Hello! Below is how we looked the day before we started and now here we are on our second rest day…
So far we have walked 105.8 miles over 6 days climbing 49 stiles, passing through 34 gates (and only one was locked!) and 7 kissing gates, slipping across 4 cattle grids… We’ve stopped to get things out of our shoes 12 times, had countless stings (we were in fact counting but on the first three days we walked through so many fields of nettles our legs were just covered). We’ve walked down footpaths that have come to insurmountable obstacles about 53 000 times and walked down useful footpaths about 4 times. We’ve had 1 day of rain and 5 of sunshine, been stranded on open moorland for about 3 hours, been outside for about 58 hours and done at least 6 extra miles on top of the 105.8 by going the wrong way a couple of times and by detours along the aformetioned pointless footpaths. We’ve seriously thought about giving up 0 times and semi-seriously possibly once. We’ve text Pete Osborne 14 times, found out 1 set of degree results, acquired just the 1 blister (and interestingly that was on my left thumb), 1 muscle injury, and two swollen joints (again, interestingly these were the two lower joints of my left little finger). We’ve read 8 chapters of John and had conversations about eschatological tension, the nature of judgement and where Jesus went after the crucifixion among other things. We’ve purposefully not thought about how much more we’ve got to walk about 35 times a day each…
Here is a picture of the view from lovely Bodmin Moor…
DON’T TALK TO US ABOUT BODMIN MOOR. We spent almost all of yesterday wandering around in knee length grass and gorse trying to find away off the moor. It was a beautiful, beautiful place and I’m sure if you get to know it is all very lovely but if you are trying to get from one side to the other and don’t know the place at all you might as well close your eyes and change direction evry ten steps and see what happens. We never actually got lost. Frustratingly we could see exactly where we were at all times but we just couldn’t find a way to leave. Eventually at 5pm we managed to fight our exhausting way to the one single path on the whole moor and stagger down to Jamaica Inn where we were rescued by the lovely Jordan and James. It was kind of worth it to have a wonderful dinner at a very discounted rate at The Royal Standard in Mary Tavy.
So that was our one day of fun. The rest of the time things have been going swimmingly. I did have a strain in my calf muscle but that was put to rights (well almost, it still kinda hurts a bit) by hot water bottles, arnica tablets and cream (all supplied by our hostess at a wonderful B&B in St. Tudy). All other aches and pains are just to be expected from the effort of walking 8-10 hours a day, day after day after day…
So we’re relaxing today and then we are being joined by Jenny who has foolishly agreed to walk one day with us tomorrow. We also have Lizzie and Lucy joining us before our next rest day which will be cool. We’re enjoying each other’s company very much and only in the last couple of days have resorted to word games to get through the miles but we do feel a little bit in a bubble it will be refreshing to get a bit of the real world into the bubble with us! It’s meant to rain a lot tomorrow though…it always rains when Jenny joins us. I’ll try and get her to write a reply to the post when she returns home to let you know how it went!
Every day is like a little mini-drama so we could tell you loads of stuff but I think I’ll leave it there as I imagine things that seem interesting to is after 100 miles of walking are probably very very dull in reality! Please do post replies and e-mail us it’s all so encouraging. Below are a few more pictures of the many we have to “interest” you. More to come when we get to Bristol…
“Then your light will shine like the dawn and your wounds will quickly heal. Your God will walk before you and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind.) - Isaiah 58:8 -
