Long walk: training with a friend

It was a real pleasure to share this walk with a good friend, Christine, who I met through the fabulous Mother Nature's Diet. We spent the whole walk - around 5 hours, including a pause for lunch - chatting nineteen-to-the-dozen about all aspects of food, exercise, health - and life in a holistic sense. It's fabulous to exchange thoughts and experiences when you're so much on the same wavelength - and seem to share quite a few life experiences!

The route we followed was the one that I tried out on my own three weeks ago, starting in Holt, up past Greshams School and Voewood, off through Kelling Heath and past the steam train line; and up to Salthouse for lunch. Then back out of the village and heading south, back into Holt through the forest.

Here we are at the fabulous lily pond on Kelling Heath early in the walk.

The day started beautifully sunny, and our paths across Kelling Heath and up to Salthouse were wonderful. Butterflies everywhere, and we're moving into blackberry season, so did a fair bit of scrumping along the way...

We stopped, of course, at Cookie's Crab Shop to buy dressed crab for lunch as I had last time - delicious.

We felt a few spots of rain as we left Salthouse, and it turned into a gentle drizzle as we made our way along the footpaths that cross the fields running parallel with the sea, then turning sharp left along the edge of the fields. By the time we reached Kelling village and the road past the church it was raining fairly insistently, but the forest provided a fair amount of cover. By the time we reached the outskirts of Holt again we were fairly soggy...

However, the rain couldn't stop us continuing to enjoy ourselves, swapping thoughts and ideas, and delighting in the fact that we were (notwithstanding a few aches) both pretty comfortable walking what was very nearly a half-marathon. 12.6 miles (if you're observant you'll see that's half-a-mile less than last time; having tried it before, I got lost far less!), over 950 calories burned, and a respectable pace of almost three miles per hour, which wasn't bad.

As Christine has observed: not bad for a pair of Norfolk broads...

Next week: the 15-mile sponsored walk across seventeen London bridges, from Putney to Southwark!