Our first 20 miler!

So many learning curves - every time we go out there's something else to learn. Luckily we are not painful learners - we mentally download the experience and it doesn't happen again!
Like last Sunday. Wanting to brush up on my navigational skills, I asked Captain K if she would help me map out the next walk. "You can do it!" she said cheerfully "and then you can lead the walk on Sunday!"
Gulp.
I spent hours poring over the map on Saturday night, taking compass bearing and writing copious notes, like: very steep descent, ignore paths leading from the left, escape route possible here if weather turns nasty, etc, and then re-writing the whole thing to leave at home with Allan in case we should never be seen again, at least he would know where to start looking for our mortal remains (half eaten by alsations, of course).
Anyway. Drove up towards Crickhowell using Sally SatNAg -( turn left. turn left. turnLEFT.TURNLEFT!!!!), and announced with conviction that we had arrived at our starting point. We kitted up, warmed up, strode out of the village and after about 20 minutes, when the desired road to the left had not materialised, finally retraced our steps - to find that we were not even in the right village! Werl, it had a bridge over the stream, a pub and a church - anyone can make mistakes.
Starting again at the correct village, we squeezeed my car in beside the church, and set off, gorgeous day, sunshine etc, even stripped off down to our ODLO baselayers climbing up to Table Mountain - although we quickly re-dressed once upon the summit, as it was nose-drippingly cold and windy up there.
I can't say i took in much of the view, as I spend most of my time looking at where I put my feet, but the occasional glance around confirms what all the guidebooks say. It's beautfiul up there! waves of blue and purplish hills. Wish I had time to photograph, but press onwards - we are walking 20 miles today, and there's no time to hang about. The path is alternately rocky in lunar landscape way, or spongy badly drained peatbogs which we had to jump over to avoid going in up to our knees. Challenging stuff.
We didn't see a soul, until Paula announced that she really needed a comfort stop. There is not even so much as a solitary tree up there. NO shelter whatsoever. Unless you count the fluorescent bothy pitched halfway up a hill, that wished us a good afternoon as we passed.... Just as she was about to cwpy down amongst some handily placed boulders, a whole group of young men appeared over the hill behind us, with another group making their way towards us. "It's like being in an episode of Doctor Who!" exclaimed Paula.
We could see the whole horseshoe walk before us at that point. The whole 20 miles worth. It's amazing to think that your body can walk that far.
On the bend of the horseshoe - Waun fach - was a group of hikers - who totally ignored us, which I thought was quite unfriendly, considering we were the only people up there, but as we were all zigzagging our way across the worst peatbogs, the four of us were making good headway using our poles to vault over the thousands of waterlogged ditches, until suddenly - 'aargh, SHIIIIT!' 'oops, Bollocks' and various other more descriptive nouns escaped our lips as one by one we disapeared up to our armpits in bog. We laughed our socks off. But they didn't. It was like the BORG...and we didn't exist...good job Karen wasn't wearing her www.gonordicwalk.com trousers is all I can say.
We ended the walk through a wood, in the dark, and then on the road. Headtorches were great (thanks mum!)
Navigation was ok, I'd done alright but we really need to do the walking/distance/time thing. And I wouldn't have felt happy up there in the dark.
Ended on a real high, with banana cake and hot drinks back at the car.
The next day, I felt fine, and so proud of myself. i looked in the mirror at myself on the way to the shower, expecting to see someone different. Someone more muscular, and 'Wonderwomanish'. But it was just the same old me. Aren't our bodies amazing?