The road goes ever on and on ...

... and on and on and on!
For 19 and a half miles instead of 15!

After waving goodbye to Helena and Aidan, we set off from Wheeldale at 9:35am to begin our walk. Unfortunately, the first part of the walk was not very clear in where we should be going. Arthur lost the path and we ended up spending the first part of the walk stumbling (and in Emily's case) falling through heather. We eventually found the path at the Blue Man ‘i the moss 45 minutes behind schedule. It should only have taken us 45 minutes! The path was clearer (if a bit squelshy) and we quickned our pace. The silence of the moor was frequently broken by Emily’s rebukes to the grouse which would startle us as they suddenly rose into the sky from close by with an acute alarm call which she became an exert in copying. However, as we headed up towards Danbyhead and the econd road crossing we found the path disappeared across a good half-mile strech of bog. We wasted yet more time trying to find a way round it to stop our feet from getting wet! Hitting our second road, the one coming up from Rosedale, gave us our first glimpse of our main lunch stop, the Lion Inn, but also the three mile road bash to get there! The fact that we had to walk away from the Inn at one point was very frustrating! Arriving at 1:40pm with 10.5 miles done, a pint of cranberry juice and a bowl of broccoli and stiltion soup revived us.
As we set off at 2:15pm for the last stretch little did we realise just how mch the aches would increase before the end. From here we had the company of Tess, our German Shepherd/Collie cross, who has been excluded from the first part due to the path crossing “Access land.” From now on though, we were on a public right of way; an old moor railway track. After 15 miles, the beautiful scenary around us was dampened by the fact that we were feeling tired, with feet, hip and knee joints telling us they would have happily stopped at the luch-stop! Tess (being Tess) still had bag fulls of energy and all she seemed interested in was why we weren't running and chasing after smells on the moor. Going (painfully) down hill on the last mile of the walk we were met by Aidan, much to Tess's enjoyment, and a minute later she went extatic as Helena came into view (pulling Aidan almost head first down the hill!)
We finished at 5:30pm with a total of 19.5 miles.

Thank you to all those who have sponsored me!

Emily