry and boiled cabbage, the kind of place where the hills were something you read about in postcards and the sea was a two‑week holiday in a caravan with a kettle that never boiled properly. My earliest adventures were modest: cycling to school, cycling to friends’ houses, the small, private triumph of getting there before the rain. That was the limit of it for a long time; not for lack of wanting, but because wanting and doing are different things, and the world I knew had a timetable and a budget and a sensible idea of what weekends were for.

There’s a particular kind of contentment in those small routines. You learn the lay of a place by the way the light hits the chip shop at five in the afternoon, by the way the bus driver nods when you get on, by the way the river smells in spring. It’s ordinary, and ordinary is a kind of safety. But it’s also a kind of fence. For a long time I didn’t know there was a gate.

The first gate: seaside holidays and the idea of distance

Holidays were the sea. Two weeks of sand, wind, and the same ice‑cream van that seemed to be there forever. We’d walk the promenade, look at the sea, and feel the small, thrilling sense that somewhere beyond that horizon things were different. But the hills, the real hills, were a different country. Windermere and Ambleside were for shopping and cafés, not for getting lost. A “nice day walk” meant a stroll along the shore at Bowness, a coffee, a cake, and the safe return.

It’s funny how the idea of adventure can live in the margins of your life for years, like a book on a high shelf you keep meaning to read. I had the book, I just hadn’t opened it.

The divorce that opened a door

In my thirties, after a divorce, the book came down. Suddenly weekends were mine in a way they hadn’t been for years. Friends were mostly married; their lives had rooms I wasn’t invited into. I joined a social group that organised events and weekends. It felt like stepping into a different language; one where people said “let’s go” and meant it.

One of those weekends was a yachting trip from Largs into the Kyles of Bute. I remember the boat leaning over as we tacked, the spray, the small, sharp laughter when the wind took the sail. There was a camaraderie to it, a sense of being part of something that required you to pay attention. That night we moored up alongside other boats and went to the pub. On the way back, the world tilted: we discovered a drop of about twenty feet where the deck should have been. In the morning, the fishing boat next to us had somehow unfastened us, moved out, and then fastened us to the harbour without waking anyone. It was absurd and terrifying and, in a way, exactly the sort of thing that makes you want to learn more.

So I learned to sail. Competent crew, evening classes for day skipper, navigation theory and practice. There’s a particular pleasure in learning to read the sea: charts, tides, wind, speed over ground. Electronics are useful, but you learn to do it the old way in case the screen goes dark. Route planning at sea is a kind of arithmetic of weather and patience. I loved it. I loved the focus it demanded, the way it made the world simple and complicated at once.

Skiing: the mountains that felt like home

Around the same time I went on a skiing weekend in Scotland. It was bleak, windy, icy, not ideal conditions, but it was brilliant. There’s a kind of clarity to cold weather that makes everything feel sharper. After that, skiing became a thread through my life: Andorra, France, Italy, the USA, Canada. The mountains have a way of making you small and, paradoxically, very present. I introduced my parents to skiing on a weekend in Scotland. They were in their early fifties and they loved it, especially the après‑ski. They joined a ski club and went away a few times a year, preferring the mountains to a summer holiday. Watching them discover something new at that age was one of those quiet, profound pleasures that stays with you.

The small experiments: land yachting, abseiling, canal vaulting

I dabbled in other things too: land yachting, abseiling, fierljeppen (canal vaulting). These were small experiments in being braver than I felt. They were also invitations to meet people who were doing things for the joy of doing them, not for any particular reward. That’s where I met someone at work who liked the same oddities as I did. We got together, married, had two wonderful children. Life rearranged itself around them, as it should. The adventures didn’t stop entirely, but they changed shape. There were fewer long weekends away and more days spent at the park, more paddling in the lakes, more short walks where the children could scramble and get muddy.

Family life: the gentle compromise

Family life is expensive in ways that aren’t just financial. Time becomes a currency you spend carefully. I didn’t do much sailing during those years, but we did the occasional ski holiday. The outdoors became a family project: camping, exploring the north west and the Lakes, finding caves and limestone pavements, scrambles that were just the right level of thrilling for small legs. We went to Gaping Gill on an open day and were lowered into the cave through a small hole that the stream passed down. The kids loved the sense of being tiny in a big place. I loved watching them learn to be curious.

Single again: making the world a playground

After another divorce, with little money and two children to entertain, I started to hike more seriously. On the weekends I didn’t have the children, I’d research routes and plan adventures for the weekends I did. I looked for places where they could scramble, paddle, find caves, or see something unusual. I did a navigation course and used those skills with them. We camped, explored remote parts of the Lakes, and went on hikes that felt like small epics.

I taught them navigation tricks I’d learned: following a bearing on Kinder, one person with the compass, the other going ahead fifty to a hundred metres, lining up, swapping. They loved it because it turned walking into a game with rules and a prize: the prize being the view at the top, or the discovery of a hidden stream. Those were the moments that felt like the real inheritance, not money or things, but the way to look at a landscape and see possibility.

There’s a particular kind of joy in planning something for children: you have to think about what will hold their attention, what will tire them out in the right way, what will make them say, “That was brilliant.” It’s a different kind of navigation, not of maps and tides, but of moods and appetites. We found caves, limestone pavements, and scrambles.

Mountain biking and Trailquest: maps on two wheels

A few years later I met my current wife. We loved hiking together and covered most of the Peak District, finding exciting walks for the kids every other weekend. We moved to New Mills, just outside the Peaks, where bridleways and trails were practically on the doorstep. My wife had had a horse years before and, seeing the riding around here, she longed for one again. She got a horse, and I bought a mountain bike to ride alongside her.

That bike opened another door. I started exploring bridleways, looking for routes we could ride together. My son loved cycling too, and we did rides together. Then I discovered Trailquest, orienteering on a bike. You get a map with about twenty places marked and three hours to get to as many as possible. Each location has points; you lose points for being late. It’s a brilliant way to see an area and find new places. My son and I did it once a month. It was a way of turning exploration into a game again, but with the added thrill of speed and the ache of a good ride.

I organised hikes and bike rides with friends and colleagues. We cycled coast to coast, did a week on a version of the Southern Upland Way, and a multi‑day loop in the Yorkshire Dales inspired by a book on the best cycle trips in the world. Those trips were about more than exercise; they were about seeing the country at a pace that lets you notice things, the way a village sits in a valley, the smell of a field, the kindness of a stranger who offers you water.

Empty nest: the time to be selfish in a good way

When the children left for university, the house felt both too quiet and full of possibility. My wife and I have a relationship that allows for separate interests and shared ones. We’re happy to go off and do our own things and to come back together with stories. With the children gone, I could commit to training as a mountain leader. That meant planning and completing at least twenty mountain hikes before a six‑day training course, then another twenty before a six‑day assessment. It was a discipline and a reason to visit parts of the UK I might never have seen otherwise: remote areas, wild camping, navigating in bad weather.

Qualifying as a mountain leader felt like a kind of homecoming. I had guiding work lined up, but then Covid struck and everything paused. When I finally started freelancing again, I led walks, marshalled charity hikes, took groups on sunrise climbs up Snowdon and Scafell, and led school groups. There’s a particular satisfaction in being the friendly, competent face in a remote place. People at the limits of their endurance are often the most cheerful because they know they’re doing it for a cause. Being there for them, keeping them safe, helping them find their way, felt like a proper use of the skills I’d gathered over the years.

Gravel, sportives, and the accidental Fred Whitton

I love mountain biking because it’s off‑road and away from traffic, but an advert for a closed‑road sportive near Perth caught my eye. I built a road bike, entered, and went with a friend. It was great fun. He asked if I’d do a sportive on Anglesey with him, and that pulled me into gravel riding. Quiet roads, long distances, the need for a bit more planning to avoid traffic, I loved it. I did a few sportives, and when my friend wanted to do his first 100, I was there. Quiet roads let you travel further, see more, and plan more carefully.

At some point I “accidentally” applied for the Fred Whitton challenge. It wasn’t really an accident, more like a moment of bravado followed by the realisation that I’d committed to something that would require serious training. I trained, I rode, and I finished. I watched a video about the NC500 and planned to ride that too, staying in B&Bs and hostels, seeing the country at a pace that lets you notice the small things.

Bikepacking and the next chapter

Having spent the last year mostly hiking, I’ve decided to try bikepacking. I’m building a new bike and planning adventures for 2026. There’s a particular pleasure in the planning stage: choosing routes, thinking about where to sleep, imagining the small, practical problems you’ll solve on the road. I’ll write about the build, the planning, and the trips themselves in my blog. It feels like the natural next step, combining the solitude of hiking with the range of cycling.

What it all adds up to

If you asked me what the through‑line of all this is, I’d say it’s curiosity. Not the flashy kind, but the steady, persistent curiosity that makes you get up early to see the light on a hill, that makes you take a map and a compass and trust them, that makes you say yes to a weekend with strangers and come back with a story. It’s the curiosity that keeps you learning: how to sail, how to read a tide, how to lead a group, how to pack a bike for a week on the road.

There’s also a stubbornness to it. Life has handed me a few hard things, divorces, money worries, the ordinary disappointments, and the way I’ve responded is by making plans. Not grand plans, necessarily, but plans that give shape to time: a course to take, a ride to train for, a route to explore. Those plans are a kind of promise to myself that there will be more to come.

The small pleasures that matter

I love the small things: the way a map smells when you unfold it, the sound of a tent zipper in the morning, the way a cup of tea tastes after a long walk, the quiet satisfaction of a route well planned. I love the people I’ve met along the way, the ones who share a trail, a laugh, a sandwich. I love the way the outdoors makes you both insignificant and very much alive.

There’s a warmth to this life that I didn’t expect when I was a child cycling to school. It’s not dramatic in the way films are dramatic. It’s quieter, more domestic. It’s the kind of life that we all would notice: the small gestures, the way people talk when they think no one is listening, the way ordinary days add up to something that feels like a life.

Looking forward: plans, not promises

I’m not someone who needs a list of conquests. I don’t need to tick every box. What I want is the next good route, the next small challenge, the next chance to be outside with people I like. Bikepacking feels like the right thing for now: a way to carry what you need, to move slowly, to see more, to sleep under different skies. I’m building the bike, planning the routes, and imagining the mornings I’ll wake up to new views.