Stoke!

Miles today : 16
Miles remaining : 0

Boats, outside the Boat Inn.

I must admit, I'm expecting things to be a bit easier today, after the trials of Sunday, and a very long day yesterday.  I only have 16 miles to go, and coming out of the Peak District the going should be easier - no more dales.  But the rain is coming down, and my tent is wet and heavy, and the blister on my right foot is not happy about me walking forty-five miles or so over the last couple of days on it.  Maybe I should have brought some plasters...

As I get into Staffordshire it becomes apparent that the footpaths here are not well used.  In fact often I find myself in a field of long, wet grass, with no suggestion that anybody other than me has walked this way in a long time.  I follow the line given by my GPS unit, and generally speaking come up to a delapidated stile or a gate, often horribly overgrown with nettles, thistles, even holly.  And with no evidence for a path on the ground, it's all too easy to walk the wrong side of a field boundary, requiring either backtracking or more clambering over walls.

A couple of kilns survive the general devastation.

The worst of these comes a little way after lunch (a pleasant stop at the Boat Inn, Cheddleton), when I find not just a barbed wire fence, but a substantial stream blocking my path.  I manage to spot a place where the fence looks climbable, and there is a handy stepping stone and a muddy bank I can clamber up, so over my pack goes and I only lose a little blood getting over the wire.  Things go downhill a bit when the stepping stone turns out to have a large cowpat on it... and then much more downhill when the muddy bank is not, in fact, mud.  Nothing to be done but keep going, for all that the cowshit is ankle deep, and my hiking shoes do not reach to my ankles.  I walk another mile, literally in the shit, before I can find some water deep enough to wash it off.

I do eventually find some decent terrain on Wetley Moor, and then it's downhill into Stoke, the final mile or two along the canal providing a somewhat depressing end to the walk - fields of rubble and semi ruined buildings a testament to the area's lost industry.  The last few hundred yards through a park is nice enough though, and then I'm at the pub - and Austin has picked one reserved for the away fans for tonight's Stoke City / Tottenham game.  Yay.

An actual pretty bit of canal in Stoke.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.