THE VIKING WAY (Part 1)

DAY FIVE 
 Skillington to Whitwell
(13.7 miles)

Oh yes ... now wer'e talking!  Fantastic breakfast.   Perfect bacon and proper meaty Lincolnshire sausages .  Even the toast was brilliant.

After a chat with chef/owner Harold we set off walking in (once again) light rain - initially along the road, but soon joining up with our companion of long standing, the Sewstern Lane.   This morning the track conditons were generally not too bad underfoot but we did have to contend with the occasional huge puddle due to the recent and overnight rain.   At least most of today's walking was on tracks  and roads, so for a change we weren't getting soaked to the skin by soggy grass.

The rain eased off and finally stopped mid-morning allowing us to remove our raingear.  In fact, we had some really strong sunshine for an hour-or-so immediately before lunch.

We stopped at Greetham and had our lunch (homemade cookies fromm the village shop very much reccommended, by-the-way) sitting on a bench watching with great amusement a family of ducks with tiny black ducklings swinning up and down the local stream ... and two BT 'engineers' meticulously arranging and re-arranging barriers around their manhole.   Isn't nature wonderful ?

After lunch we quickly reached Exton, a lovely village with thatched cottages and a much needed bench for a 'water-and-rest-your-sore-feet' break.   Just as we started on our final leg of the day (that is to say the last part of the day's walking.  We did have sore feet, but nothing so serious that we only had the one leg to stand on) the rain also made a return:  light at first, but quickly building into a torrentail downpour.   It will come as no surprise to anyone that this deluge from above coincided with the one and only part of Day 5 that involved walking through long grass.  Worse still, we also had a number of stiles to contend with - many of which were partially overgrown by hawthorn and/or brambles and were made treacherously slippery by the rain.

We arrived at The Noel to be met with torrents of water running down the car park.  By this time we were thoroughly soaked, but fortunately our approach had been spotted by Mark the landlord ("I just looked out and saw these two drowned rats ...") and he was waiting for us as we burst through the door.

The room was very comfortable and very 'roomy' so we had lots of space to spread out and dry.    We also had a nice big bath, which was most welcome.

Our evening meal was fantastic.  The 'Noel Burger' and the Chicken, Leek and Bacon pie were both truly scrumptious.