All is not lost though, just follow our simple guide and your leather boots will serve you for many years becoming best friends with your feet. If there is just one simple thing we would like you to remember when you have bought from us it’s this.

Never ever forget to clean them!!!!

If you’re too tired on the day having just got back from the Aanoch Eagach or some other monster day out, just clean them the next day. Just don’t forget to clean them!

Step 1) Clean

• Take your laces off your boot and take out the insoles too.
• Wash the outside with a gentle brush to get rid of all the mud. Make sure the brush is soft and gentle – no wire brushes please.
• Every couple of weeks rinse the inside of the boot as well. You might think that’s a bit strange, but the reason goretex linings sometimes fail is because of dirt that gets in to the boot. That dirt then punctures the Goretex from the inside of the boot as it’s forced by your feet in to the lining. Warm water is the best when cleaning, but don’t worry if you’ve only got cold.
• Don’t be tempted to use anything like washing up liquid or any other detergent as they leave traces that end up attracting water and leaving a residue.

Step 2 ) Dry

• Under no circumstances use heat to dry them. That means no airing cupboards, radiators, camp fires or hairdriers people. You’ll weaken both the leather uppers and any glue that’s been used in making your boots.
• Leave your boots to dry naturally with the insoles out.
•  If you have to dry them quickly stuff them full of newspaper (we prefer the Western Gazette….) and be sure to change paper every couple of hours.
• Dry them upside down for the quickest results.
• Store them at room temperature.

Most of the time these steps will be enough, but sometimes your boots will need a little more care. If your boot is not beading water properly on the outside, you will need to reproof it. We recommend Nikwax as the best solution . Don’t attempt to reproof your boots however until you have cleaned them, it doesn’t work if they’re dirty and you’ll just be grinding that dirt back in to the leather.

Step 3 ) Reproof 

• With leather boots the wetter they are, the better the application will take. Nikwax say that you can apply their reproofing to both wet and dry but they think wet does a better job. If you have just come back from a soggy walk and have cleaned your boots it’s probably the best time you can do it!
• Apply liberally and make sure it gets in to all welts and seam.
• Pay special attention to the seams as these are your boots weak points – particularly the join between sole and upper.
• After 2 minutes, remove surplus with a cloth and allow to dry before use.

Step 4 ) Condition 

And there you have it. Follow these top tips and your leather boots will give you years of happy use yomping the hills. If you’ve got any boot care tips or questions fire away in the comments below!

But for now, here are some highlights from the last eight months…

Top of Heckman's Pass

To cycle across the Chilcotin Plateau…

Chilcotin Plateau

Cycling the Icefields Parkway from Jasper to Banff in beautiful British Columbia…

Icefields Parkway, British Columbia

Over the Elk Pass and into Montana…

Spray Lake Trail on way to Elk Pass

Over the Lolo and Whitebird Passes through Idaho…

Whitebird Pass, Idaho

Biking the backroads of Nevada…

Off the Beaten Track...

And facing snow in Utah…

Summit in the Snow

Seeing some of the most stunning landscapes in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks…

Bryce Canyon

Crossing the Mohave desert and Joshua Tree…

Joshua Tree...

Through Southern California and into Baja, Mexico with it’s abundance of cacti…

Cacti in Baja

Sailing the Sea of Cortez with Kevin on board Alex II and sighting whales, dolphins, turtles and a shark…

Sailing Sea of Cortez

Cycling Mexico’s coast…

All up and down along the coast...

And inland and over hill to Oaxaca and San Cristobal de las Casas…

Oaxaca Cathedral

Visiting the Mayan ruins of Palenque and Tikal…

Tikal, Guatemala

Cycling through Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras…

El Salvador, a small country of many volcanoes

Packrafting the Rio Bocay and Rio Coco in the Moskitia border region of Nicaragua…

Packrafting the Rio Bocay in Nicaragua

And finishing it all off with some back-road biking through Belize…

Backroads of Belize, Through Rio Bravo Conservation Area

The walk can be downloaded via Viewranger for your mobile phone and is FREE to download as all of our routes are.

Packrafting is relatively new to me, but so far I love it. Because the raft is so compact, I could carry it in my backpack together with food and gear for 10 days out.

Packrafting Rio Bocay in Nicaragua

The rafting trip had fun, adventure, challenge, white-water, wild-camping and a chance to see how the local indigenous Mayangna and Miskito people live.

I have only one other water trip I can compare it with, and that is paddling down the Niger River in West Africa. For that trip, we had a local fisherman build us a pirogue, just like those the locals use. If I had had a packraft with me, I probably would have used that. But I’m glad I didn’t.

Paddling a pirogue was physically much more challenging and we encountered difficulties navigating downstream which wouldn’t have been a problem in a packraft.

But the pirogue let us experience the river as the locals do. And it brought us closer to those we met.

Paddling a Pirogue on the Niger River

In Nicaragua, I felt we were viewed as a passing novelty; rich tourists with hi-tech products. On the Niger river, we were just two more people heading downstream.

Both ways of river travel were great. And I’m pretty sure i’ll be doing more trips in both styles…

Since i’ll be back in the UK for the rest of the year, the packraft will be seeing plenty of action in the coming months. Pirogues aren’t so common on British waterways…. Narrowboat barges though, now there’s an idea!

Parking starts at the Museum in Farnham (do make sure you stop in for a pint afterwards, it’s a cracker) and there’s a little bit of up and down to whet your appetite. You start off heading past Chettle Down where you can take a detour to look at an abandoned ancient settlement. Quite a bit goes through Harbin’s Park which was once a Medieval deer park covering, more or less rectangular in shape and surrounded by a bank up to 16 feet (5 metres) wide and 5 feet (1.5 metres) high and a ditch over 15 feet (4.5 metres) wide. See if you can spot any of these features as you head around. You come back through Chettle which has been described as the perfect English Village before heading back to Farnham.

We’ve put a map of the route up beloow, but if you’ve got Viewranger you can download this route for FREE on to your mobile and follow it around. Please note Walking or MTBing can be challenging activities, so do check out the weather and be honest about your level of fitness before setting off.

Distance cycled: 9222km
Distance sailed: 725km
Distance travelled on bus: 425km

Total nights: 165
Nights camping: 118
Nights in paid accommodation: 34

No. of cycling days: 122

Countries cycled: 3 (Canada, US, Mexico
US states: 6 (Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, California)
Mexico states: 7

Lowest/Highest altitude: -226ft / 9600ft (-69m/2926m)
Most km in one day: 136km
Coldest night/hottest day: -11C/+30C* (12F/86F)

Bridges/roads slept under: 5
Firestations slept at: 1
No. of times disturbed by men with machetes/men with guns/mountain lions: 3

No. of times cautioned/warned by warden/police: 2

Brake cables replaced: 1
Bottom brackets replaced: 1
Tyres used: 5
Punctures: 22*

Bears/coyotes seen: 6 / 3
Sealions/sharks seen: 1 / 1
Whales seen: 31*
Tarantulas seen: 3

No of times fallen off bike: 0(me), 1(Lars)

No of burgers eaten by Lars: lost count
No. of Thai red curries eaten: 6
No. of tortillas eaten: 173*

No. of lucid dreams: 5

No. of beers: 182
No. of glasses of wine: 31

Average distance cycled: 75.5km/day (not including rest days)
Average distance cycled inc. rest days: 55.9km

Average km/beer: 50.7km/beer (compared to Take On Africa trip of 24.5km/beer!)

If you want to read more about the trip, best go to my blog.

(Photo courtesy of Lars Bengtsson)

So what do you do when you are seen wild camping in a not-so-stealthy spot? Where three teenagers, a cocky lad and two girls, walk past with a bottle of rum to be drunk down by the river, just 30km outside San Salvador near the main road?

Well, we said hello as they went by and stayed where we were.
But half an hour later the three return, inebriated.

The lad was staggering and slurring his words. Barely understandable. But he is asking for a phone. We don’t have one (so we say), but soon he gets aggressive and starts demanding our phone. And the girls are peering through the tents looking to see what they can take. Time to get serious. Take a stand. Make clear there’ll be no messing with us. How exactly they thought they could steal from us in their intoxicated state I don’t know. I suppose they weren’t really thinking at all!

But as they leave, we immediately start packing up. Time to find another place. We don’t know if they will come back, or bring others, or if someone else will see us.

And that’s how, at 8pm, in darkness, we push our bikes back to the main road and hesitantly cycle on. But being on the road after dark in these areas is not safe either. So we ask if we can camp in the yard of the first home we see.

Although it is difficult to understand all that the father is saying, he eventually tells us go follow him across the road to another house.

The gate is locked, but it’s only wood and barbed wire, so it is bent and we carry our bikes over. And up to the front door of this simple single room, corrugated roof house. The door is locked, the curtains drawn. The father and son knock on the door. No reply.

The son raises up one of the glass slats on the window, pulls back the curtain and calls inside. No reply.

I peer through too. The TV is on and a man is sat in an armchair with his back to us, watching it. The son calls again. No reply.

Maybe he is sleeping.

I feel guilty for not only disturbing one family, but now waking up another stranger having broken through his gate and pulled apart his window.

I say that perhaps it is better if we carry on and look for somewhere else to camp. But the father will have none of it.

I think the man must be drunkenly unconscious not to hear our racket outside. But his left hand is up in the air.

Now the father has a 3metre long stick from the garden and is starting to poke it through the window. I hope the man inside isn’t startled and have a shotgun close to hand. Seriously, how can he not have heard us? We have been here a good fifteen minutes trying to raise the dead…

Actually, it turns out we’ve been trying to raise the deaf.

So there we are, calling to a deaf man in the darkness and waving a long pole through the window to get his attention.

Finally he sees us.

He opens the door, wide lop-sided grin on his face, pleased to see his neighbour, even if it is nighttime and there are two strange gringos with bikes there too.

Now we know we are in a safe place. He wants us to stay in his home, but we insist on camping in the garden. We have intruded enough already.

The father and son leave us to put up our tents. The happy deaf man offers us fruit and gives us a bottle of ice cold water. With a few hand gestures he shows us the toilet and explains what time he must go to work in the morning. Not only is he deaf, but he doesn’t speak either. Surprisingly though, it is easier to communicate with him than with some locals who speak Spanish very fast and no English at all.

What a night and we haven’t even cooked dinner yet! But at least we are safe it. And so I sleep well… until the roosters start calling at 5.30am, which apparently is enough to raise even the deaf, because our man is already sweeping the yard when I emerge from the tent.

Although the map suggests a starting point down in the village of Pitton, you can just as easily start it from the parking for Mewslade Bay or at Rhossili beach itself. At just under nine miles it’s a perfect short days stroll – we reckon between easy and moderate. You can also get the route directly to your mobile if you have Viewranger as it is available FREE for anyone to download. Simply print or follow the route below and let us know how you got on in the comments below.

1) Base Layer – Not a position in a choir but the bottom of our layering system that goes next to your skin. It’s job is to get rid of the sweat you produce.

2) Mid layer – This is the bit that delivers the warmth, trapping air and keeping you snug.

3) Shell Layer – The protection from the elements, wind, rain and snow.

Base Layers

Job numero uno is to push or wick sweat away from your skin, keeping you cool in summer and stopping cold sweat hanging around to give you chills in winter. A base layer is the next to skin layer so thats undies, shirts, long johns & vests. Cotton is a no-no as it keeps moisture close to your skin so my first tip is ditch the T-shirt when heading outside. My top choices are synthetic or merino wool base layers based on what the weather is doing.

Synthetics

• Wick sweat quickly
• Dry quickly
• Inexpensive
• Can pong after a day or two!
• My choice for summer

Merino Wool

• Adds an element of insulation.
• Wicks sweat and dries OK, but not as quickly as a synthetic
• Doesn’t pong
• My choice as a winter base layer

Mid Layer

Bring the warmth people, time for the mid layer. This part of the puzzle does the lions share of keeping you warm. There are a variety of different examples you can get from your standard fleece, synthetic fabrics such as Primaloft, through to goose down (puffy jackets) and merino wool which can also be used as a mid layer in it’s thicker varieties. We’ve gone through these in more detail in our guide to Insulation here, but in short,

• Goose Down – Best as an outer layer or mid layer for really cold conditions.
• Merino wool – Great for long journeys as it doesn’t pong and is seriously environmentally friendly.
• Synthetic Insulation – Gives warmth when wet, so a good contender for UK Conditions.
• Fleece - Our pick of the bunch for starting out and as a general all rounder.

I reckon that nearly everyone has a fleece layer somewhere in their wardrobe and as the best value and all rounder, it would be my first choice for UK conditions. It wicks, is breathable, drys quickly and retains heat brilliantly if protected by an outer shell. You can get differing weights of fleece from microfleece, to mid-weight fleece to heavyweight depending on how cold it is (or how much you feel the cold!) My top tip whatever you choose for your midlayer is to keep it close fitting, that way it does a better job of trapping air and keeping you warm – don’t be tempted to go for a baggy fit.

Outer Shell

The protector, keeping the other layers dry and sheltered so they can do their job in peace and quiet. You’ve got a couple of options here;

• Waterproof / Breathable shells – Will keep the wind and the rain out and will let your sweat out to some degree. You have a variety of choices between own brand examples such as North Face’s Hyvent and better known fabrics like Gore-tex or eVent. I find these are best for the conditions we get there in the UK and Europe with wind, rain and everything in between.
• Waterproof/ Non-breathable shells – The sort of thing you wore as a kid. Don’t go there folks, there lies a cold and uncomfortable day out with sweat unable to escape and staying on the inside making you cold and clammy.
• Water resistant / Breathable shells – These will keep the wind out and varying amounts of rain, breathing better than their waterproof cousins. Examples include things like wind shirts, through to soft shell jackets which offer a little more protection. Useful if you are cycling, climbing, running etc, working hard and generating a lot of heat where breathability is more important than getting a little damp.
• Insulated Shells – Will keep you warm and protected,  most are not waterproof and can be too hot for all but the coldest weather in my experience.

Lastly

So there we have the three parts of the layering system. Just before I take my leave, there are two extra bits of clothing that I feel have the biggest impact on your comfort, namely hats and gloves. These are the only layers you can have in your pocket which you can take on and off whilst on the move. Thinner in summer and thicker in winter, I never go out in to the mountains without either and nor should you!

Would love to hear what your thoughts are on your outdoor clobber when you head outside, do you agree with what I have said? What’s your favourite piece of outdoor clothing?