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Published: April 13th 2008
Saturday 12 April - 05:45am....Barp!, barp!, barp! Off goes the alarm, with eyes still shut Lav turns of the alarm and wakes Steve, reminding him of the amazing day's challenge ahead. Originally we thought the walk we had planned was 26 miles, but discovered it is actually 45 km (28 miles)!! GULP! The day's plan was to walk from historic Salisbury, join the 24 mile 'Clarendon Way', and follow it across typical English countryside pass fields, woods, meadows, quiet rivers, cosy pubs and picturesque villages with thatched cottages...28 miles to historic Winchester, once the capital of England, all in one day! We knew we were going to be taking on a huge feat - particularly because potentially we could be looking at up to 13 hours of walking in one day. Not being equipped with our headtorches, we knew that we had to try to reach Winchester before dusk. We were very excited that Steve's brother Malcolm, was joining us in our 'crazy' 28 mile adventure walking from Wiltshire into Hampshire. Malcolm who will be joining us for the final week of the Pennine Way, was also keen to boost his walking fitness...so off we headed for our adventure, the 'Three
Muskateers' (well....Lav, Steve and Malcolm).
Starting in the county of Wiltshire, we left from Salisbury station bright and early and walked through the very charming city of Salisbury to the famous Cathedral. We then left the city centre and wandered across meadows, fields and through very pleasant woodland. At one point the waymarks seemed to disappear!, so we had to keep a close eye on the map (Malcolm was chief map reader for the walk). For miles and miles and miles, we followed a former Roman road and after 4 hours of almost solid walking, we decided to stop for lunch in a cosy pub called 'Tally Ho', in the picturesque village of Brompton. After burgers and chips for the boys and a modest jacket potato for Lav, it was time to hit the road again. The views were glorious and it was such a delight to wander past the crystal clear waters of the River Test, where we spotted trout and walked through charming villages, such as King's Somborne in Hampshire, with its cute thatched cottages.
We had been commenting on how lucky we had been with the weather, when at 5.15pm - the heavens well and
truly opened. We got completely soaked. Lav had so much rain coming into her face at one point, she could just about see where she was going! At mile 19 we were all starting to feel the heaviness in our legs, but trudged on and on until reaching some lovely water meadows, and finally the beautiful city of Winchester! We were so happy to see Winchester Cathedral. We all agreed it was an absolutely fantastic day of walking...all 28 miles of it! We walked like John Wayne to reach Winchester station and did get a few glares. Some kids even shouted to us..."Not too far now!" and chuckled as we went past. The three of us walking heavy-legged into Winchester, must have been an amusing sight! An amusing sight, but a fantastic achievement for us all to have walked 45km in 10 hours! We reached home at midnight - so from the time we woke up, overall it was almost a 19 hour day.
Only 2 weeks until we hike the Pennine Way to raise money for the fantastic Ectopic Pregnancy Trust...our excitement is really building now!!! If you would like to support us in our fundraising effort, please
go to www.ectopic.org.uk/fundraising/?p=46. Thank you so much! Lav and Steve
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