Only used for eight days and 113 miles.I'm back from my little walking trip across England. I now realize that I had several misconceptions when I started this whole trek.
I thought I was in fairly decent physical shape.
I thought I had done enough training. We had been up and down the ravines of Nose Hill several times.
I had seen pictures of English landscapes and thought it was going to be gently rolling countryside that we were walking through. I had even been to Stonehenge before. I had seen the terrain.
Someone even told me that it should be easy because England is a small country.
I thought I was prepared with good boots and my wool socks.
I was wrong.
I actually thought that I might have time to knit while stopped at a lovely English meadow while we had our lovely sandwiches and tea. We would have time to check out some of the towns and perhaps even have a chance for a pint in one of the local pubs.
We started out and I soon realized how wrong I was. There were no rolling hills. They are straight up...and straight down.While we did walk through some pastures, we carefully stepped around sheep and cow droppings. Sometimes we missed.
There were paths through the woods where we crossed streams and dodged tree roots.
We did have time at the end of the day to stop for a pint, and this was the only time on the walk that the sock actually got pulled out and knit upon.
This was the Roman Road. Now the term "road" makes it sound like it should be easy to walk on. Another misconception. Approximately seven miles of hills and stones. Each step was on a loose stone that twisted our feet and made us sure we were going to twist an ankle. That was the first day I seriously began to doubt the worth of my boots. I began to develop a third layer of blisters.
Each day the bus came to get us to take us back to our B&B for a wonderful dinner and a rest before the next day's walk.....except for the day they forgot us. I was going to visit the Fish and Chip stand across the road but was told it would spoil my supper.
See that path up the hill? We had just walked down that path after walking up one equally as long and steep on the other side of the hill. That was also the third hill of the day.We walked up many similar hills. We saw fields of heather, monuments to Cook and the patchwork quilt that is the English landscape.
But we finished. There were thirteen of us and our leader when we started and only ten of us made it the full way.English walkers are completely different people. Their idea of fun is to go for a 15 mile stroll on a Sunday...every Sunday.
For example:
Ann (front row far left) walked 1800 miles last year and her goal for this year is to walk 2000. She's 76 years old and never quit. We would sit down every chance we got but she would stand and then keep going. She never said a word of complaint even when we were walking through the pouring rain and all getting soaked.
Next to her is Sarah. She climbed over every stile even if there was a gate we could walk through. and kept track of the numbers. There were 150 stiles on our walk. The rest of us probably went over only 100.
I realize that it may sound like I had a horrible trip. Not so.
We had great weather. The first seven days, the sun was shining and there were a few clouds so that it didn't get too hot. The last day it rained but that only proved to us how fortunate we were for the first days of our walk.
It was an incredible trip and while I have never been so exhausted in my life, I'm glad that I did it. There were days when we would sit down to eat lunch and I was too tired to eat. The last mile of every day was torture. I felt like sitting on a rock and crying rather than continuing on. I knew that there was no choice but to have a drink and a snack and continue on.
Would I walk across England again? No way! Once was enough.We have talked about doing other walks and I would recommend the trip to others IF they have trained enough before.
It was a walk that I'm glad I made but I don't want to make it again.
My next vacation will be on a beach where I don't even have to walk to the bar for a Margarita.
