I woke up this morning full of energy and as always excited about breakfast. Today we didn’t have to get changed a thousand times or run around looking for goggles and water bottles, we were just walking. A long walk. How hard could it be?
So, two hours in and I couldn’t help but feel a little smug, we were walking along at a leisurely pace, chatting happily, a beautiful view stretched out ahead and I’d heard we might even get to see the shops. Delightful. Oh what’s that you say? It’s all up hill from here? There’s still 16 miles to go? I have to carry a flask? Are those cows up ahead?! It turns out that day four was the hardest yet and we had been lured into a false sense of security by the level landscape and the lack of blisters. During the next seven hours, we waded through muddy fields, tackled the dizzying heights of a super steep cliff walk only stopping to apply compeed plasters and take the occasional Iphone snap.
This is the only one I took, as past this point it got really tough. I think it’s a mini waterfall? One thing I learned on our walk is that women are great liars.
Fellow Bootcamper: Are you OK?
Me (on the floor, stuck in mud) oh just fabulous thanks! Lovely day isn’t it?
Fellow Bootcamper (eyeing cows with sheer terror) I was just saying we’ve been lucky with the weather!
No matter how many blisters we got or how tired we were, there was always someone there to ask if we needed a hand. I asked Marty how long we had to go. Just two miles, he replied. Perfect, it was nearly over. In just two miles I could take off the trousers that had been rubbing since mile two and climb in to bed. Now, the metric system has always eluded me, I can’t tell the difference between two miles and ten but I can tell when someone is lost. It turned out that two miles was actually five and two hours later, we finally arrived back in our village just in time for dinner.
Slimming starter of red cabbage and fennel…
On day four we had walked 21 miles! A massive achievement that we would celebrate later on that night with a glass of champers. JUST KIDDING! We toasted to our success with a green tea while we listened to Marty’s presentation, a fab way to end the week. There was a well done brownie presented to each bootcamper during the quiz but I ate it before anyone had chance to take a picture. There seems to be a pattern forming here. Yum!