Day 5 Jamaica Inn to Stowford

After talking ghosts with the manager of the Jamaica Inn, I left forgetting my map. After returning to retrieve it from my room I left a second time for real. I had a choice for the first 6km of A30 or a longer trek on not clearly defined paths, previously confirmed on goggle maps. My experience thus far, of off road tracks on day 2, was ending up shin deep in mud twice. Guess which I took, so kitted in hi vis yellow, I marched on up my 1m wide corridor of the A30, the bit between the stony, un-levelled ground and the solid white line at which things that side go very fast. Trucks at 60mph being the slowest. Now entered choice 2, to get off the A30 and head up through Launcester or a shorter, more boring walk. I head for the town. En route I contacted the night's accommodation, a farm where I am writing this from, who confirmed there was no pub near, disaster! No beer, or food. I decided to change the routine and eat at lunch, stopping in Launcester. A nice sweet and sour pork followed, this however had a effect on slowing down my walking pace to a crawl. Getting out of Launcester, became an issue. I can navigate across mountains, but towns are 10x worse. GPS is useless in these circumstances, so what do you do? easy, get yourself a local. He quickly pointed out the Two Castle Trial, which I then followed.

Before I knew it, without being prepared for it I reached Devon, hurray, one county down, and a bloody long one too. Gone are all the names beginning with Tre, thinking of changing mine to Treruss! And got are those black with a white cross Cornwall flags. Devon started with guess what. A hill. Had another paddle late in the afternoon to revive my burning soles, before eventually getting to the farm at 5.35. The last 4 days, all the walks have had a stings in their tails, with a uphill climbs to the accommodation. Todays, however was the steepest. Was going to listen to an audio book tonight and learn a bit of German, but I've busted my headphones so i can't, have to watch Waterloo Road instead. Today's distance was 33.6km, thought it was only going to be 29km, but must be all those "small" diversions. Lovely peacocks here.