DAY 17 SUMMARY

A nice steady day to prepare for tomorrow's marathon, although the day felt a little slow due to the lack of interesting sights. We left at 9 in the morning and did the 15 easy miles by 3.45 P.M. Before we entered the forest, which is the main highlight of the day, the walking was on moor land, with the occasional crossing of a minor road. This kind of moor land is easy as there is a well marked out path, but it is still easy to get lost due to there being lots of footpaths criss-crossing the main path. There is also a lot stiles to climb over, and at one of them I nearly lost my water bottle on a stile pole and had to run back the 1.5 miles to where I lost the bottle, after I reached for the bottle and suddenly realised it was not there. After the moor land, there followed a stretch of 6 miles of forest during which we came to 2 places with amazingly long strange names. Don't ask what the best way to pronounce is as I don't know. Blakehopebunhaugh and Cottonshopeburnfoot are the two names, which turned out to be areas around forest ranger huts. After walking though these areas we strolled in to Bryness.