Journal:
Got up at
6:30am and, after some last minute foot treatment,
didn't start walking until 7:15am.
Accommodation isn't all that easy to find in these
parts (not quite so touristy) and last night I
booked an over-priced room in a hotel in Penkridge,
where I aimed to be before 5pm so I could collect my
next mailed pack of maps from the Post Office.
In theory, it should be a
relatively comfortable day and I tried to set off at
a good pace, although my heel where I had a deep
blister last night now felt bruised when I put any
weight on it. I tried to nurse it a bit with a
limp whilst walking steadily. According to the
guide-book, the day had few scenic highlights and
the paths were sometimes challenging. Both
observations turned out to be correct, with the
route almost entirely across flattish farmland via
minor roads, bridleways and field footpaths, with
just a couple of small woods thrown in. Having
had a fairly big dinner last night, I wasn't
famished and didn't bother having anything to eat or
drink until reaching a service station where the
path crossed a main road around 10am, where I had a
Snickers and flavoured milk. It was cooler and
I was wearing my light thermal top for the first
time in nearly a week.
From the service station
it was another couple of hours of mostly country
lane walking until I reached the pub in the very
small village of Bishop's Wood where I aimed to get
some lunch. I arrived at 11:45am and sat
outside at a picnic table until the pub opened at
noon. I went in and ordered some lunch and
soon discovered that the chirpy young barmaid had
attended the same primary school in Melbourne,
Australia, that I attended, Bentleigh West, only
about 40 years later! Her family had returned
to the UK, but she planned to emigrate back to
Melbourne in the not-too-distant future.
I left the pub around
12:45pm, confident that I would reach Penkridge in
plenty of time to get my mail, but the quality of
the paths deteriorated markedly for long stretches.
Many times it was along the narrow uneven edges of
crops and in some places the exits from one field to
another were so overgrown, they were easy to miss,
and I did a couple of times. Before long, I
began to realise I didn't have as much time up my
sleeve as originally thought. In the end, I
reached the Post Office at 4:50pm and discovered it
was open to 5:30pm, so no dramas. I picked up
my new maps and mailed off my old ones before
retracing my steps a little to the hotel where I had
booked a room.
Not long after I arrived,
it began raining, and hasn't stopped since. I
was aiming for Abbotts Bromley tomorrow, where a
team-mate from the 2004 Three Peaks Race was going
to meet me for dinner. However, I haven't been
able to get any accommodation there so will try and
make it to much larger Uttoxeter (nothing booked
yet), which is a further 10km, making it quite a
long day. The guidebook is again quite
negative about the quantity and quality of field
path walking tomorrow, so I may look for some road
alternatives, especially if it's raining.
After tomorrow, the scenery should start getting
interesting again, and the paths better, I hope.
