Day 3:
Today is Sarah's birthday - happy birthday Sarah! Sorry I can't be there with you xx. There's a bottle of organic Merlot in the wine rack with your name on it :)
The success of banging out Indian Queens to St Breward in 7 hours was overshadowed by the at times desperate struggle across Bodmin Moor. I did not intend to visit the Jamaica Inn but thats where I'm writing this. The path I was following disappeared into deep swamp that inexplicably continued all the way to the top of the Tor. I found myself surrounded by terrain I would normally class as impenetrable with no option but to climb and descend and cross the barbed wire fence again and again in an easterly direction until there was an end. In the middle of this dangerous game of twisted ankle - flooded boot a terrific storm burst upon the moors and I in my summer clothes had no choice but to do what I have done before and deploy the umbrella and face the wind, standing still until it passed by. It didn't pass. I had to open my pack and hurriedly dress in jacket and gaiters. All is soaked. Morale destroyed. I am happy that I walked my 25 miles today. But the cost was enormous. I walked from 06:30 to 13:30, lunched at St Breward and struggled across the moor from 14:50 to 19:00. My feet are fine but my boots feel damp, even wet. Even they could not withstand multiple immersion in bog water and thrashing through miles of waist high bog grasses during a frightening storm. I was afraid I'd get stuck. Not good. Staying in a hotel tonight. I don't have the courage to face a third night soaked outside.
DAY 4
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| Truro |
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| Easy walking on the Camel Trail |
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| St Breward |
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| There are a lot of signs with bullet holes out there... |
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| Local footpaths leading to Bodmin Moor. |
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| The "path"... |
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One of the last footpath waymarkers I found on Bodmin Moor.
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| King Arthur's Hall looks a lot like something you'd find in Scotland.. |
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| A squall approaching. |
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Bodmin Moor resembling lowland Scotland.
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| Bog country; dreadful walking. |
A note about the blog
I must be the only LEJOGer without a smart phone. This means I don't have the ability to update this blog when I'm on the trail. My support team back home kindly offered to update the blog for me, so this will be communicated by text message and written up on my behalf. It will therefore be brief and without photos. I will expand on this when I get back from my journal entries, dictaphone recordings and photo journal. The detailed account will be published as a book which will be available on Amazon.
Charity
Thank you to everyone who has made a donation to
Helping Hands for the Blind, a respectable local charity. You can make a donation
here. Using Gift Aid, the charity is able to claim an additional percentage of each donation from the government as part of the
Gift Aid scheme.
While I am not tracking how much has been raised, the charity themselves may wish to do that; leaving a note with your donation such as "LEJOG" will help them do that. To be frank, it's more important that they receive donations than it is for me to take credit; they're actually doing something important whereas I am going on what could be described as a holiday.
My books
Lastly and leastly, I am an independent author. Writing is a pleasure even if reading it isn't! I will write an account of my LEJOG journey in the form of a book which hopefully will encourage other people to give LEJOG a try (and probably discourage many more). If you want a copy, the first batch will be given free of charge. Ask and you shall receive...
My other books are available on Amazon:
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