The total accommodation cost, based on sticking with Osmotherly YH rather than its ‘family’ replacement, works out at £385.20. Of that, roughly half went in up-front payments; the balance will be paid out on arrival at the various locations. That total includes all but one breakfast, but only one pre-arranged evening meal. Over the 11 nights, the average cost thus works out at just over £35 per night. I also intend to buy packed lunches where available (another £5 or so each?) and will probably try and find fish and chips else eat in local pubs (say £15 with the mandatory pint or two?) in the evenings. All together that should total close to £600, so about £54 per day or about £3 per mile. Overall that probably fits my category called ‘more than I’d hoped but less than I’d feared’, and at least the total outlay is being spread over several months.

However, that rather deliberately avoids the costs of all the new kit I’ve bought. The Paramo coat alone, for example, would add another £1 per mile. However, I’ll ignore such costs on the basis that I’ve finally now achieved a half-decent outdoor wardrobe, which should last for many years and hopefully many more miles!

One thing’s for sure though – the costs for this hobby pale into insignificance compared to what I might have spent previously on scuba diving trips. For a week long trip to see fairly deep shipwrecks (using Helium gas mixtures), I used to reckon that, if you count useful dive time as the time actually spent exploring the wreck (rather than hanging around at shallower depths decompressing), it was possible to show that total trip costs equated to comfortably more than £1 per breath!

Sorting out the pre- and post-walk rail tickets has highlighted the usual mix of complications, variations and indeed occasional pleasant surprise that typifies the UK fare system. I have two alternative outward routes, both of which start off with two ‘local’ Northern Rail trains to get me as far as Preston. From there I could take another Northern Rail ‘stopping’ train direct to St Bees (which approaches St Bees from the South), else take the Virgin mainline service to Carlisle, where I’d need to change again for St Bees (which is then approached from the North). Although the latter option should be slightly faster, I was initially veering towards the former, mainly to reduce the hassle of yet another change. However, whilst the prices for the Northern Rail option seem to be stable at around £41, the Virgin option introduced the possibility of buying a cheaper advance ticket. The big surprise was how much this saved: booked the maximum 12 weeks in advance the total outward ticket has cost me only £7.50.

Random picture from our last YH weekend – we called him Harry Hartington

 

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2013 at 19:20 and is filed under Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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