19.91 miles in 9 hours 23 minutes.
Today was a long one and my feet are absolutely miserable! If they didn’t hurt, this would have been a very pleasant walk through farms.
The combination of the book and Motion X for navigation are working very well for me. I will need to download the next section of maps before setting out again.
We lost Rachel today. She tends to run ahead of us, but we seemed to have lost her. One minute I saw her up ahead, the next, she was gone. This happened a lot on the trail. People who look pretty close disappear into thin air. Ron and I continued on ahead, thinking that either she was very far ahead of us or she took a detour to Orton, the town Ron & I decided we did not want to visit and add 2 miles onto our already 20 mile day. We kept talking to people who had seen her in Orton, but no sign of her since. Very strange. We figured she was either in front of us, or she got a ride. Later we found out it was the latter. Apparently she couldn’t find the trail again with only the book map for reference and no one was able to steer her in the right direction, so she got a ride to Kirkby Stephens.
At one point today, Ron said, “Can you tell me how far we have walked?” I asked why and he responded, “Because I don’t ever want to walk any further than this again”. I laughed and told him we had walked 16 miles. I agreed with him, but I knew that I had a few 20+ miles per day left on this trip. Yikes, I hope I will make it.
We arrived at The Jolly Farmers to find Rachel, showered and cheerful. She had been there for hours. The Jolly Farmers is a very nice B&B. You are greeted with afternoon tea and fresh scones with butter and jam and the rooms are clean and well appointed. Carol the Innkeeper, her mother Joan and her daughter Anne were lovely.
The Wild Women were also staying here. We have run into them on and off for days. They are a group of 9 women from Australia who don’t mess around. They shipped off 2 of their wounded with the luggage for a few days. They are on a schedule and they do not deviate!
Well, this was the last day on the trail for Ron and Rachel. They are headed off tomorrow morning, Ron back to CA and Rachel, on to Paris. I was a bit worried that we would all be able to travel together, but it worked out very well. I was pleasantly surprised.