A condensed summary of my progress along the Pieterpad in 2018.

The numbers refer to the stages in the current version of the Pieterpad guide, Parts I and II. The distances are the "official" stage distances in the Guide - in places these differ a little bit from those of the GPS route and/or those given on the Pieterpad website, probably mostly due to rounding errors.

I generally stuck to the stage-points suggested in the Guide for my day-walks, except where there were very short stages:

• I combined stages 1 and 2, walking from Pieterburen to Groningen in one day (total 31km, but it saved doing the long journey to Winsum two extra times)
• I combined stages 12 and 13, walking from Holten to Vorden in one day (total 28km)
• I reduced the four unequal stages between Groesbeek and Venlo (stages 18-21) to three days of about 24km each by shifting the stage-points to Afferden and Meerlo, which turn out to be quite convenient points for buses.

The week of 10-16 June was when I came closest to "proper" long-distance walking, hitting the trail on six days out of seven, and covering about 25% of the route. I was enjoying it, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this!

Between 24/6 and 30/6 I was on a pre-planned walking holiday in Germany, so I had to take a break from the Pieterpad with only five stages to go.

I completed the 13 stages of Part I (238 km, 48% of the route) on 6/6/18. 

I completed Part II on 10/7/18, 66 days after starting Part I.

I spent 23 days walking in all, averaging about 22km of the official route per walking day (plus a few extra km I didn't count here and there to link to public transport and to get back to Maastricht at the end of the final stage).