Going the Extra Mile

Yesterday (Sunday 18th March) we set out to walk stages 3 & 4 of the Trailwalker route, there and back again... a total of 22 miles. We parked at the Cocking Hill car park (very close to Checkpoint 2), loaded up our rucksacks and set out about 9am in glorious sunshine.

One aim of the walk was to try out the walking poles, kindly loaned by Gelly who is currently not walking due to her broken toe. I started out with them, trudging up the hill. Having fully intended to try them out for a whole stage, I was utterly fed up with them within a quarter of a mile and clipped them in to the ready made parts of the rucksack. More of a distraction than anything else I thought, I will be walking without poles... another decision made! Sam had never considered them as an option, and my opinion only served to reinforce that view!

Apart from the initial (long) uphill bit, stage 3 was fairly flat and we made good time for the first couple of hours (despite it being quite muddy in places), arriving at and passing Checkpoint 3 with a minimum of fuss.

Everywhere we looked there was a lovely view and a mile or so into stage 4 we stopped for a bite to eat on a grassy bank, 2 radio masts behind us and in front of us looking out over the Solent to the eastern end of the Isle of Wight (couldn't take a picture as it was straight into the sun!).

We got to Checkpoint 4 and hadn't quite gone 11 miles so we carried on walking a short way into stage 5 to make sure that we'd have walked 22 miles by the time we got back to the car... as it turned out it wasn't necessary. The return journey started with a long, steep climb and was our slowest mile of the whole walk (23 minutes). Approaching the radio masts for the second time we lost concentration for a little while and went the wrong way... we soon realised we weren't recognising our surroundings, consulted the map and turned around. 10 minutes later we were back to a junction where we should have turned and got back on track, having walked about a mile more than we should have done!!

When we got back to the car, we had walked 23.31 miles and we certainly felt it... there is still a lot more work to be done to be fully prepared for this challenge!

The route is here but it hasn't calculated the average pace properly for some reason. Our unplanned diversion can be clearly seen!