Amberley to Truleigh Hill YHA

Plan of the day: checkpoint 4 to 3, 3 to 4, 4 to 5 and 5 to Truleigh Hill of the beautiful South Downs Way and beautiful it was!

After dropping off our bags with Medusa's parents and loading ourselves with energy supplies at Amberley the four of us went forth in earnest. The walk from Amberley to checkpoint 3 quickly showed us what the South Downs had to offer, LOTS of amazing scenery! We were also met by poo and mud which kept our spirits high because of course.....a walk isn't a walk without poo and mud!

This section stayed nice and flat, nothing too strenuous and we all rejoiced when we saw the support crew in sight. Theia was especially rejoiceful at the fact that she hadn't got the OUCH'ers lost, map reading skills were never her strong points. On reaching the support crew we had been happy that we had made good speed, however, we were aware that too long of a stop would put us behind schedule, something we discovered later.

With our hydration packs refilled we continued onwards, heading back to Ambereley.
Our first mission was to climb the everest of mud  that we had so carefully just come down on, oh how that was fun.Throughout this section the views never disappointed us which took everyones breath away, particularly Theia's as she exclaimed a lot!

A few more hills compared to the last section, some woodland and dancing on the move!.Lots of giggling occurred when we talked about 'classics' that we could dance to, such as YMCA, Tragedy (very fitting i thought) and The Macarena.
This section took longer due to the girls of the group needing a toilet stop and after a (not so) brief stop, i blame the ice cream shop, we made our way into Amberley to meet our support crew and lunch!

Amberley to checkpoint 5 and our legs were starting to feel weary. The route was reasonably flat, emphasis on the 'reasonably', it is the South Downs, of course there were hills.
The fantastic scenery remained with the addition of rather lovely views of the posteriors of passing cyclists which the girls particularly enjoyed.

Throughout the day the weather had been very kind to us, dry with sunny spells, however, those sunny spells became more prolonged and 'sunny' and the OUCH'ers became tired. We headed downhill to the outskirts of Washington and met the support team. The decision was made to head to Trueleigh Hill YHA via car to get some rest before another day of walking awaited us...........

Nervous...

It's the Tuesday before our first walk on the actual course and I have to admit, I'm feeling a little nervous. We've been training, but has it been enough? Have we built up enough muscle to be able to deal with a continuous parade of hills? How will we cope if this "drought" continues and we have to do the entire weekend in  waterproofs? I'm not sure.

The one thing I am feeling confident about is that we are going to be accompanied by some of our support team for the first time too. It will be great to have some back-up and it will help to break up the long days.

Either way, once we're through this weekend our legs will be stronger, our lungs a bit more open and we will all be more familiar with the route and just what exactly we have let ourselves in for....

Some walks weren't meant to be

On a soggy bank holiday Monday Theia and Mnemosyne set off on a walk that took in a bit of incline and a bit of riverside walking. As they set off the riverside walking was looking questionable, although the flood warnings had been removed and the environment agency said levels were dropping the continuous rain suggested otherwise, but they had a backup plan.

The incline was found to be gentle, you can't expect much else in Oxfordshire, and soon they were walking back downhill and through a wooded glade with a carpet of bluebells.

Afterwards the mud began, well its not a proper walk without mud, then came the first detour. Now neither Theia or Mnemosyne minds walking through a field with livestock, although both would prefer not to but the view over the first stile looked a little closer to nature than either of the titans want to get...

The next path to get them back on course looked waterlogged, although the inhabitants were further away. The titans decide to take this as a sign to change course and go to the backup plan. Things went OK for a while but after following the next path they'd found the landowner had replaced the stile with a barbed wire topped fence. An alternative exit was found but by this point our titans had been rained on and thwarted for a couple of hours and with one set of boots found to be having issues with water, enough was enough. There will be more opportunities for training...