A Tough Walk

Today's walk was a toughie and I have no-one else to blame but myself and the local farmers!!!  I had chosen a route around Kritou Terra and Terra which John and I had done some weeks' back but now that everything is getting overgrown two of the tracks were unrecognisable so we had some unexpected off-piste and on-road and it ended up longer and steeper than I had anticipated.

It started out well as we took a path away out of Kritou Terra which leads from the Cemetery and across the top of the village towards Tera - we had left early 8.00am because the forecast was for a very warm day.  The first part of the walk is on nice tracks which were relatively shady and rural.  There was a heat haze even that early in the morning so the view across to the sea wasn't clear.

The next section of the walk should have taken us down a track and then across a river but there appeared to have been a small fenced in section of trees erected directly across our route so we had to circumnavigate through a field and ended up with all sorts of stuff in our socks and boots and scratched legs into the bargain.  This diversion meant we joined the main road in the wrong place so the next track was just nowhere to be seen so we had to use the map and go cross-country until we eventually found it.

I think it is fair to say that all this delayed us considerably - it isn't easy to get up any speed wading through neck high weeds!!! and we had to stop on a couple of occasions to clear the spikes from our socks and it was hot so we had plenty of water stops too.  When we were back on track we text our respective other halves just to let them know that we were not going to be finished at the time we would have anticipated.

It was all going to plan until the end when we were supposed to take a path from Terra to Kritou Terra - John and I had walked it previously but it was so overgrown we decided to give it a miss - it was going to take us too long and we neither of us fancied any more crap in our boots.  I had noticed on the final occasion I had taken mine off that they are now getting pretty worn out and so when I feel up to tackling Sports Direct I will go and see if they have any more like these - they have been so comfortable even with my awful feet.

I can say that the final stretch was the longest ever and I was really pleased with Kenny came into sight and I think Liselotte was pretty happy too as she had walked everyday this week and my walk is normally her easiest although today had not proved to be quite the walk in the park we had hoped for.

I was so grateful that when I got home John had a fabulous cold smoothie waiting for me and I had a very refreshing dip in the pool to ease my aching bones and cool my glowing shoulders.  My tan looks great providing I am in my walking clothes but otherwise I look like a zebra crossing!!!!  You can see where I have been wearing ankle socks and longer length shorts - I am going to have to rectify this sooner rather than later.