Walking 1000 miles from Lands end to John O'Groats in aid of The Air Ambulance (starts april 7th 2024)

Sunday, 7 April 2024

day 1, Rain, wind, mud, cow sh@t and friendly pigs!!

What to say about today!?!? 
Let's start with distance ... The planned distance was 15.1 miles, actual walked distance was 18.4 miles on very hilly ground tramping away from lands end in good company with Tracey, my dear friend Ruth and Sarah Tracey's mate, weather was overcast with occasional sun breaking through with a strong south Westerly wind at our backs, the sea was breaking impressively on the cliffs and rocks of the coast making the powerful wind very welcome! 
The path took as along to Sennen where most sane people were staying snug and warm in front of the TV, yeah we'll come back to sanity.....
Heading inland we diverted from the plan and wandered past the lands end airport with it's flags and signs saying cafe open!!!! Disappointingly it wasn't! 
Crossing potato fields and tiny single track roads we gained height as we reached the highest backbone of Cornwall picking up our first A road passing old almost megalithic ruins of industry past!
We car dodged for a few miles into Newbridge finding a pub not on the map serving Sunday dinner normally reservation only they kindly squeezed us in! 
Bloated from a great feed and plodding slowly we got to the bridge where a quirky resident had set up a Cornish elf(?) on the bridge wall....odd!
Uphill out of Newbridge and walking a succession of hills and valleys we pass a village called Madron fun with the sign was inevitable! 😄
The undulating country continued for the rest of the afternoon with strong wind and rain and regular views of the distant St Michael's mount through the misty air.... It seemed no matter how far we walked signs to Penzance all said 4 miles! 
Coming into one valley we pass a pig field where the old black pigs got a good scratch behind the ears 😊
Pushing on to get to the end of the days planned walk the rain started to gain strength and we found ourselves hunting for a wild camp for the night luckily by early evening we'd found some sheltered woodland and we set up for the night.