pw day 2: i'd definitely prefer it if the streams were streams, not rivers.

so we set out today with a plan of 19 miles, and a back up plan of 11 miles. the back up plan won.

annoyingly there seem to be many stretches over which there are very few wild camping opportunities, particularly in the very wet conditions present at the moment.

the wet conditions have also lead to excessive run off. as I said yesterday, it's really annoying when the stream steals your path. however it turns out it is even more annoying when a stream you are supposed to be 'fording' turns into a river, meaning you have to significantly detour to find somewhere you only slightly feel you will fall into while crossing. even more annoying still when that happens many times in one day. needless to say, I think, that the feet were once again sodden.

however, refreshed after the night in the yha, and with the sky rapidly ceasing to ruin our day with rain, we had a really quite nice day. we called it a day at option one as, with wearying soggy feet and second day aches, we were not confident in continuing for another eight miles with no guarantee of a good camping spot.

option one also happened to consist of hanging about in a pub all afternoon as we were camping in their back garden.

the great western in the a62 made us feel completely at home, assuring us that a donation in their charity pot was sufficient to secure ourselves a pitch, providing us with awesomely large hot chocolates complete with little cake bites, and feeding us and our friend benji who drove out to join us for tea. the even gave us milk for breakfast for no charge. so far i'm impressed with the milk charges in the north.

jin x

27 miles down...oops!