Well Supported

... and now the Dry Run day from the walkers' perspective.

The preparation session was interesting and useful up to a point... but why are there always people who ask stupid questions, to which the answers are in the literature and on the website, and waste everyone's time!?

We walked from the start at Queen Elizabeth Country Park to Checkpoint 4 at Houghton, 23 miles give or take a few yards. At the start it was drizzly and cold and it was awkward getting ready in the minibus but eventually we set off at about 11:55. We made good time on the first section, which is relatively easy walking and surprised the support crew at CP1 but they still managed to provide bacon & egg sandwiches for the 3 of us who wanted them, and soup for Rachel. It was all a little disorganised, but still it felt like every effort was being made to make our lives as easy as possible.

Stage 2 included Beacon Hill, the steepest on the whole route, which left us puffing a bit and slowed us down but we still reached CP 2 bang on schedule, and this time the support crew were expecting us as we'd rung ahead with orders and an ETA... that worked well. This time there were boot/sock changes and a variety of food requests and we ended up spending 30 minutes at the CP... too long, it needs to be slicker.

Stage 3 is only short, little over an hour and a half of walking and we all thought we wouldn't want much at the end of it and we were right, just some cold snacks and topping up drinks. We got away promptly on 20 minutes.

During Stage 4 we had a discussion about whether we would continue into Stage 5 or stop at CP4 and we decided on the latter. We rang the crew and told them our decision so that they could organise the bus accordingly. By now we were feeling quite chilly and hungry and the thought of the hot pasta meal waiting for us at CP4 was a real boost.



The checkpoints got smoother as the day went on. The support crew learned more about how to organise themselves and the bus and the walkers got better at thinking ahead and making the most of the support. It's a real bonus to be able to just keep walking along the route, without the depressing thought of having to turn round and go back to the car.

We agreed some modifications to the procedures and kit and also that we would do another day early in June to try out the changes.

One of the other things we did was investigate the charging of the Garmin watch at the checkpoints, so the route is split into 3 bits. Stages 1 & 2 are here, Stage 3 is here and Stage 4 is here.