Today's stats - 23 miles, 50607 steps, 3022 calories, 5 litres
of water, 2 blisters, 4 very sore feet
We always knew that today, day three of our Walk to Westminster,
would be tough. Possibly the toughest day of our whole walk - time will tell if
that turns out to be true. But it was certainly the toughest so far by a long
way.
We planned to walk across Dartmoor, 25 miles, from The Dartmoor
Inn near Princetown, through Moretonhampstead and on to Longdown. In the end we
fell slightly short of our target.
Anne crossing Pontsbridge on Dartmoor
Dartmoor is beautiful and today it was looking stunning. I have
always found the rugged beauty to be mesmerizing, there is something that draws
you into it. Today, walking our way through the middle of the moor, it was even
more so. You certainly got even more of a sense of the vastness and natural
charm of the place.
Stunning scenery looking across Dartmoor
As the weekend had passed we mainly had sheep and ponies for
company which added further to the sense of remoteness. Oh apart from our
driver Stephen Rushworth - an old friend of mine from our time together on
Cornwall Council.
With our driver for today - fellow former Cornwall Councillor Stephen Rushworth
As you can imagine today contained lots of hills - big ones,
long ones, steep ones. Up and down. Many people had told us in preparing for
this walk that it was the down hills that got you more than the ups. Today we
found this to be true.
We were pleasantly surprised at how well we coped with the walk
in general. In fact our fitness held up well and at the end we were walking up
the hills at quite a pace. But our feet did take a pounding on the downhill
slopes.
At the end we didn't quite make it to our target of Longdown and
stopped for the day about two miles short. We could possibly have gone on but
both of us were really feeling the effects on our feet. I had a couple of
blisters forming nicely and we decided the wise decision was to stop and allow
our feet to recover overnight rather than cause damage we might not be able to recover
from.
So tomorrow we will set off from where we finished this evening
- it was always our plan to allow some flexibility to allow for eventualities
such as today's.
We now leave the hills of Cornwall and Devon and press on to
flatter lands. Tomorrow we will walk through Exeter and on to East Devon aiming
to make it to Honiton.
Thank you once again for all your ongoing messages of support
and encouragement. They continue to inspire us on. Oh, and don't forget to
donate - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/doublesteve
The road goes ever on...
