Journal:
I didn't get
up until 7:30am, having stayed up later than
expected catching up on email, etc., and sneaked out
of the sleeping hotel via a fire exit (as asked to
do) at 8:15am. It was drizzling as I walked
along a main road out of Bridgwater. The guide
book suggested a circuitous route to avoid doing too
much roadwalking, but after my experience yesterday
with seldom used paths, it was debatable to me
whether it was worth the effort. Generally the
scenery was much the same - green fields, fences,
sheep and lambs, whether seen from the road or an
overgrown footpath. I had resolved to be a bit
more discriminating in future. On the edge of
Bridgwater, I found an open service station and
bought a sandwich and flavoured milk for breakfast.
Soon afterwards, I took a
public footpath across the sodden fields to
intersect with the guide book route. It only
took about 10 metres for my shoes and socks to be
sodden. My feet were already hurting.
The farmland round here is mostly long-reclaimed
swamp, drained by a very large network of ditches.
The guide-book route was again a complex chaining of
separate little-used footpaths (or field paths,
since they generally stick to the edges of fields),
which crossed the drainage bridges on a range of
pedestrian bridges ranging from grand structures to
flimsy arrangements using a plank. I lost the
paths several times during the morning, one time
wasting more than half an hour trying to find my way
off a farm (electric fences and barbed wire
everywhere).
I reached the very pretty
village of Blackford soon after 1pm and went to the
pub and ordered the Sunday roast special. It
was very tasty and large, and the patrons were
friendly. While eating lunch, I pored over my
maps to see what the guide-book had in store for me
during the afternoon, and determined it was mostly,
once again, a determined effort to keep walkers off
the road rather than an excursion past scenic
highlights. I decided to follow a different
route to Cheddar, where I had booked a bed at the
Youth Hostel tonight, using country lanes and back
roads. It was dry underfoot and I passed
through more pretty villages and by historic farms
and pubs. If it hadn't been for my very sore
feet, it would have been very enjoyable. I
reached the hostel at 4:30pm with the plan to go to
the outdoors store in town tomorrow morning to buy
some different socks and see if that makes a
difference. It's the last thing I can think
of. I have never had this much trouble with
sore feet when hiking before, and it's getting very
frustrating. The store doesn't open til 10am
so it will be a late start tomorrow and may put me a
little behind schedule. But, if I can't sort
out the feet, I'll need a few days off for recovery
anyway.