A small group of four completed the LWW on Saturday 4th June raising over £1700 for the Yorkshire Air Ambulence in the process. The group was Jane Newby, Colin Rice, Keith Johnson and myself.
We set off at 04.15 in fog that according to the weather forecast would lift later in the morning for a beautiful day. Although it attempted to shine through it never really left us for the full walk. For the fist 10 miles our driver Simon Holmes joined us and set a good pace. We knew that a group from Strensall Barracks York were setting off shortly behind us and we were determined to reach our first check point before them, which we are proud to say we did. Although foggy the first 10 miles was quite enjoyable (especially when we found the toilets open at Lord Stones).
The second section to the Lion Inn was a bit monotanus as we couldn’t see much and we nearly missed the turn off from the old railway line to the Lion inn. At the stop we were disheartened to hear that only 10 minutes down the road the rest of Yorkshire was enjoying beautiful sunshine but our support driver Sally cheered us up with Tea and pizzas.
Over the boggy section we didn’t see a single white marker stone and drifted of course, our GPS however got us to the right spot for the next check point but by this time I’d hurt my knee and boots were rubbing.
The healthy rivalry with the Army continued as a number of their guys dropped out and we were still 4, we walked a little of the way with them past the Blue man stone, however upon losing a couple more member of their team they shot off leaving us behind.
Over the railway line and I was ready to give in my knees were killing me but upon arriving at the checkpoint to find our driver had not yet arrived I decided to keep going. It was 7pm and we were still on course at this point, however over the next moorland section we again drifted off course skirting boggy sections but we came out at the gateway as shown in the book. We walked down the path looking for the second path on the right, but instead came to a righthand bend leading us to RAF Fylingdales. We’d gone to far and had to double back, turned out we’d come out too far down the path and should have taken what was the first path we’d passed. We found it and headed to Lilla Cross but it was getting darker.
On the promise of its only another two miles we trugged on and did the next two hours in the dark using torches. Turned out the two miles was to raise our sprits and didn’t include the last moorland crossing.
When we saw the lights of our support car shining down the path we were so relieved. Unfortunatly at 11:55pm it was to dark to take a picture, we couldn’t even see the mast. We completed the walk in 19 hours 40 mins.
Attached a some of the pictures taken on the earlier section. We kind of forgot later on.
If you would like to use our story please do. We will be applying for our badges next week.
Regards
Karen (Witch)