Joining Loose Ends

Book excerpt: It was a crazy idea for a grand adventure ¿ and it changed them in ways they never imagined. The British author and his wife took a year out from their suburban Australian life to return to the country of his birth and trek from one end to the other. Creating a unique 2,801kms route from John O¿Groats to Land¿s End, they left the roads behind for the countryside, lugging backpacks through rocky cliff paths, sunken holloways, thousand-year-old earthworks, windswept moors and dense forest mires.Over five gruelling and exhilarating months, Keith and Debby walked as planned. But what began as just a long walk transformed into a second, unexpected journey, to a place not shown on any maps. By the end, there could be no going back to the life they had left behind. A modern travel memoir, Joining Loose Ends is the inspiring story of a couple who slowed their lives down and discovered a new way of seeing the world and their place in it. Based on Keith¿s daily journals and told with honesty and humour, it brings to life the magic and majesty of the British countryside, and shares the stories of the extraordinary people they met. Whether staggering on the verge of collapse up a steep highland hill, crossing a dangerous mountain summit in dense fog with fear for their lives, running in joyful abandon along a soaring cliff top, or risking a Scottish public bar wearing rose-coloured Crocs to watch an England football match, the story of their journey is full of life, love and laughter.