July 13, Max arrives to meet me in bishop's Castle

 Picked up at 6:00 by taxi to be dropped off  at the Pub in Bridges (there is nothing like an early morning beer) that (who) then took luggage on to Bishops Castle, where Max and I will spend three nights.  It is hot.  It is humid.  There is no fan.  That is getting ahead of the story.  Today was day two of the Shropshire Way.  I did not do day one because that required two taxis...don't ask! AND the stage is, counting walking to get to the start, getting up toward 20 miles and since it was not breathtakingly beautiful, I decided to sacrifice it.  

THE feature of today's walk was the Stiperstones.  If you are a geologically inclined, you can reaed about them here I will show you what they look like:

From a distance:

Closer:

Closer still:

This is what it is like to walk through them.

Not too bad:

More bad:

It was a bit (a lot) disconcerting making your way through this mess because there was no path, and trust me, you don't want to get lost in the stones and surrounding gorse.  Like a HAWK I had my eye on the trail on the phone!  

That does not always help because sometimes you JUST CANNOT GO:

Fortunately the supposed turnoff through that mess + a fence behind it, which would have been very nice, happened on a road and just made the route longer.

Here, I walked through someone's yard and the gate was a bitch to unlatch:

There was a field where people were camping:

And a field with a barbed wire fence that was new.  Over or under?  

Under

And a field for hay:

And sheep running away:

And a nice green field where you want to go the right way:

But that is easy.....usually.

Especially when you have it all to yourself:

There is nothing like a little company:

And assurance that you are almost there!

A tough day because of the heat, a relatively late start (6;30 a.m.) too much road walking although most of it was, as they say, on quiet country lanes.  I expect a lot of this route will be like that.  The turn offs through fields that were blocked were really annoying...

Max arrived!  We went for dinner.  The first place advertised "food from 4-8" We got there are 6:00.  No food.  Besides, they were having a beer crisis, the taps were not working, so for sure they did not care about our hamburgers.  Second place:  No one there.  Third place, Max ordered fish and chips.  He said it was fine.  I ordered roast beef.  It was beef, but it was not roast beef, it was floating in gravy as was everything else on the plate, and it was terrible.  We got ice creams at the Co-Op and I have cookies in the room that I smeared with peanut butter.  

Max had a great time in Spain!  We head out for Clun at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow.