Tuesday 27th September – 20km walk... approximately

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What dork would like to stand in stinging nettle twice in 1 day??? Pick me, Pick me!!!
What dork would like to end up in an ankle deep muddy puddle??? Pick me, Pick me!!!
What dork would like to resort to peeing in a forest because she couldn't wait any longer??? Pick me, Pick me!!!
Quite an eventful day today I must say! So we were up on timeish and had our cereal breakfast (it took us about 4 days and 20 shops to find just one single junk shop that sold plastic bowls and plastic spoons... apparently Great Britian uses proper crockery when hosting a child's party!
Anyway we decided to drive to Lake Windermere to go for a walk today so we drove to the Inforamtion Centre and asked the guy about some walks. He asked whay type of shoes we had because the tracks have had a lot of rain lately.
Well, we parked the car about 2 kilometers further away than we needed to but that's ok, we got a warm up walk in. If you ask Steve he will say it was a dwaddle because Nicole and I weren't able to go more than 10 minutes without stopping... Is it our fault we needed the toilet, Nicole's shoe laces were lose, Nicole wanted to detach the bottom of her pants, I needed a drink, we needed the camera to take a photo of the swans walking up to people??? I think not! But seriously, when we reached the first dock area there were swans and geese and pigeons everywhere, I don't think I have ever seen a swan walking before.... their feet are MASSIVE!!!! And they are actually quite scary creatures! I went to take a photo of one and it must have seen me and started walking straight for me... that was me gone! Then a goose was eyeing me up too so I had to run even further, alright I didn't run but I did hide behind Steve!
Right we eventually made it to the cheaper ferry (only 50p instead of £2.50p) which was a car ferry and made it across to the other side of the lake. We walked a wee way and found a stoney beach to sit on and have some lunch, we were very good and bought rolls, meat, lettuce, cheese and mayo! Nice and healthy and a bargain!
After lunch we started on our journey wondering why everyone was walking in the opposite direction, we put it down to the fact that they caught the closer ferry and were walking down to the car ferry. The track was a road so we had a good chuckle at the tourist shop man's comment about muddy grounds. Eventually we made it to some muddy land and I got a tad excited to get a little bit muddy. The signposts around the tracks were not very clear and we turned where we thought we should turn and ended up walking most of our trek on roads, hence why we laughed even more at the tourist shop man's comments about needing good walking shoes. Part way through we came to decision time where we needed to decide if we were going to do the extra loop or not... Nicole and I were not keen but Steve wanted to because he was out for a decent walk... 2 females... 2 Dutch females... 2 cranky Dutch females against Steve... we won! Frustrating bit is that when we eventually found the rproper track towards the end of our trip we were looking closely at the map and realised that we had ended up doing the massive loop Steve wanted to do... unintentionally!
So, like I said, we eventually found the right track-ish but decided to just walk along the road/footpath. The footpath led us away from the road but that was ok because it led us into a field with a track straight through the middle... a short-cut! Well we now understood what the tourist shop man was talking about! We made it half way through the field when we came across a very muddle puddle, that was fine – we can walk around it on the grass... well, nope, that was just as wet, if not deeper. Steve ended up walking around the puddle and very wet grass (almost needed to go to the edge of the field, Nicole took her shoes off and walked through the puddle and dried her feet at the other end with a towel she had... Me? Well one of my shoes was already half muddy/wet so, what the heck, I walked straight through the puddle – how bad could it be right? Yea, NO! I was wadding through an ankle deep puddle that was filthy and my shoes got VERY dirty and wet!
After walking back to the car (it was ages away too!) in wet, muddy shoes I was ready for the walk to end. Poor Nicole, who has very short legs, was left behind towards the end because I was on a mission to get back to the car and take my shoes off and she was exhausted... Don't worry Aunty Sherie... Steve made sure she made it back!
We stopped at a restaurant on the way back to our hotel where the waitress misheard me and tried to feed me a pesto burger instead of a beef burger... Vegetarian... really lady??? I have just walked 20km and you are going to try and give me a vegetarian burger... I think not! I was very polite when telling her that was not what I ordered until she didn't even apologise for her mistake... I may have gotten a little bit cranky after that, I didn't say anything rude but I wasn't polite either!
Anyway when we arrived back my shoes and I had a shower and went straight to bed!
That's my exercise done for the next year! Hehe JOKES!
Sleep time now!
XX

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Photos

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A big as swan... with massive feet!

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Steve and Nicole waiting for the ferry

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A panoramic view of where we sat for lunch