I would like to think that the following instructions are by far the most comprehensive on the internet to date. The level of misery you can achieve is comparable to waking up on Christmas morning, aged 13, to find Santa has brought you a 14 tonne bag of crap and a pair of gloves full of used needles.
1. Buy as many maps as possible of the moor. Get ones that include farms, fences, footpaths, and contours. Buy TOO MANY maps, even.
2. Buy a compass, that is accurate to one eight-millionth of a degree.
3. Prepare mentally, by summoning up all of your common sense, into a tingling sensation above your eyes. You should feel like shouting 'I'M READY!!', and beating your chest. But wait, you're not done yet...
4. Burn the maps. All of them. Throw some cash on the fire, too, just to make you feel worse.
5. Align your head between a door and its frame, and slam the door as many times as possible. Get a friend to help, if you start to fade at all. Make sure ALL common sense has deserted you. If the door frame starts barking, you've done a good job.
6. Push the compass up a cow.
7. Set off
Of course, you could always do what we did:
1. Walk 20 miles in 'light' (heavy) rain.
2. End up in minor injuries with Liam's pulled calve muscle (although a man named Josh did give Liam a 'sport massage', which Liam said was 'cool'. I'm saying nothing...)
3. Stab a pen-knife into your blisters, then smother them in Savlon.
4. Not plan a proper route (this could be a key one, I imagine).
5. Set off.
But all of this sounds very negative! We're still having a blinder of a time. Here are a few of the good things...
- the views across the moor
- a cow in a hole
- no cars
- the kindest b+b owners putting us up, despite the smell
- Josh
- free sandwiches from a concerned canteen worker at Bodmin Hospital
- reaching the 100 mile mark, and the end of Cornwall
- feet starting to adjust
- encouraging emails from you all
- a day off
- Spain and Holland looking like they could meet in the final (our chosen teams)
Missing everyone, and clean clothes.
Alex
Keep it going you two! I saw a cow recently that I noted had a very keen sense of direction. So your compass insertion has helped evolve the bovine ability to find true North. Next step: homing cows.
ReplyDeletePicturing you two walking across Bodmin reminds me of An American Werewolf in London. But don't let that thought trouble your dreams. There are no such things as hybrid animal/human creatures roaming the moors. At night. Honest.
I look forward to your next update and everyone sends their love.
David Potts