George Hayter: Low-cost hols high on laughs (From Hampshire Chronicle)

George Hayter: Low-cost hols high on laughs

10:24am Friday 10th August 2007 in

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THE paper provides staff with generous holidays, but my problem has always been finding enough money to take the family away for all five weeks.

So this summer, the wife and I thought up a wheeze which would at least keep the kids busy for two days. It involved zero accommodation cost and minimal expense on transport. We walked to Portsmouth.

The Pilgrims' Trail uses plastic arrows, public footpaths and the odd stretch of road to take walkers about 30 miles on a winding route from Winchester to the naval port via Bishop's Waltham, North Boarhunt and Southwick.

The four of us did the first day in torrential rain. We foolishly decided on a detour from the prescribed route, opting instead for a path across East Horton Golf Centre and into a field of long wet grass.

It turned out that the grass wasn't the only thing that was wet. We were soon wading through inches of water and my misery was complete. But this cheered up our two teenagers, who found the situation hilarious.

Emptying brown water from our shoes, we squelched on to the hamlet of Kingsmead, where we had left our car the previous evening, and gratefully drove home for hot showers and bed.

The following morning, we drove back to Kingsmead and carried on walking. We'd booked a visit to the Spinnaker Tower for 6pm, so, though our bodies were aching, we were almost running at the end.

Getting soaked in a bog and hobbling 30 miles on sore feet doesn't sound like much of a holiday, but the expedition gave us more laughs than previous big-budget outings to Morocco and New Zealand.

Forget about planes - holiday on foot.