Friday, July 13, 2012

Slip sliding along

 This is the beginning of today's walk at Strumble Head.  Behind Brian is a light house, which you can't see through the mist.  They did say it would be cloudy, but didn't mention that the clouds would want to come along the walk with us.
 Here I am dressed for the lovely summer weather with boots, gaiters, cagoul and hat.
 However by lunchtime it had cleared up a bit , and I had got a great deal warmer.  This is the memorial to the last invasion of the British Isles.  The French landed here in 1797 but were captured by the locals.  You can here more about it here. The cliff face here is very steep so we thought they were nuts to even try. There is a very good tapestry in Fishguard showing the whole story, done by locals to commemorate the event
 Here is Brian in a very pretty little valley.
 This is nearing the end and fatigue is setting in.
Here is one of the seals we saw on the way - not a great picture because they were too far away.  We also saw a curlew and lots of stonechats, as well as lots of gulls, oystercatchers, and cormorants.

The official distance is 6 miles according to the book.  The pedometer on the phone said it was 8.1 miles, so we are going for 7 miles.  I'm not sure how much the official distance takes in all the ups and downs, or whether they just measure it flat on the map.  There were a LOT  of ups and downs.  It was also REALLY REALLY MUDDY!  There were a few stretches where we could walk normally, but an awful lot of it was slipping along, or waddling along with feet either side of the very muddy path, plus it was really overgrown.  Using the Helen system it is a 4 goat path with an added slide mark for the mud.  We met a couple of American ladies and did actually get them to turn back because they asked if it was very muddy ahead, and we said, yes, it certainly was.

When we got to the tea shop in Goodwick I was ready for a good sit down!

However it didn't actually rain, and we did finish the whole distance, so we are weary, but very pleased with ourselves.

1 comment:

Boo and Trev said...

It looks really lovely. We have just returned from a damp walk where one of the paths had become a brook. Tested the goretex on trev's new boots!