Firstly, I’m carrying on! Secondly, I’m claiming this section as a special stage thanks to the rail strike. I’d planned for a two day section covering about 80km (50 miles) to get to March, which is about level with Peterborough. However, a couple of days after booking my accommodation, which is perfectly located at mid distance and, rather ironically, at a motorway services, I learned of a rail strike on the very day I needed to travel. I didn’t want to lose the booking, so I looked into alternatives if I travelled the night before. There was no accommodation around Royston, but I did find a travel lodge for a good price in Letchworth Garden City, which is an hour on a bus that would get me to Royston by 9am. I booked it the accommodation, and the plan was formed. That was until the morning before I travelled when I got a message, “how was your stay”, I found I had booked the previous evening – doh! Planning started again. I found a few options, none of which would allow a comfortable nights sleep (accommodation prices sky rocket at the hint of a rail strike!).

So I’m heading of at 10pm into London, either to get as late a train as possible into Royston. The latest gets in at 2:30 am which makes the night a short as possible. I could just walk, or find somewhere to hole up until dawn. I don’t fancy hanging around in a town, so the option of finding a bush to camp under until dawn is the most appealing (from a list of unappealing options). I do fear the trains may start winding down early, so I have an alternative plan of a 1:00 am coach to Stevenage. This will involve a 3 hour wait at 3:00am for a two bus journey to Royston, but there is a 24 hour Asda nearby, which might help. You’ll find out what happened in the next paragraph!

I just decided to get the easy train and arrived in Royston at 00:30 am and started walking. It was pretty cold so the first thing was to put on my down jacket, which wasn’t a good omen for camping out. The roads were quiet as I headed out of town, and I got a torch to hand just in case. Although on the safety front, my rusac is festooned with reflectors, advertising a variety of Finnish companies. No Finn would go out in the winter without a few dangling reflectors. After about 2 km I turned off the road onto my first track. This was the best chance of finding somewhere to sleep, as after another 4km the route went into a small village.

I spotted and ruled out a few locations, and eventually selected an area on a grassy track that met the main track. It seemed unused, looked relatively comfortable, I could get a good distance from the main track, and it had the cover of a wispy hedge. I had my 3mx3m tarp and initially, I laid it down and wrapped it around me as I didn’t have a sleeping bag, only my hiking clothes. This worked very well and I’m sure I fell asleep under the stars pretty quickly. However, I woke up after an hour feeling rather clammy. The tarp doesn’t breath and I’d already started to get damp with the condensation. So I got up and tried to rig a shelter. I moved closer to the hedge and pegged out about 1m of the edge as a ground sheet, and tried to guy the remaining 2m high up the hedge as a lean too. It worked pretty well but working in the pitch black and long grass meant I kept losing things. I has packed pretty well but wanted to keep the torch off. I was close to the track and could see a number of houses or farms across the fields, therefore they could see me! It was a pretty good job, and when the guyline at the foot end pulled out of the bush, it was excellent as it blocked a draught. The tarp was giving me cover, but not touching so I didn’t get damp. I woke at 4am feeling cold, so put more clothes on but I was still shivering – the Internet said it was 10°. Somehow I fell asleep again and woke with a start at 6am, it was 8° now. It was just starting to get light so I packed up and started a slow walk. I knew there was a cafe in the next town that opened at 8:30.

I started walking and passed the closest house to my bivvy site and all was quiet. As I rounded the next corner there were headlights shining up the track. It wasn’t yet 7:00 I was surprised. To my mind the only reason to be there was likely to be illegal, or at least a problem to me. Either fly tippers, hare coursers or a farmer trying find out if the lights he had seen were UFOs or vagabonds camping in his hedges. It turned out to be a delivery man in a transit pickup trying to deliver to the house I’d passed, but had become stuck following the satnav and didn’t fancy reversing all the way down the track. He was trying to ring the customer with no answer (what a surprise at that time!) so I tried to help – he had “3 words”, but no idea what that was. I checked and he was heading to the right place so I left him to it. I soon returned to tell him that his spare tyre had been wrenched off the truck and was lying in the middle of the track.

I kept going until I found a good point to clean my teeth and comb my hair. I didn’t want people thinking that I had slept in a bush. I hung around in Melbourn until 8:30. While hanging around I had first breakfast that I had brought – banana and Skyr salted caramel yogurt, which hadn’t travelled too well – I consider myself an expert ;) (see my full review of all Skyr yogurts in my post – 2018 Day 22 Reykjavik to Grindavik – what a day to remember, that’s why I write this blog!). It wasn’t as good as my 5 year old memory of Creme Brulee flavour, and I was so ready for my full English breakfast, but unfortunately I had to settle for a sausage bap, and a really nice coffee.

I stocked up with lunch supplies in Co-op and finally started walking. A nice route through some idyllic looking villages. Each had a beautifully painted sign, presumably representing how the village sees its self.

There path went through some really big fields which, when you are walking, brings you eyes down to the ground around your feet rather than seeing how slow you are. This has many benefits as I saw numerous types of fungi and other flora. The best thing was spotting a tiny vole on the road, which I moved to a safer place.

The other thing that was nice was a few monuments on the way, its good to be reminded why I’m walking this way. The globe looked very like a picture a friend (who coincidentally, I met in Iceland on the day of the Skyr yogurt review) shared from the Germany/Polish border which marked the longitude for Central European Time, so would be 1 hour to the east. I forget that the GMT is to do with time as well as space, and was introduced to replace each town having their own time. I think when the railway was built to Bristol the 6 minute time difference caused problems with the timetable.

I walked further than on any other day but had made really good time, you can’t beat a 6:30 start! And I had stopped at least twice to eat the lunch I’d bought from the Co-op, but when I passed an open pub in Hardwick I couldn’t resist stopping. So I had third lunch – a Calzone and a pint of Greene King IPA. It was less than 10km to the hotel and I didn’t want to seem too keen checking in early – but I really did need some more sleep.

I’d booked to stay at Cambridge Services on the A14. The services are not set up for hikers with no paths onto the site, you are dicing with juggernauts and picking your way through car parks. That said the offering for a tired walker is immense. I initally dozed off in my room to a couple of beers from M&S and eventually woke up for a fine McDonalds burger meal, all without walking more than 30 metres from the hotel. Don’t ask how far the furthest room in the hotel was, and how I felt when I had to walk my heavy legs and rucsac all the way back to reception because the keycard didn’t work!