Today was the day when the great plan went awry.... but more of this later. I started out bright and early at my usual brisk speed, passing initially through wooded farm land, then on to an 'edge of Dartmoor' sort of stuff onto sweeping hilly arable land. It was sunny but as soon as you left the woods there was a bitter northerly wind.

Half way through the afternoon I thought my right boot was rather tight, half an hour later I stopped to adjust it. The boot was not too tight, but my ankle had swollen up. Immediately I knew I had shin splints. .....Bugger!!!

For those that have followed this story before know that this problem 'did' for my first journey four years before, through taking short cuts and walking too far on metalled roads. However I had not suffered any problems since then.

This time, with the exception of one day I had kept to sensible distances, but all the surfaces were very hard. Talking to a few experts in the medical field along the journey it seems my delight in fast walking on a hard surface was probably my downfall. As the only remedy for this problem is rest I knew I was going to have to give the future of my trip some thought.

The accommodation for the evening was in a converted convent turned into a tourist alburge, beautifully fitted out....but in need of more beds. On my tour of the village I bumped into my last Easter procession (It was Easter Sunday)

The fun was watching a happy (and rightly proud) crowd of young village people position the float into its resting place inside the church.

The evening was spent in the company of Daniela from Germany who was suffering terribly from blisters, a very cheerful and colourful lad from the Canaries, who's name I never learnt and a delightful fun couple from Madrid. Michael was Canadian while his partner, Lucia was Spanish, regrettably they had to return home the next day.