e began the walk on a beautiful sunny morning from the official start point on the seafront in the pretty resort of Portpatrick (below). The walk began with a climb onto the clifftops which we followed for a couple of miles to Killantringan lighthouse. Here the route turned inland following minor country roads and tracks.

Eventually we arrived at the forest on Glenwhan Moor which, when we were there, had been closed to walkers and an alternative route around the edge had been devised. This turned out to be fairly difficult to follow as it kept plunging into the dense forest at intervals which made it very difficult to negotiate in the tightly packed, dark branches. At times we had to duck down to avoid the lower ones and our backpacks kept catching on them.

At one point, as we crossed over a water-filled gully, the opposite bank gave way as I stepped on it and I ended up falling heavily. After releasing my backpack so that I could stand up again we carried on, and after crossing the road just outside New Luce we climbed up onto open moorland where we found a campsite (above) for the night. We had walked around 21 miles on our first day which was much further than planned.