Girl on a Hike part 1... in the beginning

 And now for something completely different.

Firstly, it's Monday and I don't post on Mondays. Secondly, this isn't about trains. But I asked on twitter and 2/3 of the respondents said they'd like to see this on my blog. So, here goes.

Welcome to Girl on a Hike.

This is a new series of posts, following my journey over the next year, as I train to take part in the London 2021 Marathon Walk (not the same as the running event). There will be a post most weeks, on Monday at 10am. I say most weeks, because there will likely be some weeks, particularly before I start fully training in the Spring, where I don't have anything interesting to say. Today's post will be explaining a bit about my challenge, why I am doing it, and what I've done so far to prepare.

Why are you doing this?

Yes, this is a very good question. I'm still not entirely sure myself. Whilst at uni, I have really lost the "love" I had for exercise, and I've really not eaten healthily, so I've put on a decent amount of weight. I say "love" for exercise because it's never been the highlight of my day, but I've become more and more sedentary over the last 3 years. So I'd like to lose the weight I've put on, and get back my fitness. I'm also raising money for a charity, in the hope that will help to motivate me even more.

Who are you raising money for?

I am raising money for Girlguiding. I am a volunteer with the charity, and know how badly, like other charities, it has been hit by the pandemic, at all levels. I'd like to help give something back to a charity that has done so much for me over the years.

What are you doing?

I have signed up to the 2021 London Marathon Walk event, organised by Discover Adventure. I don't know the exact route yet but the information I have suggests that it starts in central London, before heading east and south over the Millenium bridge, before using the Greenwich foot tunnel to cross back to the northern edge of the Thames. Heading back into Central London, we will head west towards Westminster, before ending up back where we started. We have a full training plan, which I'll be following from the spring. The plan is 18 weeks long, hence why I don't need to start for quite a while yet, however I will be doing some walks before I officially start training as there's a few things I'd like to test out.

What have you done so far?

I've had a kit list through and, whilst I have most of the items needed already, I've sourced a new rucksack and a couple of water bottles to use on the walk. It's been recommended that we have a rucksack in the region of 25-30L, with a waist strap to help carry it more comfortably. The water bottles are of the variety which have like a built in straw, to save me having to repeatedly unscrew them. The bag had side pickets for bottles and I'm planning on using one for water and one for electrolytes. I'll also carry a slightly larger screw top bottle, as we've been told to be able to carry 2L, and I can top my bottles up at the checkpoints/rest stations on the way. I can refill my drinking bottles as I need to using my larger bottle. I've also picked up some relatively cheap dumbbells to do some weight training with at home, to help me build up the strength to carry my bag. I have to carry water, any snacks I want to provide myself (they do provide some food but if there's something specifically we want we have to provide it ourselves) plus any of my layers (waterproof/fleece etc) that I take off during the day.

Nutrition is something which is key for something like this, as there's nothing worse than trying to walk a long way on an overly full stomach, but additionally there's no point at all in me not consuming enough and not making it to the end. There's a couple of strands to this: carbs/protein and electrolytes. I'll explain the carbs and protein strand of it first because it's less complicated. 

As I walk, I'll be using a lot of carbohydrates to power my muscles, and there won't be enough stored in my body (even with carb-loading beforehand) to not eat during the day. You can basically snack on whatever you want, but it's important I try stuff to check it doesn't make me feel unwell. I've picked up some pretzels that come in individual serving bags, as well as some cheese flavoured savoury biscuits. I also have sweets! One other thing that I've picked up to try are some energy sweets, similar to the gels used by runners, which pack a punch of sugar to give you energy. I've used them once before on a long camp with Guides when I was exhausted, so a few of those may be useful, particularly on the really long training walks and the day itself when I don't want to eat constantly. Protein is useful to help repair my muscles after exercise, so I've picked up a protein flapjack to try, an I'm looking into other options. 

Electrolytes are often found in sports drinks and are minerals, such as sodium, which can be found in the body. You often lose these when you sweat, so it's important to replace these if you're exercising heavily or for a long period of time. I've picked up two types of these to try: a sachet that you simply tip into water and shake, and effervescent tablets that you drop into the drink. Whilst a lot of these have flavours, they can taste salty, so having a separate water bottle just for these will be useful on the day, so I can switch between electrolytes and water without needing to rinse the bottle out. In a way, they are similar to the rehydration sachets that you can get if you are ill, and I know that the taste of those was greatly enhanced by some fruit squash, so I've also obtained some of the Robinsons squash'd squash on the go packs. You just squeeze these into the drink to add the squash, rather than having to carry a bottle and pour them as you would at home. I'm looking forward to giving all of this a go.

I'm going to leave this here for today as this seems to be quite a long post. I'll be back on Wednesday with your next Girl on Rails update, or for more Girl on a Hike check back next Monday. I'm hoping to do a medium (6-8 mile) walk in the next few days, so will be able to tell you how that went next week! 

 

Hitting 10% complete

After the brief interlude of the rolling stock themed post last time, I'm here with some more rail action, and it's an exciting one because this is the blog post in which I reach 10% complete on the national rail network.

I knew I was pretty close to 10% complete and was trying to figure out where I should go to celebrate this little milestone, and I thought Paddington would potentially be an idea, but I didn't actually end up at Paddington on the day I hit 10%. I had made arrangements to meet a friend for a socially distanced lunch (eating out to help out) at Westfield Statford City in East London, and decided to use the Overground from Clapham Junction round to Stratford as I'd ended up on a much earlier train to London than I needed to. And so, as I passed around zone 2 on the overground, I hit 10% at Kentish Town West station.

I didn't get off the train at this station, instead heading to Stratford, where I met my friend. I then ended up getting some tube train action in as, once I'd left my friend, I headed to the centre's Lush in the hope that they had a specific product in (a solid cleanser bar, which melts on the skin, but in the new larger size that has been introduced). Unfortunately they didn't, so I decided to head for the other Westfield centre (White City) to see if they had one instead (spoiler: they didn't - apparently it had only just been launched online and the stock hadn't reached the stores yet. I bought a small one as I had almost run out completely, so will have to wait for that one to run out before I try for the larger one again). When working out how to get across London, I decided to head for Liverpool Street and the Circle Line, rather than using the central line to Shepherd's Bush, in the hope that I may be able to see one of the new FLIRT trains that Greater Anglia have introduced. Well, I saw one. Going in the opposite direction to me. They look nice, and I hope to catch one soon!

A couple of weeks later and I headed back to White City Westfield because they have a specific shop which, whilst the chain has one in Nottingham where I've been at Uni, my home town doesn't. Croydon has one, but I decided I'd rather go and explore Shepherd's Bush Overground station by boarding the Overground up from Clapham. I'd planned to go to Five Guys for lunch, but it took me ages to find it because I got lost!

Whilst in London, I had two ideas. Firstly was that I could visit Paddington and get to ride on one of new Crossrail trains (I got one of the old units in January) by going to Ealing Broadway. The second thought was that, given the fact that at the moment I have limited scope for longer trips, I thought I'd try to tick off all of the stations on the Tube Map. I'm still working out exactly where I am at currently regarding this, but I knew I hadn't been very far west on the District Line, so decided to use this to get to Ealing, where I got lunch and a drink from Starbucks (Smores Frappuccino) before getting a train into Paddington, which I promptly forgot to photograph....

I'm going to leave this here before this post gets excessively long, but next time I'll be explaining how and why exactly I travelled a considerable distance for the purposes of going to Argos.

The trains I've been on (part 4)

 Hello, and welcome back to the last post in my series about the classes of train that I've been on. Today, we have another 6 classes of train to discuss, some of which I have stronger memories of than others. 

We start with the class 365, which I used between London Kings Cross and Cambridge on one of my trips to the city. They are very similar to some of the other units that have been operated by Thameslink over the last decade, so I don't think there's a huge amount of new things I can say. 

The next train today is one that I can say quite a lot about as it operates on one of my local routes. The class 377 "electrostar" units are operated by Southern and primarily cover some of their longer-distance services, rather than the services that operate to suburban London destinations. I do really like these trains, particularly the fact that they have air conditioning, which is a blessing on hot days. I like the mix of seats with and without tables, although I'm not a huge fan of the sections of these trains with 3+2 seating because it's a pain to get bags behind you. I've done a couple of shopping trips to the Westfield centres in London and when you've got several carrier bags it can be a bit of a struggle if you get on a 3+2 carriage, so I always aim not to do this!

I remember the class 387 units mostly from their days on Thameslink, although I don't hugely remember them. They were okay I guess, seeing as nothing has stuck in my head which was overly positive or negative. 

The 390 "pendolino" units are one of my favourite trains in operation in this country at the moment. Operated by Avanti West Coast (and previously Virgin Trains) on the West Coast main line, I've never had a bad experience on them, although take that with a pinch of salt because I've only used them 4 times, and all in first class. The first time I used one was between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly on a family holiday (we came home via York), and we had booked first class tickets because, with our friends and family railcard it was close enough in price to the standard ticket that we actually saved money versus travelling in standard and having to purchase food for lunch (we were on a lunchtime departure). It was certainly a good call as the food kept coming! The "Uglies" chocolates are literally my favourite thing on earth! We also all amused ourselves because we all thought the the "sausage roll" mentioned on the menu would be of the variety commonly sold by Greggs... and that was fine, that was lunch. And then the sausage roll arrived, and it was a sausage in a roll, which we were all thrilled about. The staff's customer service has always been brilliant as well. We received similarly good service on a short trip between London and Birmingham (and return) last year. My most recent trip with them (and the only one of these trips that was actually after Avanti took over the franchise) was in January, when I needed to head from London to Manchester for a careers event, having been in London for a theatre trip (the good old days!). I was travelling alone, and was unmistakably the youngest person in first class, but had splurged to save myself the hassle of buying lunch, and because I'd had a rough couple of weeks around when I'd booked the trip and wanted a treat, if I'm honest. I also love the lounge at Euston, particularly the chocolate brownie. 

The next train will soon be disappearing from the network and is the class 483 units, which operate on the Isle of Wight. Formed of former 1938 stock due to the clearance at Ryde Tunnel not being great enough for standard national rail size trains, I've used these trains quite a bit over the years on numerous trips to the Island, particularly to Shanklin and the Isle of Wight Steam railway, connecting at Smallbrook Junction. My last couple of trips to the island have been by road, with a uni group, so I've not been on board for many years, but I always used to love the bounciness of them. I even remember the dinosaur livery from the early 2000s, although I was pretty young at the time! Considering their age and the reliability issues which have plagued them, I do think it's time for them to be retired, however much I love them. I'm hoping to go to the Isle of Wight very soon to visit them again before they go and will be aiming to go soon after the line reopens next year to try out the new trains and see the changes. This will also be my first trip on a big ferry (well, catamaran) since COVID-19 hit so it will be interesting to see how things have changed there. I probably won't have long to spend on the Island, but I'll be hoping to go and get fish and chips from a proper chip shop! I say a big ferry as I have done Gosport recently, and that will be in a blog post next week!

And so we come to the final train of this series of posts, which is another favourite (again because it operates locally to me), and that is the Thameslink class 700. I like the walk through nature of the trains, which makes it easy for passengers to spread along the length of the train when it's busy. They also seem altogether bigger inside than some of the older trains they replaced and have a great deal of space for people to stand and sit. Plus they are really long! My only bugbear with them is the fact that it's always quieter at the front/back and the entrance to my local station is in the middle of the train, but I will live!

That's it for today, but on Saturday there will be a post about how I hit 10% completion!

The Docklands light railway

I was in London, at the end of July, when I got the impulse to go for a ride on the DLR. I'd met a friend for lunch in central London, so headed back to London Bridge via a very circuitous route -  the central Line to Bank (where there's one of the biggest gaps I've ever had to mind), then the DLR down to Greenwich, where I got onto a Southeastern service, calling at Deptford en route, back to London Bridge to get a train home. And I was on the train home when I had an idea. I recalled Geoff Marshall's video from the start of this year, where he attempted to break the record for visiting all of the DLR stations, and where he mentioned the explorerticket.co.uk website, where all of these unofficial challenges can be found. 

When I got home, I logged on to the website and, having read the rules, decided to attempt the challenge. Whilst I was in no way aiming for the record (indeed, I didn't run AT all, and I did this during the COVID-19 reduced timetables), I decided to time my journey for the fun of it. Unfortunately constraints on when I was able to be in London also meant that I was travelling off-peak (between approximately 12 noon and 2pm) so had to change at Canary Wharf rather than being able to get a direct train from Stratford to Lewisham. 

My route involved starting at Shadwell, where I boarded a train to Bank. Having made my way through the one-way system to Monument, I used the tube to Tower Hill, from where I walked to Tower Gateway DLR station. And this is where I had my first delay. I missed the train by less than 20 seconds. I would say the driver could see me when they left, but I know the DLR is automatic! If I'd have ran the distance, I'd have crossed the road earlier (the pedestrian green man disappeared just before I got there) so would have easily made the train.

But as I was doing this for fun rather than to break the record, I kept going, boarding a train at Tower Hill 10 minutes later and heading for Beckton. From here, I caught the bus to near King George V station, although I had a 13 minute wait at the bus stop. It was an extremely hot day when I did this trip so I debated running into ASDA in Beckton to get a cold drink, but wasn't convinced I'd get back in time for my bus. Instead, I found a local shop on the short walk between the bus stop and King George V station, so nipped into there to grab a drink, which was possibly the highlight of this very warm day. 

From here, I made the return journey to Woolwich (with a not inconsiderable wait at Woolwich for a train heading north), before heading up to Stratford International, where after another wait I headed back to Stratford to head down towards Canary Wharf. Again, I seemed to have a long wait here before the train left (I think it may have even been a bit late), however had a good change at Canary Wharf for a Lewisham train, finishing in around 2 hours and 45 minutes.

From there, I headed back into London Victoria, from where I headed home, feeling very warm indeed!  

Stations visited: Greenwich, Deptford, Lewisham, Nunhead, Denmark Hill and Peckham Rye.

The trains I've been on (part 3)

 Hello again, and welcome back. Apologies for not posting in a couple of weeks, whilst I've been dealing with a few family issues. I was planning on posting this a couple of weeks ago but, given the tragic events in Scotland, I felt it was appropriate to wait until today to post again. 

Today's post is the 3rd part of the "Trains I've been on" series.

We start today with the Class 313, currently in operation along the East and West Coastway routes operated by Southern. I've been on one of these trains on two occasions, both of which were back in the summer of 2016 when I was looking at universities. I used one from Brighton to Falmer (to go and look at Sussex University) and one from Chichester to Portsmouth and Southsea to go and look at Portsmouth University, and I must admit I was quite fond of them, particularly as they didn't seem to feature any of the 3+2 style seating which is common on Southern services.

The Class 315 is today's second train to be mentioned, which I rode on the TFL rail network, between London Liverpool Street and Romford in January this year. I had planned to go to Shenfield, however my main aim for the day was to do the Romford-Upminster branch line, which was operated by the same class of train I believe. I needed to get back into central London as I was meeting a friend to check into a hotel and have dinner before we went to see a show in the West End.

And now on to a train that I haven't traveled on for many years. The Class 317 trains are confined to areas of the Greater Anglia network and are in the process of being replaced, but my experience on one of these trains dates back several years, to when they operated on the Great Northern network, when I traveled on one between King's Cross and Cambridge.

Another type of train formerly operated by First Capital Connect, I've ridden on a fair few Class 319 units, and I must admit I wasn't hugely fond of either these or the 317s. I particularly dislike the 3+2 configuration which is often found on these units, as the aisle is then really not very wide. I am looking forward to seeing what they look like after conversion into the class 769 units, which will be going onto a few different routes in Wales and England.

The Class 357 is today's final train to get a mention, and I've only been on one of these, and it was for the short journey from Upminster to Fenchurch Street back in January, when I'd been on the Romford to Upminster line. I quite like these trains, but I don't feel I can comment too much on them seeing as I've been onboard for only a short journey. My memories of that day are also slightly clouded by the fact that I managed to get lost trying to get from Fenchurch Street to my hotel for the night!

I'm going to leave this here for today, but Saturday's post is going to be the story of how I did all the DLR stops, so that's going to be a long one.

Another post-lockdown trip (or 2)

I've made a couple of trips since lockdown now. After my short hop up to Croydon for a job interview, I made my way down to the South Coast, for another interview (which I also didn't get). This involved travelling on 2 trains, changing at Haywards Heath in the middle for a train heading for Littlehampton, to take me to my destination in Shoreham-by-Sea. I didn't tick off any new stations on this trip, however I was shocked at some of the face mask positions, including as covers for the chin, rather than the nose and the mouth. I was also slightly put off by an individual who felt the need to eat a hard-boiled egg on a train. I even saw the "Thank you Key Workers" Class 700.

But my next trip took me back into London for the first time since lockdown. To be brutally honest, I was a bit wary. but I wanted to meet up (socially distanced of course) with a friend from uni. So I got the train to Croydon, before picking up tramlink to Wimbledon, where I met my friend, before getting a train to Waterloo. Here we changed for Waterloo East to cross the river to Charing Cross, leaving us with a short walk to Covent Garden, where we got food and sat and caught up. This trip meant I actually got the chance to tick off a few new stations: Wimbledon, Waterloo and Vauxhall. I didn't stop at any new stations on the way home. 

I've been to London on two more occasions since that day, and I'm actually going to skip over the first of these two trips, as it was the inspiration for something that I'm planning on doing tomorrow (check my social media for updates on the day), and I'll therefore mention it in next week's post. But on my last trip to London, I got the tube to Westfield London, which is near the old BBC television centre. I did this via Hammersmith, changing between the two stations. At the Piccadilly and District Line Station, I even saw a floral display reflecting the rolling stock used on the subsurface lines.

 I took the opportunity to go in the large Lush store at the centre, which was fantastic because my local Lush is tiny, and with really sensitive skin I've found I get on with their products really quite well. My local store is so tiny that, given the current social distancing guidelines, they've just put a table with a till at the door and you have to request what you want, whereas the Westfield one gave me the chance to browse. I picked up a couple of new products to try and I'm really enjoying using them.

  

On my return to Victoria, I had a bit of spare time before I needed to be home, so took the opportunity to get on a train to West Croydon via Crystal Palace, ticking off a few new stations on the way. From there, I simply took the tram back to East Croydon, from where I got a train home.

Stations ticked off: Battersea Park, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth Common, Balham, Streatham Hill, West Norwood, Gipsy Hill, Crystal Palace, Norwood Junction, West Croydon.

Having re-checked my spreadsheet, I've also made a mistake with a calculation, due to how my spreadsheet is set up, so there's a few extra stations added in to my total today.

I think I'll leave this here for today.

Station Count: 237

I'm Back!!

Well hello there everyone, and welcome back to my blog! 

It's been a while now since I last posted - I have been having a few technical issues which made it really difficult for me to be able to upload, but I'm back now and I think those issues have been dealt with for good. Or at least for the foreseeable future, anyway.

So, I'm going to continue my "Trains I've been on" series in the next few weeks, but I'm going to use today's post for a proper "get to know me" post. Those of who who follow me on twitter will know that a few weeks ago, I asked for numbers between 1 and 100 for an upcoming blog post. This is that post! I found a website online with 100 questions for a get to know me post, but I felt that 100 questions was probably overkill, so I'm going to do 20 of those, as well as adding the basic things like who I am!

I got some suggestions off twitter, and have used a random number generator to select the rest of the questions.

Name: Charlotte

Age: 21

Job: Currently unemployed, having finished studying Biochemistry and Biological Chemistry at the 

University of Nottingham this year.

Where I'm based: Sussex, in the South East

Am I left or right handed? I am right handed.

What's the thing I can't leave the house without? My purse and my phone. I don't use contactless payments on my phone, hence why I need my purse!

Am I a morning or night person? I'm more of a night person, but I'm not hugely either. 

Am I on time or always late? I'm always really early getting to places, unless it's a 9am lecture at uni, in which case I mastered the art of walking in at 8:59 am.

Have I ever gone camping! Yes! I'm actually a volunteer Guide leader with Girlguiding, and I was in the Scout and Guide society at University, so I tend to camping at least once a year. Except this year, obviously.

If money were no object, what would you get for your next birthday? Theatre tickets to see something in the West End. I'm looking forward to seeing Six, & Juliet and Come From Away when the West End reopens, and I want to see Frozen and Andrew Lloyd Webber's new version of Cinderella once they open (in theory next year).  I like theatre almost as much as I like trains, but theatre costs a lot more!

Was I ever a Scout or Brownie? I was a Brownie... I was also a Guide, which is the section of Girlguiding equivalent to Scouts. I then became a Young Leader and then an adult leader, and have never left!

How tall am I? I'm about 5 foot 1, maybe 5 foot 2.

Do I have children? I don't, but I'm only 21 at the moment, so I'm still young. I'd quite like to have kids one day, although it won't be for several years yet!

Do I/Have I played any sports? I used to swim when I was younger, in fact I swam for my school at local events on a couple of occasions when I was at primary school. I was also a member of the University of Nottingham Salsa dance team during my time at uni, which involved several competitions a year against other university teams. I missed a lot of the 2019-20 season due to injury though, which was a shame.

What is my favourite foreign food? I'm going to be really boring here, and say pizza. I'm not all that into spicy food, or that adventurous generally with food. I'm quite fond of tacos and fajitas too, and I make a pretty good pasta carbonara. 

What's my favourite snack? To be honest, it changes every so often, and often between sweet and savoury things. I'm quite fond of anything chocolate based, or party rings biscuits, or if I want something savoury I'd probably be tempted by a sausage roll. 

What is my shoe size? I'm a 4/5. It depends on the shoe and on what socks I'd wear with it. Annoyingly I have really wide feet though, so it can be difficult to find shoes that fit.

What phone do I have? I have a samsung galaxy A5 (2017). It's the first smartphone I've ever had, and I'm definitely an android fan. I'm not fussed about something being the most up to date phone and the A range is really reasonable in price.

What's my favourite colour? Pink! I've always been a fan of pink. It varies what shade, sometimes I'm more into brighter pinks, then other times I like a more pale pink and other times I'm a fond of an almost coral colour, that's more orange-based.

Do I have any piercings or tattoos? No, and I can't see that changing, although I'm quite a fan of temporary tattoos!

What's my favourite restaurant? For the variety of food and really student-friendly prices, I'm going to to go with wetherspoons.

Mac or Windows? Windows. We had macs in the music technology room at school, which I used for my GCSE music composition. I used them a couple of times a week for most of a year and I still had no idea what I was doing with them.

Am I more of a tidy person, or a messy one? I'm definitely a messy person. I can make a mess really quickly.  

What is one item on my bucket list? I'd like to stay at Corrour in Scotland at some point in the future.

And that's it for today's post. Check back here on Wednesday at 10am for a new post, about some of my post-lockdown train journeys, before the continuation of my series about rolling stock I've travelled on next Saturday at 10am.