5 Funky Llamas, 2 Hardcore 4-ers, 3 Sleeping Ponies, 2 Leaping Walkers, and a bit of climbing through some beach-side trees!

With Gubbs away at (another!) stag do, and Julie carrying out a 12 mile loop closer to home, remaining team members Josh and Jo decided to put in one last training walk, taking advantage of the 'winding down' recommended in the training guide in terms of distance. 

As both Josh and Jo suffer from hayfever, they decided a walk near the coast might be in order to avoid all of the pollen in the fields closer in-land, so they decided on a 5 mile loop at Lepe Country Park in the New Forest.  5 miles now seems like a stroll in the park compared to recent training walks (I did say we were taking advantage of the 'winding down' part!!).

On arriving at the car park next to the beach, Jo and Josh were met with a view of around 1800 yachts, sailing the Solent for the annual Round The Island boat race. This is one of the largest yacht races in the world, starting and finishing in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, so it was quite a sight to behold. The race is 63.3 miles long, coincidently almost exactly the same distance that we will be walking in Trailwalker in a few weeks time!!!

The walk route started from the car park and took us along the footpath next to the shore line. The wind was blowing quite a gail, which was good news for the sailors, but not such good news for Jo's hat which had to be removed within a few feet of starting the walk and safely placed in her rucksack for fear that it would be blown away without ever getting to experience the full trailwalker experience!

The instructions for the walk at this point gave two options, one for high tide and one for low tide. Noting that the tide was well and truly in, Jo carefully read the instructions through and instructed Josh that they should follow the footpath on to the beach and continue along here until they reached a road. It wasn't until they'd been walking for 15 minutes or so, and on noticing that the area of the beach not covered by the sea seemed to be getting smaller and smaller, that Jo realised she had been following the low tide instructions rather than the high tide intructions!! Oops! (No doubt this will get a laugh from support crew member Jeff!!).

On realising her mistake, Jo alerted Josh, but as we are coming to realise after his few team training walks so far, nothing seems to phase Josh, so rather than turn around, Josh decided that they should continue along the beach and see where they got to! This did mean that they had to climb through quite a few trees and marshy areas at some points when the shore line ran very thin, but eventually they made it to the road and headed in land in to farm land and away from the blowing wind.

The break from the wind gave Josh and Jo a chance to chat more about the up and coming trailwalker event, which seems to have snuck up ever so quickly in the last few weeks!  They talked about the food, enduring the challenge, and the effect that a few energy shots could have in the later stages of the trek!  It also gave the two team members a bit more time to get to know a bit more about each other, having only met each other once before Josh bravely stepped in to take the place of Gem in the Hardcore Four team.

The route at this point of the walk, passed a field containing some newly shawn llamas.  Jo and Josh were pleased to see that their owner had completely shaved their bodies, but had left them with some funky haircuts, obviously so they still looked cool to their llama friends in the next door field!.

Josh jumping puddle.
It was bigger than it looks in the photo! 

The route then took the two walkers through a copse which got a little boggy in places, and then further in to more fields. At this point, the pathway became very boggy and flooded and in one part was nearly impassable due to the huge puddles that covered the footpath and the surrounding field area. Jo carefully picked her way through this bit, leaping here and there to reach drier parts of land.  Josh however, decided that this obstacle needed a different approach in the form of a long running jump directly over the puddle obstructing the pathway. He went back a good 10-15 feet in preparation for his run up, ran as fast as he could and lept in to the air like a gazelle... and made it (sort of!!)!

At this point Josh and Jo were pleased to find that they were now approaching the end of the route - we could get used to these nice little 5 milers! They passed through a field of New Forest ponies with their foals, who were sleeplily laying on the grass chilling in the sunshine while their mothers kept an eye out for strange leeping walkers!

We soon found ourselves back at the car, completing the 5 miles in 1 hour 22 minutes. Now its time to bring on the real thing!!!