the canal part 2 – 4 sep, 2018
Day 29 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Ellesmere to Whitchurch
Distance: 19km
Cumulative distance: 729km
Geez it was a good decision ducking into that pub last night. I didn’t even go down for a pint I was that buggered (although in the interest of full disclosure, I did duck out around 8.30pm to the adjacent service station for an ice cream…). They did a really good brekky too so by the time I was packed up and ready to go, my spirits were absolutely soaring. The aim today was Whitchurch, where Mum and Dad would be meeting up with me again after their trip down to Hampshire.
I left town and walked past The Mere, a shallow, glacial lake left over from the last ice age. There’s a few of these meres in in this corner of Shropshire, distinctive by the fact there are no rivers or other bodies of water running into them. Their water level is maintained by the ground drainage around them. I passed a few of them during the morning observing plenty of local bird life along the way. It was still grey and there was drizzle around, but this was very peaceful stuff as I linked back up with the canal and settled in for what should be a pretty easy day. Whitchurch was less than 20km away and for the most part I just had to follow this canal.
The only problem was the knee. I realise I’m starting to sound a bit like a broken record here, so please bear with me. I’ve come to think of my body as something of a car, a vehicle responsible for getting me from point A to point B. Some days it runs a bit better than others, and like a car it needs its own fuel and a bit of TLC to keep it functioning at a premium. I’ll take a few pit stops each day just to give it a break, refuel, and so forth and each night over the journey I’ll tend to different ailments as necessary, be they blisters, dodgy knees or whatever. The thing is, it’s all part of taking a long walk like this. You’re going to encounter overuse injuries, and other little bumps and bruises along the way. Usually I’ll be dealing with several little problems as I go, but there’ll be one over riding issue trumping the lot and right now that happens to be my left knee. It’s super stiff in the evenings and the morning, and difficult to sleep on at night. It can take my weight after a little bit of coercing, but often it takes several kilometres of walking each day to straighten it out and stop walking with a limp. I’m forever amazed by how spherical it looks every time I look down to check the swelling, which seems to have established itself in a chunky pool across the joint. It provides a constant warm, dull ache rather than a throbbing pain, and after about half an hour of walking any pain has usually subsided into the background, unless I need to climb over something or walk down a hill. But crucially, it’s not preventing me from walking long distances each day so I’m happy to put up with it. I’ll still take my weekly rest day, and hopefully this canal walking without its hills will give it a chance to heal.
On this particular day it took about two or three hours for the stiffness to completely disappear, and by that stage I was already past halfway to Whitchurch. There were more narrowboats out on the canal throughout the day – I figure people must just hire them for a few days at a time and drift downstream. What a brilliant idea! It’s all pretty relaxing stuff strolling alongside these canals. The water is calm, there are plenty of ducks to observe, and intermittently you get to walk underneath these delightful little stone bridges. To the left and right you’re surrounded by farmland, and occasionally the canal sweeps through a small village but you rarely have to leave its side. When I arrived at the outskirts of Whitchurch I came to a canal T intersection, and crossed over to find a nice pathway which led me all the way into town. Mum and Dad were still a couple of hours away so I went and found a pub on the high street, although it wasn’t serving mid-afternoon food. The barman pointed be down the street to another pub he thought might be able to help out but before I made it that far I stumbled across Donnas Waffles, and my life became all the richer for it. I hit the library after smashing through a stack of sweet crepes and a little while later Mum and Dad walked in.
