Day 20 of the Walk to the World Cup – MAY 29th

Hockai to Murringen– are we in Germany yet?

After a pizza/pasta meal and a meeting to plan tomorrow’s stops (in a bar, of course, Mick), I finished off my personal diary by which time, Anthony was snoring like a ‘good un’ so I retired to the motor home and slept in short bursts as always. It was cold in the van this morning and I was quickly back to the hotel room to get dressed and warm.

Breakfast at 8.00 – our routine now – and then back to Hockai. We had stopped in the middle of a forest and with Chris and Tom, started off with a weak sun shining through even though rain drops were falling. Chris was upbeat about the weather and I blame him for it gradually closing in. It took us 40 minutes to get through the forest, right along the tops, with the occasional glimpse of spectacular views to either side. Then down and into Xhoffaix and the pattern for the day emerged – climb steeply out of one village, along the undulating top for a time and then drop down just as steeply into the next village.

We were heading for Robertville, a beautiful lake-side resort village with some good hotels and restaurants and passed through Ofivat and Laffaye on our way. By the time we dropped down into Robertville it was raining hard and we were pleased to see Anthony and the van. The water was boiling for coffee and after a slightly longer than usual break, we set off again. The extra time seemed to help as we made good time through Ouverte and Champagne and into Weyverts as the weather improved. The latter was a shortcut that I had spotted on the map earlier – without getting lost it saved us 2 miles.

We dropped down onto the main road and walked into another town with a German-sounding name but still in Belgium – Bullingen. By now all the road signs were in German and we saw Belgium and German police cars. Our second stop was here and after a sandwich and biscuit and plenty of liquid, I had a doze for 20 minutes, keeping my shin up higher than my heart.

The antibiotics have definitely dealt with the swelling around my ankle and as long as I keep my shin off the ground when I’m not walking, it isn’t getting any worse. My thanks to the Kirkless girls who have sent through some complementary treatments – Emu, Tiger and Dog! Oils. I’m using the Emu oil on my sandwiches – no, on my knees and it seems to be helping, the main thing is, I think it is.

The last session of the day took us to Murrigen. We think we have reached Germany but are still not sure because we have travelled back to Malmedy for tonight. What I do know is that by a combination of good walking, over-estimating distances on the plan and finding short cuts, we are a whole 14 miles up on schedule – we may still need that for later but it’s going really well, thanks to so many people

Yellow jersey award – Chris – helped me through a coupe of painful periods with some great classification questions.

Distance covered – 18.3 miles Total covered – 391.7 miles