Day 3: Tuesday 1 August. Letcombe Regis to Goring (16 miles)
We left the B&B at 9:00, a much better start time. We walked up the hill through Segsbury Castle to The Ridgeway (about 1½ miles). It was very windy today, and it felt quite a bit cooler, but at least it was dry. Our boots were still a little wet from the previous day's rain.
We felt we were beginning to get the hang of it now, and the walking is getting easier. We aim to walk about 2 hours before stopping for a break, and continue doing that throughout the day. At 11:00 we sat down on the grass, took our boots off and laid them out to dry in the sun.
At 1:00pm it was time to eat the packed lunch we had been supplied by the B&B. By this time, according to the map, we had passed two water points. We were relying on them to refill our bottle and we looked for both, but could find neither. We did find a water point (not marked on the map) where we had lunch [Compton Down 507824], but it had been disconnected. We were lucky it was not too hot today. We did intend to sit down for a while here, but the wind made it too cool to be still for long, and it was more comfortable walking than sitting.
There were less butterflies today, but we saw more birds, notably many swallows flying low over the wheat.
We got to Goring at about 4:00pm, and bought ourselves some water from one of the village shops. This is the first time we have walked through a village as part of the walk. We then had a pint at The Miller of Mansfield hotel before going to find our B&B. Melrose B&B was the smallest room we have had yet, but more than adequate for us.
In the evening we walked to the Catherine Wheel PH and met friends Dave and Sara for dinner. This was an excellent real ale pub with bizarre toilet arrangements (they were hidden). Richard - Mike's Mum's Chicken with boiled potatoes. Hil - Red Snapper with fish cake and chips. We had a few pints and were back in the B&B by 10:00pm. Richard laid on the bed and was instantly asleep (dressed and on the bed rather than in it).