LEJOG day 5: Fraddon to Bodmin
Today I went off-road! Only for a little while but for long enough to miss the tarmac.
I started off with a mile or so of small villages, which felt quite a lot like walking through suburbia; but suburbia has its charms, chief amongst them: pavements. Seriously, they're a wonderful idea. They mean walkers and drivers can travel along the same paths without fear of death/insurance claims. They also mean I'm spared my own internal monologue which plays every time a car passes me: if they wave to say 'thank you', my monologue goes "it's ok, I don't particularly want to be run over" and if they don't, my internal monologue says a sarcastic "you're welcome" so you can't win, really.
After this, I got a reminder of how not-fun it is to walk along the edge of a road without pavements with traffic, walked past an owl sanctuary with great yearning (half an hour's owl handling for £30! I don't know how you can put a price on that) and then climbed a hill to find the boldly marked - and signposted - Castle-an-Dinas (non-Roman according to OS) is in fact "remains of", which are some banks of earth. I was so thrilled.
I tramped across some fields, climbed over a barbed wire fence and then immediately walked past the gate (oops) and caught up with Catherine. We walked up to St Wenn together, poked around a very sweet church, and were gifted a banana each by a lady who Catherine asked to refill her water bottle. After this I strode off the roads at my own pace, eating a cold crumpet I purloined from the Premier Inn as I went. I can't really recommend cold crumpets.
Today I also got the exciting experiences of walking on not one but two trails worthy of a name and green diamonds on the map- the first, the Saints Way, which to be fair I followed for all of a minute as it runs virtually perpendicular to where I wanted to go, and the second, the Camel Trail, runs along a dismantled railway and which I'll be rejoining tomorrow morning. I liked them both.
I've been asked by a few people if I'm being sponsored. I'm not: if I wanted to raise money for charity the most effective way would be to work out how much this is going to cost, and then donate that amount to charity myself. I'm doing this because I want to.
That being said, if you felt moved to offload some spare cash, in no particular order, here are some places to do so:
The Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS)
Bliss
The Natural History Museum
Any of these cost-effective, underfunded charities improving health in less fortunate parts of the world
Distance: 14.97 miles
Time: 5h16
Percentage completed: 6.4%
Boot cost per mile: £0.53
Lunch: aforementioned cold crumpet, a banana and a number of ginger nut biscuits. Healthy choices!
Last night's accommodation: Premier Inn: you know what you're getting- soulless but a room with a bed, a bath, and pancakes at breakfast.
The view from the castle gates
I take photos of people's houses probably too often
Geographical proof selfie jackpot!
St Withiel, I suspect
Another stranger's house, with a woven fence
Another bridge, because I'm told my Dad liked the last one. This was a great banana-eating spot
I started off with a mile or so of small villages, which felt quite a lot like walking through suburbia; but suburbia has its charms, chief amongst them: pavements. Seriously, they're a wonderful idea. They mean walkers and drivers can travel along the same paths without fear of death/insurance claims. They also mean I'm spared my own internal monologue which plays every time a car passes me: if they wave to say 'thank you', my monologue goes "it's ok, I don't particularly want to be run over" and if they don't, my internal monologue says a sarcastic "you're welcome" so you can't win, really.
After this, I got a reminder of how not-fun it is to walk along the edge of a road without pavements with traffic, walked past an owl sanctuary with great yearning (half an hour's owl handling for £30! I don't know how you can put a price on that) and then climbed a hill to find the boldly marked - and signposted - Castle-an-Dinas (non-Roman according to OS) is in fact "remains of", which are some banks of earth. I was so thrilled.
I tramped across some fields, climbed over a barbed wire fence and then immediately walked past the gate (oops) and caught up with Catherine. We walked up to St Wenn together, poked around a very sweet church, and were gifted a banana each by a lady who Catherine asked to refill her water bottle. After this I strode off the roads at my own pace, eating a cold crumpet I purloined from the Premier Inn as I went. I can't really recommend cold crumpets.
Today I also got the exciting experiences of walking on not one but two trails worthy of a name and green diamonds on the map- the first, the Saints Way, which to be fair I followed for all of a minute as it runs virtually perpendicular to where I wanted to go, and the second, the Camel Trail, runs along a dismantled railway and which I'll be rejoining tomorrow morning. I liked them both.
I've been asked by a few people if I'm being sponsored. I'm not: if I wanted to raise money for charity the most effective way would be to work out how much this is going to cost, and then donate that amount to charity myself. I'm doing this because I want to.
That being said, if you felt moved to offload some spare cash, in no particular order, here are some places to do so:
The Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS)
Bliss
The Natural History Museum
Any of these cost-effective, underfunded charities improving health in less fortunate parts of the world
Distance: 14.97 miles
Time: 5h16
Percentage completed: 6.4%
Boot cost per mile: £0.53
Lunch: aforementioned cold crumpet, a banana and a number of ginger nut biscuits. Healthy choices!
Last night's accommodation: Premier Inn: you know what you're getting- soulless but a room with a bed, a bath, and pancakes at breakfast.
Lovely selfie
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