Now two weeks since the big event, and the aches and pains have subsided leaving the more tolerable memories behind.
In our last update we left you in the early hours of Saturday on a quiet dry well lit deserted London pavement and about to walk right off the hard edge of the great city onto what we expected to be the soft green grass that would carry us home.
That, after all, was what we had lunched on during our daytime reconnaissance mission.
However, as we stepped off the hard, out of the pool of the nearest street light, and onto the soft, we heard, felt and then saw that our feet were splashing. Yesterday's inches of rain were still lying on the impermeable flat London clay waiting to do battle with our somewhat less impermeable trainers. On the open heath the going was good but where the path was concentrated between the bushes and trees the flat surface was churned up by earlier feet it was decidedly soft and deep and wet. Not being able to see the scale of what we were up against ahead was one challenge but staying upright on the patch below was something else, especially for those of us whose night vision was not so great.
We developed various techniques like the puddle straddle with legs apart, combined with reckless jumps onto the dark flat patches ahead sometimes finding firm flat earth and sometimes splatting flat water in every direction to plumb the hidden depths.
Somehow with the help of our smart phones, we tracked a wobbly course further into the darkness away from the city lights. Doubling back every so often to find another way round and getting somewhat less cheerful with each trainer full of drink.
We crossed a couple of refreshingly dry and deserted roads before entering the zone of the increasingly dreaded mudslide that we knew lay ahead by the reservoirs at the top of the hill.
Some near here was a lake with a seat where we had dreamt we might see a glimpse of the morning glow reflecting on the lake. we spotted the simple bench and on approaching it realised that the ground worn lower around it was one large puddle, but we could just perch on the ends without paddling so took it in turns as we supped from flasks of coffee and bit into energy bars before setting off again.
Now and again, ahead of us in the bushes, eyes stared, glinting in our torches, momentarily trying to unpick what they saw before the fox or deer behind them dived in terror of its life into the bushes and out of our remorseless path.
Bush after wet dripping bush parted to reveal the next until one last bush parted and revealed our nemesis. The terrible wall of dark brown mud glistening with trickles of water dribbling down the staircase of hoof prints and tyre tracks still just discernible in the gloom towering up from our feet to above our heads. As our torches scanned up the churned lifeless clay mass and up out and over the top into the black sky above, a bright red star appeared. Was it a warning or was it our guiding light?
Who could tell at three in the morning? The GPS confirmed we were on course, so red alert or welcome beacon we went for it! Careering up the bank with the red and white stars dancing above us.
We survived this challenge without losing it, but there was more to come for us ..
and for those who are are keeping up, and have not yet tired of the journey there will be another installment …