Day 12 - 08/07/20 - Gortin & Bessie Bell

So there actually was early morning dog walkers as I found out with their dog sniffing around the tent!! 😅 Although I suppose 0800 isn't that early so I was happy enough.
The sun was splitting the trees this morning and my tent was nice and warm, and nearly fully dry for putting away. Not like the day before when I had to carry around a soaking wet tent! 😩.

So up I got and had my daily breakfast of Huel and a banana along with some cold pizza this time. Which I'm not a big fan off but calories are calories. 😅

I set off in glorious sunshine for the Gortin lakes which then dropped down into Gortin forest where I got a refill of water before setting off up the hill in the forest and out towards another lovely hill called Bessie Bell.
Most of the climb on Bessie is concrete as the farmers use it to access there fields but the last 1000m or so is a nice wee track through a forest before emerging out at the site of an SSE wind farm.
A little more climbing on the site roads and I was at the top. At this point I was going to heat some water for a brew and have some sandwiches but as per usual it started to rain so I put on my gortex and ate my sandwiches while walking down the hill and out into the main road.

From the top of Bessie Bell and for the next five and a half hours there were various levels of water falling from the sky but at no point did it stop!!! 🤨

I reached my destination around 1830for another couple of days rest and forgot about the rain as I stretched and had a bath to try and relax my muscles.

Total distance today was 44.8km with a total accent of 1263m

My feet definitely felt it today although my legs were fine until I stopped, but that's normal. Even though it rained I enjoyed today up until the last 5km which was quite tough as my feet had just had enough 😅.
I suppose that's what happens when you walk nearly 100km in two days!! 🙈

One funny thing I can remember happening was during my last 5km. When I'm in pain I start talking myself around or though the pain, so I was muttering some things to myself and one phrase I remember was
"Right you bastards, I'm gonna eat them Smarties and you fuckers aren't getting none if them."
I them produced half a bag of Smarties from my rucksack and proceeded to eat them all. I was also listening to some dance music on my phone and started cracking out some moves on the side of the road!! E numbers gone wild.
A couple of cars passed me and I'm sure wondered what the hell was going on 😂