Gay Man Walking

23/06/2022

SO turns out I won’t be able to walk the remainder of the with my big ass backpack for the rest of the summer due to my knee 🥵 but tbh I’m okay with it because a) it’s summer b) my knee is more important than dancing at cliff edges c) it’s been two months since I’ve been off trail which has helped ease me into not walking d) super grateful to even be able-bodied enough to do 8 days of it and feel like a lucky boy in general. Onwards and upwardsss (expect not literally)✨ also Physio has taught me so much about human bodies; specifically patellar tendons and I am soooo grateful for body scientists the world over 🙏🏼 Anyways time for a gay ass summerrrr 🌈

I’ve been in Teignmouth for a little blur of time and managed a walkies to Shaldon, and yes the seagull baby was blasting Break My Soul from that speaker and vibing like the rest of us 👏

**oy

06/05/2022

properly missing this today!
☀️ + 🌊 + 🥧 - 💨 x ♾, please and thx xoxo

26/04/2022

hiiiiii 👋🏼 NEWS y’all: okay so FYI I have a pretty bum set of knees at the moment from going straight out the gate guns blazing (=knees blazing) on the South West Coast Path and have been resting for about a week now. I went to the doctor yesterday and have been told I shouldn’t walk up and down hills for a month to heal; and this trail I’m on contains an elevation that adds up to four times the height of Everest, so: HILLS to the power of infinity, which means, no walking here until either this land becomes flat or my tendons heal. Womp womppp (or that trumpet sound after “it’s chocolate”).

Definitely a bummer, literally as I’ve just been sitting for a while now, but the plan was heading home to Canada for a few weeks very soon regardless - so now the updated plan is to start up again when I get back here early June! At least it’s not too long until then, and a great part about starting this early in Spring is that I’m still just at the start of the hiking season, so plenty of time to frolick (gently I’ll add) 👏

I’ve already had my pity party (there was cake, it was cute) so none of that! I’ll be back on it ASAP, and otherwise will be keeping busy with some content here and general life things as I day dream about walking from pasty to pub. I also want to thank and his family for adopting me right off the trail, for the time being - it’s been a weight off my shoulders and knees being able to stay put. ♥️

PSA to listen your body ✨ eat ur greens ✨ believe in your stars ✨ and reach for the dreams ✨ xoxo rossipgirl

23/04/2022

some snippitysnaps along the ☀️!

1. so a “public footpath” here means there is a right of way through private land/farmer’s fields, they’re very handy and because of their abundance they make for a great choose your own adventure style of walk. This path is entitled “I say hay you say fever”

2. Fisherman huts on Portland island/today’s affordable housing

3. no. 2, most welcomed photo bomb

4. The Jurassic coast east of Branscombe beach 👌

5. Wild camping view of Quaint Village no. 572, also don’t tell anyone I’m wild camping I don’t wanna make it public 🙏🏼

6. The view looking back at Dawlish. That train journey tho 👀

7. The view out my tent somewhere , also note how stoked my campstove is for the photo-opp 🕺🏼

8. accidentally stalking humans while nature does her thing

9. Did I mention there are cliffs here?

10. taking a break from human stalking and cliff photographing ♥️🧚🏼‍♂️

21/04/2022

wowwwwie I’ve hit 3000 followers here 🤩 thanks for the love and support y’all! can’t stop and won’t stop sharing tales, tips, tricks, info, history, pictures of pastries, and selfies from the trails! On that note anyone got any recommendations of trails they’ve done/heard about in Europe?! Might fancy somewhere super warm to walk through next 👀

Also if you get a chance I’d love it if you could subscribe to my YouTube if you haven’t already 🙂 the link is here: https://youtube.com/c/ItsRossJackson

Also I’ll be posting lots to instagram now too as I’m on the currently! Follow me here: www.instagram.com/itsrossjackson

XOXO Ross

The true story of a real life gay human male tripping his way down the world's long-distance trails! So, 9999+ hours of him trying not to die.By the way, the...

20/04/2022

🧚🏼‍♂️!!!!

20/04/2022

Days 7 + 8 🌊
📍 Beer to Teignmouth, 50kms 🥾

Even typing out 50 km just now made me do a 😬 in real life. I’m currently in Teignmouth being hosted by and his family, in their yurt no less, because: ; I’ve ordered myself to be flat and let my knees recuperate fully (and not just for 2 days like last week) - with the 200 meter walk to the bakery this morning sending waves of dull pain to my knees, “50 km” looks like a full on tsunami. But for the most part I was able to crack on without any bones cracking, and:
• I’ve complete the Jurassic coast! Constantly stunned, a highlight was the path from Beer to Branscombe beach first thing in the morning. The whole 96 mile coast feels like a highlight tbh, when I look at it it’s like that page of study notes I’ve started highlighting important bits of only to see I’ve highlighted the whole thing by the end (bar a few lines, in this case: busy beaches during Easter weekend😑). 185 million years of history in these rocks…just enough time for them to learn the best way to destroy my body (jk that’s on me, forgive me, layers of ancient skeletons).
• the days are warming up and the coast is getting busier as I head south, and I’m running into so many more day hikers who’ve done the whole SWCP, other thruhikers walking the opposite direction as I am, and all the walking related chats are so informative, familiar, and reminders of how awesome all of this is to so many humans. The more I walk here the more I understand why so many locals have walked the entire thing, and love that most know where to find the best pasty.
• on Monday I was delighted by a random woman who handed me chocolate she was going to throw in the bin, so: celebrated Easter ✔️
• on that note it’s nice for the hectic weekend to be done, finding a seat at a restaurant was tricky, a campsite with a free pitch even harder (come through: wild camping!), no local pharmacy open for knee bandages, and just a bit exhausting trying to not whack kids on the boardwalk with my hiking poles. Might not be using the weekdays to walk right now but happy to be listening to my body; hopefully will be repaired by the weekend!💪

19/04/2022

Day 6 👌
📍 Beer to West Bay, 32 km 🥾

OK this stretch of coast was the chef’s kiss of coast, but like a really hot chef who makes you your favourite pizza and then actually kisses you.
Perfect balance of good ol’ :
•the longest stretch of wild forest I’ve walked through in the UK (the Undercliffs Reserve near Lyme Regis). So much not-farm I could almost trust the stream water to taste less like cows and more like cow (singular, def a farm sneaking somewhere around the forest edge).
• Golden Cap, the highest peak on the SWCP! It’s only a few feet taller than hundreds of other hills here, but this GC is like the more famous GC () in that they’re both literally top tier British beauties and deserve all the attention they get.
• after so many years of walking through the countryside here I finally walked through a bluebell covered woodland/my current laptop desktop background (if it was the year 2000 I’d be walking through some land in Neopets, which tbh is kind of the bluebell woodland vibe so 10 yr Ross is loving this 🌈)

This day I was able to leave my big backpack in Beer and make my way to West Bay with just my hurting knees and a day bag full of peanuts, painkillers, hopes, and dreams ✨. The hopes and dream section of my bag was for my knees to act like knees again but by km 20 they starting their dull roar/creak through the ibuprofen cream and my ignorance; yet (y’all wanted a twist) I’d ignore them properly for two more days of walking! 😬. We’ll get there. I had a bus to catch to head back to Beer so had to hustle to make it, and according to you must ignore when your body needs a break for the sake of making coin (in this case “coin” means “a bus”). Hustle culture is like the amount of blue hiking gear I wear: somewhat toxic by design, so I was happy for the rush to be done, found a spot to stealth camp, and watched as the very bright full moon rose and eliminated any sense of the word stealth from my camp.

18/04/2022

Waiting til the sun sets so I can start my stealth camp, a series, ft. a ginger nut biscuit. 🏕

18/04/2022

ok hear me out but pirates are like THE human history of the coast here so because of that fact and also that I spend 90% of my day staring at a trail so this is bound to happen at some point: is Mother Earth giving us a gigantic depiction of a map with a trail that leads to an X marking some treasure?? Very that?? And it’s marked above a town named BEER to further nail this in?? although I’m hoping the treasure is a hot shower???…right?

Also this gave me the same wow factor I got as a kid during the final scene/when everything came together on one of Neil buchanan’s big art attacks ♥️

x2

17/04/2022

It was only day 2 and because of trail closures I had to add 16 km of road walking on top of an already long day, which is fine, because I have music, and am slightly mad. It was this level stunning for most of the way so that very much helped.

The red flag in the distance marks the area where the military training grounds’ border is, which was being used hence the trail closure. I’m realizing now I could have passed as a military human with my army green jacket and big ass backpack and just walked through but I don’t think singing along with Little Mix is part of the regiment but it SHOULD BE

16/04/2022

When the sun is out in England in spring the rule is you get it on you in every way possible - directly through eyeballs even ☀️👀
also I am in full Friedrich Von Trapp fantasy mode with this hair right now, someone make me a backpack out of curtains and I’m SET

15/04/2022

Hanging out in Beer (which is also the title of a record by Grain, Hops, Yeast, and Water 🎶)
🏖🍺☀️

14/04/2022

felt cute might sneeze immediately🌼



**oy

14/04/2022

Portland Island looking all kinds of lovely is giving me that “Doris the motherly baker hands me a Cornish pasty and calls me ‘luv’” vibe I seek out daily👌

13/04/2022

Days 1 to 5 💯
📍 Poole to Burton Bradstock

• the occasional vegetable between handfuls of Pringles and Percy pigs helps me pretend what I’m doing is GoOd For mY BoDy
• photographic evidence that red benches are often lonely
• sunsets here can GET IT 👏
• lamb will f**k UP your twig stash
• fisherman huts are cute and the only affordable real estate at the mo 😑

13/04/2022

The is pretty easy to follow without a map or a gps (both of which I mailed to a friend’s after day 4 because they went unused - though I recommend the app for smartphones, it has the entire trail with GPS location and campsite suggestions to boot). The trail is always there, a constant comfort, like the sun, the moon, and Alan Davies on Qi 👏

The SW of England is so popular for day hikers and weekend campers that I haven’t had to struggle wondering if the ground beneath me is the actual trail or just a cattle run leading to a paddock of bulls. Not far from here the first mile of the UK’s coast path was planned and laid out - so, it’s the O.G. and ageing so well, like Alan Davies on Qi.

The SWCP association () takes care of so much here and I definitely recommend becoming a member to help support the trail maintenance alone - erosion is a happening faster over time due to climate change, and erosion means missing trail, which means trail diversions (that are welcomed when they go through towns with pubs, water, bathrooms, pastries, beds, really anything), which means more work from the group of volunteers 💪. Thanks to them I get to explore with ease, which means more time to think of the pub food I’ll inhale in town. Thanks y’all and also thanks to Alan Davies for always being there for me 🥰

13/04/2022

🌊🧚🏼‍♂️💙

12/04/2022

It’s peak lambing time in the UK 🐑 !!!!!They’re all so cute until it’s my bed time and they start screaming bloody murder for their moms. Y’all been with her all day?! She’s right beside you!? Open your eyes even?? The bottom one is giving such a “hehehe f**k u we do what we want” smirk or am I projecting?????

12/04/2022

Come on Dorset! 😍 Come on erosion! 👏 Come on knees! 😬

12/04/2022

me showing up to towns looking for a greggs ✨

11/04/2022

♥️ The Jurassic Coast! Dorset has been WILD. The winds have been so strong, I now know how these cliffs feel after years of erosion - I’m convinced my brain blew out my skull through my right ear, which makes sense because one would have to be a bit brainless to press on in this weather. Don’t let the blue skies fool you, so many bees and so much sand blasted into my eyes I honestly couldn’t enjoy the view as much as my camera did. 💨 🐝 👀 (infographic for science reasons)

This is white limestone! In other words it’s 100+ million year old sea bed, made up of plankton skeleton, compressed over 35+ million years into the chalk we see before us. HOT TIP: If you’re ever feeling too old, gain some perspective by standing next to the 100 million year old corpses of a billion sea creatures. 👌

11/04/2022

HELLO 👋🏼 I’m alive and in the UK walking the South West Coast Path! Spring showed up and I decided, “Yes, let’s go camping while it’s still 2°C every night and walk along the coast against the prevailing 50km + winds, who even needs fingers and toes anyways, just need my tent and a brick of parmesan, let’s goOoOoo!!!”

This is my first time walking a long-distance trail starting this early in spring. Even if it’s a bit more of a faff than starting later in the year (wetter, more layers, heavier bag, campsites closed, I’m still in “residual winter hibernation/hands hurt because of my Nintendo Switch mode”), I’ve learned you gotta use all the time given to you when you’re a human who really loves walking the most complicated route from one Gregg’s to the next. I’m not walking as fast as usual though, which means I might still be walking when Gregg rolls out his festive bake, which is really all the incentive one needs to keep going.

Right now I’m not walking, I’m sitting in a library giving my knees all the time they need to heal from my first four days of walking*. *walking is a cute word I use here that means forcing my legs to walk 30+km each day over never-ending chalk hills without any proper recent training and a heavier backpack than expected. But all is well, the NHS is free so I’ve got two knees coming in the post, with installation instructions (hospitals are busy with the Panny D), AND a new brain for good measure. I don’t know how to yet but I’ve got to tell my body that over the 1000kms of trail, I’ll be walking up and down so many hills it adds up to ascending and descending Mount Everest four times. 🥵 Future Ross may hate me but his calves will be STUNNING.

This pic is from day 4, on Portland Island, which has so much blown up limestone quarry matter my knees had something to empathize with. But yeah pain aside it’s been bliss, a beauty, so good to be outdoors all day, and overwhelming for the senses, and been the adventure I needed! Hopefully will start walking again tomorrow, no exact plans, just going to go wherever the extremely strong South West winds blow me, which will hopefully will be on dry land. 🌊 💙

03/08/2021

Missing the trails haaaaard recently. trails I missss u hope ur well sorry babes haven’t checked in for a while been suuuuper busy playing zelda xoxo!!!

But really since finishing the just over a month ago life’s been semi-full-on, semi only because I’m still a pandemic slug waking up after it’s winter’s sleep, who now has plans but is reluctant to move, really slimy, the usual. I want more of the full-on-walking kind of busy but can’t get to that right away, so I’m planning an adventure for somewhere between soonish and not soon enough🤞🏼. Which isn’t hard to plan because other than watching Flavor of Love, this pandemic consists of me spending hours googling long-distance trails and making a list as long as the length of Canada, which coincidentally, is a trail on the list. Lots to choose from, but semi-slug mode is ON so gotta wake uppp. 👏

I’m so grateful I got to do some long-distance walking already this year. It’s been that antidote to sitting inside googling trails while trying not to implode. I spent so much time looking at trails only on a screen that when I met the most recent trail in real life I was so relieved to see it actually matched its pics - getting cat-fished by a trail during a pandemic?!? Abbbsolutely not! But yay, there it was, as precious as can be, like all nature really! And to be doing that during a pandemic felt so doctor-prescribed, like medicine but cute and pine scented. I want more doc gimme that prescription pad!!!

Can’t wait to get back out and explore. For now, back to the figuring out how to be Human while also being Slug, while planning an adventure, while maybe rewatching Flavor of Love. XO

24/07/2021

a sea lion spotted relaxing on the shore feeling chuffed after a successful hunt for the last jolly rancher in its backpack ✨ ☺️





**oy

19/07/2021

💦 not a big fan of swimming but am a mild fan of quickly Kerplunking my body into bodies of water, and after a year of not being able to hug or really be close to people, I’ll take any body on body action I can get. 🤗

Kerplunking is also key in turning the lava flowing through my veins back into regular-old blood; the sun was relentless in its task to turn me into a volcano on the cusp of exploding. I didn’t explode, thanks to these pools (and coffee, food, other people, not running into bears, etc).

Kerplunking (and also it’s cousin: swimming) can be done a lot on the at the campsites along the way. At the pool at Walbran Creek, two fellow overheated walkers informed me that a few weeks back, their friends at this exact spot reluctantly used the pool to rub their frigid bodies clean of caked on mud after hours of rain failed to do so. I mustered up a slight, “oh that sucks, what’s rain?” before ordering a Mai Tai from the pool bar (OR having a shot of someone else’s Fireball after a dip, same thing). So big claps for water! Especially the refreshing kind dotted along trails! 👏

Pic 1 - Tsusiat Falls
2- Camper Bay
3 - Walbran Creek

17/07/2021

📸 me after my first tumble along the !! Hehe oopsies!!!

Falling can wind up feeing so embarrassing but remember, ✨ “It’s not about the mistakes me make, it’s about having long pink hair and being a mermaid(?) through it all.” ✨

Actually the real story here is I saw this Barbie laying there, which against a backdrop of nothing but nature really POPS (which funnily enough is my go-to fact for selfie taking). I let out a gasp, slipped on the log I was on, fell backwards, but landed in the mud feet first (unlike her who had no chance of landing feet first, as she doesn’t have feet). Wasn’t a bad fall at all, but did not see myself being hurt on this trail by anything other than cougars, bears, algae slips, falling down ladders, the tide eating me, choking on a Dorito, more cougars, let alone good ol’ BARB. I suppose that’s why it’s impossible to fully prepare for what these trails may present as obstacles, and just be really ready for anything to show up on trail. We can now assume there is a chance, if not even a .0007% chance, that Barbie may kill you on your next walk in the woods.

16/07/2021

💙 Experiencing some of the year’s highest tides along the took a lot of time and brain power to prepare for - what hours in the day we can actually walk on the beach, how fast we have to shuffle along these bits to avoid being trapped, and eventually where to camp along the shore so the ocean doesn’t creep up at night and eat tents (and the contained humans - ugh ocean just leave us aloonneee, we taste absolutely rotten after day 2 I swear!!!).

It was doable, clearly, seeing as I am here and not a large body of water’s midnight snack from some Friday past. Due to the tides being super high (a couple actually had to move their tent in the dark after the waves crashed against them), the tides were also crazy low!

It’s an Earth Moment called negative tides, where, as the tide gets to its lowest point, it looks up to you and says, “yeah that’s right, stay the f**k away from me, and also what’s the point in you doing what you’re doing anyways?” or something equally as negative. Kidding, that’s actually me talking to the negative tides as I walk safely by…

But really the tide goes below sea level when it goes negative, which means more of the coastal zone is exposed and can be enjoyed by those who want to stare at starfish that would normally be submerged. I didn’t do this as I quickly learned I couldn’t tell the different between what I could and couldn’t step on as I got away from the sand and onto the ocean rock bed. Who knew sea anemones are green, they honestly look like grass, my bad!*

*jk

The oceany bits of the trail are a treat, and I’m glad they don’t look at us walkers the same way. At first I was daunted or dare I say annoyed that tides existed, and that they existed where I was, but it just took a few early alarms and a good understanding of how fast I can walk on sand, a material made by Mother Nature for what I can only assume is to help us learn how to walk drunk, to fully master. Also the fact that the moon is forcing oceans to move about and that tides can be so deadly is the kind of drama I’m here for so thx nature for filling the void left by not having access to British Mystery TV for 6 days XO

14/07/2021

🍎!!! Bought myself a dehydrator before heading out on the and YES, leg, I very much agree with you, what a great decision that was! Mainly due to all the weight I saved. But also because as the world around me entered a heat wave, and I subsequently dried out, it was nice to know I wasn’t the only dehydrated fruit on trail.
🥵

!

13/07/2021

Walking through the beach access points dotted along the made me feel as if I was being birthed by Mother Nature into the big wide world. A feeling heightened because after a year of not hiking I felt a bit newborn-lamb-like, instead of feeling like my usual full-grown ewe who’s robotically going about a routine of walking, sitting, and eating (and loving itttt).

The beach access points worked both ways, and soon enough I’d find myself clambering back into the woods to start the life cycle all over again. There was a day on trail where this happened so much I felt like a sports ball being tossed back and forth between nature. I just hoped along the way I wouldn’t pop, deflate, or pull a Wilson from Cast Away and be unceremoniously sent away upon the ocean. Although the thought that pulling a Wilson may lead me to my destination by floating, an activity which requires no energy (if you’re a ball), seemed plausible - but unlike Tom Hanks’s character, I was able to register these thoughts as, “I have been alone in nature for too long and this heat is melting my brain” type of crazy, and was able to safely carry on being volleyed by the trail to my campsite alive and inflated. 👌

This picture makes me want to go back to these beach access moments, that feeling of “oOoOoo what’s on the other side!” is one of my favourites, despite generally knowing the other side’s secrets (sand, I’ll slip on an algae covered rock while looking at Spotify on my phone, the pungent scent of sea lions somehow making ME smell like daffodils in comparison, etc). I suppose it’s the variety that’s great. Being tossed between these two uniquely challenging types of trails like a sports ball is just part and parcel to that greatness. Just don’t do it during high tides or you’ll have no one to blame but yourself for being Wilson’ed.

Like a pub quiz, I have made one Sports reference, and that’s OVER NOW. Also I have fully graduated from baby lamb academy and am on my way back to the robot ewe life ✨ 🐑 🌈