Thursday 18th April
With the children all back at school and
Becky enjoying an extra week off we decided to hit the actual trail and do a
stage. As Sue & Sandra had done 1 & 2, we decided to go for stage 3 and
attempt that s***ter of a hill Sandra described at the end of stage 2!
So off we set from school with Lyn who is a
member of our support crew & 3 dogs! We went the back way to save on time
as we had to be back for school pock up at 3.10pm. Lyn did some fantastic
driving whizzing round the bends which gave Becky her first challenge of the
day – the smell of dog sick! We finally arrived at Checkpoint 2, parked up,
unloaded dogs, got kitted up and used the changing towel for the first time!
Heavy showers were forecast so full water proofs were required!
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| Which way?? |
So off we set up the hill that had scared
Sandra – and actually it was absolutely fine – quite a nice hill as it goes.
Plenty of chat to catch up on our Easter Holiday adventures and only a bit of drizzle.
The dogs were happily running around and we made good progress along the trail.
We then decided we weren’t drinking enough so it was time for Becky to use her
Platypus for the 1st time – only to declare it not working. Sue had
quick look and established that once the straw was at the bottom of the pack
the water tends to flow much better! With Becky hydrated we set off again . We
went past some great wooden signposts, beautiful views and finally through a
lovely field of yellow before descending down into checkpoint 3.
It was here
that Sandra looked at the start of stage 4 and said “now that is a sh***er of a
hill!” There appears to be a theme as we near each checkpoint!!
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| The hill out of CP3 |
Just as we approached our lunch stop at the
checkpoint Becky did the obligatory comedy fall of the day! To be fair it was a
steep and wet descent and 2 dogs took her out!
8.3 km completed in 1 hour 34 mins – on
target for 24 hours then!
We had a quick stop for lunch where the
debate was whether Marmite cashews or Ham & Cranberry crisps were the best
treat, needless to say both are now on the Trailwalker snack list.
Now fully refreshed we set off back towards
the car at checkpoint 2. We headed back up the steep hill and enjoyed the view
behind us once at the top – the start of stage 4 does not look good!
Despite the forecast of heavy rain, we had
only light showers to endure. This did however mean the track was slippery and
hard going in places with the chalk mashing up beneath our feet. Trailwalker
will be very hard if the conditions are like this in July. This kind of
distance is “easy” for us now but our legs were feeling it in these conditions.
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| Looks like rain... |
Finally we started to descend into
checkpoint 2, from here we could see the end of stage 2 and what a huge descent
it is into checkpoint 2 – no wonder that hill went on forever when we tackled
it a couple of weeks ago.
Back to the car for quick strip off of
waterproofs & boots and a mad dash back to school!
16.7km completed in 3 hours 5 minutes.
Well done Lyn for your first team walk –
Lyn’s so glad she’s on the support team now!
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