A small contingent of Gee & Pip headed off into the wilds of North Herts starting with the intention of putting in 5 hours walking time.Armed with plenty of fluid, lunch and waterproofs things started very well with the decent into Royston from Reed before heading back up to Therfield. A brief stop for a cup of tea and some flask envy by Robbo saw us head of in the direction of Buckland where the first church of the day was captured.
It was at this point things started to get interesting.Obviously not much yomping is done out of Buckland as we had to fight the stingers to get over a style into a field with no path. No problems we thought until we hit the Rape field where the path still didn't continue.
What the hell, there looked to be a thin bit so we headed for that which was fine until it became a thick bit. Not one to struggle with a small bit of plant matter, Gee forged ahead in true jungle style and we emerged victorious on the other side covered in water and yellow flowers. Then it started to rain.About half a mile further on we started to see a pattern emerging of the friendly local farmer ploughing up footpaths and failing to re-state them. We headed off through an 18 inch high wheat field which had so much moisture by the time we got through I could have wrung water out of my boots.
We met one of these local farmers and friendly they aren't. We were grateful he didn't have his gun because a backside full of buckshot would have been our punishment for being "miles off the path". As it happens we were 20 yards off it in open pasture - hardly something for Nick Ross to get on Crimewatch!
On we trundled into Sandon for church number 2 before heading to Kelshall & Therfield again to bag churches 3 and 4. Final stretch into Reed for a well earned pint in The Cabinet to dry off. 
Over 30kms done and in just over 5 hours. Pip
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