THE little battles – 22 aug, 2018
Day 18 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Warren Farm to Bristol
Distance: 27km
Cumulative distance: 444km
I didn’t end up paying a cent for that campsite. Old mate’s dad never came across to see me, and his brother said nothing last night when I was chatting to him either. I’ll take it!
The life goal today was a simple one – get to Bristol. There was no yellow-brick road on the map unfortunately, so I just had to pick my way slowly up country trying to find the most efficient and effective route without getting too lost in a farm. I started by heading out of the farm (did I mention how long the driveway was here?) and down the way I came. I’d planned to aim for a place called Ubley via some off-road footpaths marked on the map, but ended up well east of where I thought I’d emerge and settled for Compton Martin instead. There was a lot of water around this morning, so it didn’t take long for my useless hiking boots to pick up a stack of precipitation on the ground and transfer them to my socks and feet. Ahh well, it’ll clean out my blisters I thought. The one on my right pinky toe had flared right up and already I was feeling that familiar stinging sensation with every step I took.
I was still up fairly high where I was, and to take myself down to Compton Martin required navigating a very steep and slippery downhill on one of those public footpaths that didn’t appear to have been used since Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury. At one stage I slipped on a rock, and reflexively thrust my hand out to brace myself on a barbed wire fence. I stayed upright and immediately gave thanks for the fact I’d missed one of the barbs when my little finger clattered into the wire. Five minutes later I opened my drink bottle for a drink only to find it was a lot stickier than normal. I looked down and my hand was covered in blood…turns out I hadn’t missed the barb on the fence. A few running repairs later I was cleaned up and back in the game, and managed to avoid any other mishaps as I strolled into town.
Nothing was open at this hour (actually there was nothing other than a pub to be open) so I sat on a bench and booked in two nights of accommodation in Chepstow. The plan was to hit Chepstow tomorrow night, spend Friday in Bristol catching up with Estela, then resume walking on Saturday with Bird and Amy. I called the Green Man hostel in Chepstow and Mick on the other end of the line was only too happy to have me for a couple of evenings. Leaving town I picked up the Monarch’s Way, which is apparently a footpath of nearly 1000km running from Worcester to Brighton. King Charles II used a similar route as he fled from the failed Battle of Worcester in the mid-1600s, or from soccer hooligans or some such, I’m not quite sure. It was all rather convenient for me though because this particular section ran almost due north and the road was wide and uncomplicated. Until I had to turn off into more farmland, and this is where it became tough.
I came to a field of young heifers about 30-strong who behaved as if they were being herded down into the lower corner of the next field. As I drew nearer I realised they were just a super curious mob who enjoyed playing follow the leader. Unfortunately the farmer had rigged a single-stringed electric fence to keep the cattle in, right across where I was supposed to be walking. I discovered this by absent-mindedly grabbing ahold of the string as I was contemplating my next move, about half a second before I rather alert-mindedly removed it from the string which had repelled me with an electric shock. The fence was just a bit too high to step over safely, so I figured I needed to go underneath. On reflection, this is where I erred. I decided to leave my backpack on while I did this. I shall explain way before I continue – removing the backpack and then sticking it on again is something I have to do several times a day, and something I try to avoid at every available opportunity. It requires unstrapping from the chest and from the hip, then transferring the weight to my arms and gracefully placing it on the ground. Then it’s a matter of picking it back up again (much heavier when lifting it with an arm than when it’s on your back), strapping yourself back in at the waist, then at the chest, then jiggling it around so it sits okay before setting off again. It’s a rigmarole I like to avoid where possible, and I figured this fence was high enough that I could keep the backpack on. My knees groaned in pain as I crouched down as low as I could before slipping off under the string. As I went to stand on the other side I discovered something was holding me back. This is how the next couple of nanoseconds proceeded:
1. ‘Oh shit something’s not right here
2. ‘Oh shit, my bag must be caught on the fence
3. ZAP
4. ‘Oh shit, pulling away from this thing only seems to latch the string around tighter
5. ‘Oh shit it must be caught-
6. ZAP
7. –on my sleeping mat
8. I’d better undo my waist strap
9. ZAP
10. I’d better undo my chest strap
And before it could get me again I was free of the damned fence. I turned around, and yanked the string out from my sleeping mat as the fence snapped back into place as if nothing had happened. The heifers stood by fascinated, no doubt thinking ‘Doesn’t this imbecile know that thing is electric’? I was pretty cranky at this point so I hastily strapped back into my pack and looked to resume the trail. Five minutes later I found myself walking around a farmer’s field aimlessly with absolutely nowhere to go. At one corner was a menacing looking sign telling me in no uncertain terms that the path did not proceed beyond her. Once I’d lapped the entire field I figured I must have gone awry somewhere and headed back out the way I came. Uphill off in the distance I spied another gate so I headed for that, and rejoined the path. I wasted the best part of half an hour in that farm, and certainly wasn’t in need of the slog uphill on the uneven ground. Eventually I crossed a road, crossed another farm then once I was sick of trying to pick my way across paddocks, I jumped on a road and took it all the way to Winford. About an hour earlier I’d started to feel a dull burning in the back of my right calf which gradually increased. It wasn’t enough to stop me walking, but it did affect my gait somewhat. I’ll add that to the list, I thought.
I was seeking nourishment, but the post office and the bakery attached was closed in utter contravention of its advertised opening hours. I sat around for 10 minutes out the front wallowing in self-pity then set off again, only to find a pub 100m down the road. I greedily lapped up some cheesy chips and baked beans before heading out of town and hauling myself up another sharp hill on the road to Dundry. From this vantage point Bristol stretched out before me, and it might as well have been New York City by the sheer size of it.
I wandered down a busy road with no footpath for a mile, winding steeply down into Bristol. I hit the outskirts from the southwest and strolled through Bedminster as the town centre drew nearer. It was pretty straight all the way in, and a fair old culture shock being surrounded by so much civilisation all of a sudden. I headed for the hostel in town which was right across from the Piano and Pitcher where Fi, Mel and I had eaten one night last year. Bristol is a cracking city and I’m glad I’m coming back in a couple of days to meet Estela so I can see a bit more of it. But for now I had another little issue to take care of, that being the persistent blister on my right little toe. I took my sock off and had a look at it only to see an entire layer of skin had peeled all the way back. No wonder it was bloody sore. I’ll leave it overnight and let the oxygen work it’s magic, I thought, and grab some Compeed in the morning. Hopefully my calf will be feeling okay too. I met Juri in my dorm and we headed to the pub for a feed and a pint. He’s a German lad from Hamburg living in Leipzig, who spent a year living in Glasgow. He’d also done a little stretch of the South West Coast Path so had a whole bunch of gear on him like I did. At the pub we both used the calorie count to guide our food purchases. The higher the number, the better!
