Day 22: Castle Cary to Wells

Even though I managed to cover nearly 15 miles today, I’ve had to admit defeat over my foot injury. 

• Date: 11 April 2024
• Start: Castle Cary
• End: Wells
• Miles: 14.8
• Total miles: 296.4
• Accommodation: The Crown Hotel

My foot hurt a little bit this morning when I woke up, and after taking some ibuprofen, it felt ok. I still wasn’t sure whether to proceed given I could get stranded. However, I received a message from my old work colleague Alison this morning, who lives nearby, offering to rescue me if I got stuck. With that in mind, I proceeded with the walk. 

I have been humbled recently with people’s kindness, whether that’s offering me a place to stay, offering me food, buying me a beer, or offering to pick me up. I’ve been stopped by strangers on the paths who have offered to go out of their way to help me. It’s really quite something. 

On with the walk and I started the day on the road and walking across fields. Fortunately, there wasn’t much mud around or particularly damp fields. I bumped into a farmer on a field who pointed out that it’s actually dried up a bit in the last week, which is hard to see how. 

My foot was tingling a little, but nothing that would stop me walking at this point. Today, I was following the Monarch Way, a pretty well kept and signposted path. Half way through the day, it passed over the top of the best place in the world, Glastonbury Festival. 

My target today was originally the village of Priddy, but earlier in the day I thought it was best to stop in Wells, five miles short of Priddy, as it’s a great escape route if I needed it. 

Three miles out from Wells, I needed to climb a hill through a forest, which turned out to be too muddy to climb. I did try but I was slipping with every footstep, even the walking poles couldn’t save me. I turned back and took a bit of a detour to head to Wells. 

At this point, my foot was really starting to hurt, and I was starting to limp. As Wells Cathedral came into view, it gave me the final push to get into the city, through a giant puddle. 

Feeling sorry for myself on arrival in Wells, I decided to treat myself to the cheapest hotel in the city, where I could  rest up. 

I also took a closer look at my foot which seems to be swollen above the foot, at the front of the bottom of the leg.

I couldn’t be bothered going out for any dinner, but did head out to Tesco as I needed to eat something. I treated myself to my favourite snacks, Doritos and dips, and a bar of Terry’s chocolate orange. The biggest treat however was a bag of frozen vegetables, which I’m surprised didn’t defrost with how long it took me to walk back to the hotel. I arrived back and settled down with my tasty snacks and mixed veg on my four poster bed, while watching Masterchef. 

I’m going to need to take a few days off to let my foot/leg heal. It’s kind of expected that these things would happen at some point in the walk, and I’m lucky it’s happened in this location, as I can easily get to Bristol tomorrow which was the intended destination anyway. 

I’d also planned only half a day’s walking on Saturday and a rest day on Sunday, so I’m not losing that much time all things considered. All being well, I’ll continue with the Wells to Bristol leg on Monday. Until then, I’ll probably not update the blog until Sunday. Of course, I’ll need to come up with a revised schedule as well.