The long way home, the importance of giving, and dude where's my car?

The blog of many titles...

And none as detailed as Neil's, read that one for a proper account of events!

The long way home

Neil had decided we needed a long distance walk that took in some night walking, ideal preparation for the big day, he managed to rope me and Steve in and set the route.  The route chosen was from the Force 4 Head Office in Gloucester to Neil's house in Bristol.  Neil had approximated a distance of 31miles, but would confirm nearer the day.
A double booking on my part meant that I had to go to a wedding on the Saturday, so it was decided that it would be for the best that I try to complete about 3/4 of the route and drive home.
The day arrived, Friday 22nd, we decided to leave at 4 in the afternoon, Neil had worked out on the OS website that it would be roughly 19 miles to where I'd left my car, and him and Steve would have about an 11 mile walk after that.  We estimated I'd be at the car at about 12.00 midnight and I'd be home in time for a sleep before having to leave for the wedding at 10.00am.

Work being work, we left an hour later than planned, but with Steve now with us we were confident of making a good time.
The biggest problem about doing a walk for the first time, is that if the signs are poorly placed and indeed sparse it's very hard to keep a rythm.  Your'e forever looking around for signs and you lose confidence in the way your'e going.  The first mile was one of those, and with heavy hearts after half an hour we realised we'd made very little progress, in fact we'd pretty much rejoined the road we'd started on!  Heads down for fear of being spotted by our work colleagues we plowed on up the road, this time picking up the correct path.

The importance of giving

It was the first time I'd met fellow team mate and Neil's best friend Steve.  I was immediately struck by his passion for not just the event but for the reason we're all doing the event.  Not for personal glory or a sense of satisfaction, but raising money for an exceptional charity who in turn will actually make a difference to peoples lives.  It was a bit of an eye opener for me, and it's great to hear people talk about things with such passion.  So along with a bit more training my focus will now firmly be fixed on raising money.

Dude where's my car?

It wasn't an easy walk this one, lots of the trails were overgrown, a few were pretty muddy, and we only had a vague idea of where we were heading.  So progress wasn't perhaps as quick as it should have been.  That said there were some glorious sites along the way, the general landscapes were stunning, but I was most impressed with the ridiculously large houses.

At one point we had to knock on the door of a house, conceding defeat that we had no idea where we were  on the map.  Thankfully the game keeper managed to steer us in the right direction, and as we left him with his roaring fire and mystery blonde I feared we'd really taken a wrong turn somewhere!

Eventually we picked up the Monarchs Way, a trail that spans over 600 miles along the country, and was the escape route used by King Charles ii.  Although i've no idea how they managed to record his route, Neil suggested he'd left stickers along the way.  I must admit once we'd picked up this trail at about 9.30pm I thought it was going to be an easy walk back to the car.  Little did I know...

As my estimated times of arrival gradually grew later I feared i'd never make the wedding party, Jo would certainly kick my ass and i'd be a write off for the rest of the weekend.  Thats the odd thing about walking for so long, you go through real mental highs & lows along the route.  It's very important to stay positive, and Fruit pastilles go a long way towards that.

Walking in the dark is an experience, one that I particularly enjoyed, it focuses your mind on following the path and little else.  Neil had arranged some Silva Headlights for us to use, and I was the first to try it out, mainly because I was too excited.  The beam is excellent, clear focused and bright.  Although you do have to remember to dip it, and avoid pointing it into peoples eyes, not cool.
The other very important thing to remember is spare batteries, our head torches had dimmed dramatically after a few hours use, and fearful they may not see us through to the car we ended up swapping who used theirs and when.

My 1.00am deadline came and went, and I feared it'd be day break by the time we got back to my car, however Chipping Sodbury eventually came into view, and we knew the car could be no more than a couple of hours away once we'd got to the railway tracks the other side of Chipping Sodbury.

Once on the railway bridge Neil knew the way, having completed this walk only a few weeks previous.  It was probably just as well because the route was very dark, very muddy and very over grown!  2 hours passed, and at 4.00am I spotted the Church where my car was parked.

At 4.10am I got back to my car.  4 hours late, but back!  Now for the 1 hour 40 minute drive back to my house.  Loz