Day 9 - Five Lanes, Alturnun to Launceston

23 April
Distance: 9.5 miles
Number of killer dogs: 1 (a chocolate lab; shouldn't labs be friendly?)

The Kings Head (no apostrophe, apparently) Hotel in Five Lanes was quiet on a Tuesday night. We were the only guests and we were the only people eating there, although there were a few others propping up the bar.

It provided us with a comfy bed, a very large evening meal, a very large breakfast and the heating got our washing dry, so we were happy.

There was a change of plan for today. When we inspected the route I'd plotted (as we tend to do each night) we found that not only did it at one point (by necessity) follow three sides of a square but one of those sides was an A road. An A road for a couple of km is not a satisfactory place to be walking.

An alternative route was quite obvious once I looked (the benefit of looking at a map on paper rather than on a computer screen). Although it removed about a kilometer of fields and replaced them with tarmac, that tarmac was a very quiet lane that followed a green valley side, overlooking (where the hedgerows permitted) the sun drenched patchwork of more green fields variously containing cows, sheep and even goats (complete with very cute kids).

An early part of our route followed a little of the Inny Valley Way. It didn't appear to be a well trodden route (except by cows; they'd caused some interesting mud obstacles for us to overcome) but for the most part it was very well waymarked with well maintained stiles.

It was at the point where we left the Inny Valley Way that we spotted something just off the path. It turned out to be a Geocache, which of course begged for an inspection of its contents, having done which it seemed rude not to leave a little note in the book ourselves.

On arriving at the edge of Launceston at 1pm, almost at the end of our nice short day, my first priority was to find a post office. I've carried my redundant toe-eating shoes for long enough, so they were packaged up and mailed away, reducing the weight of my pack by 800g in the process (although some of that was promptly negated by the purchase of a copy of TGO magazine which will probably remain in my pack for a couple of days until I leave it somewhere for someone else to read).

And now we're at Rose Cottage B&B, a pleasant establishment in an elevated position looking down at Launceston. It's our second B&B in as many nights and due to a dearth of campsites hereabouts, there'll be two more later in the week. We'll be getting quite spoiled by these comfy beds and warm rooms!