I May Be Gone for Some Time

In 2014, a self-proclaimed ‘relatively normal fifty-year-old, overweight desk-jockey’, took on the monumental task of attempting a 5,000-mile walk around the coast of mainland Britain in the name of two worthy charities. Developed and adapted from his award-winning blog, this is a journal documenting the highs and lows of his forty-two-week hike around Britain with only the support of his friends, family, the odd stranger or two and a trusty second-hand motorhome as a roving base camp. Peter Hill, the man behind the whimsical idea, never viewed the trek as a voyage of personal discovery and instead takes the reader on a truthful blisters-and-all journey with friendly enthusiasm, gentle humour, numerous trials, a few grumbles, the odd rant and many, many ice-creams. With added extracts from a driver’s diary and fully illustrated with a selection of spectacular photographs, this book is only readable with a smile.

Peter Hill graduated in geology from Newcastle University in 1985. After 28 years working in both the upstream and downstream oil industry and at the age of 50 he rather bizarrely decided to attempt to walk around the British mainland coast, clockwise, starting in Southampton. Having sat behind a desk for much of his working life, ‘early retirement’ provided the ideal opportunity to do something a little more active and certainly more than a little different. Friends and family speculated that it was to fill a hole in his life caused by his retirement from club cricket, due to dodgy knees, and ageing eyesight (not good for standing up to wicketkeeping), or the ending of the Bristol to Windsor marathon canoe race of which he was a long time team manager. Of course it could also be that he is just a little bit insane. Peter has always had a love for outdoor photography, wildlife and the sea. He now works again, from his home in rural Leicestershire, a long way from the coast.

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Update: September 2022. Most orders received through the Vertebrate Publishing Adventure Books website are dispatched from Gardners in Eastbourne, UK; some orders (such as signed copies of pre-orders, or limited stock items) are sent from our office in Sheffield, UK. If your order is for multiple items, you may receive more than one package, though we try to avoid this (if applicable, you would only be charged once for shipping). Orders received before 11 a.m. are dispatched the same day; orders received after 11 a.m. are usually dispatched the following business day. You will be sent a notification email when your order has been dispatched. If we are temporarily out of stock of a title we will advise by email.

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