The Start
After obtaining a waterproof map, directions, and a set of keys to unlock doors of the buildings (entry is tightly controlled, to ensure crowds don’t disrupt the landscape and working farms), we parked in the parking lot of the Rosedale Football and Cricket Club. Once out of car and dressed in our gear, we looked forward in anticipation of the trip.
We could tell we were in a valley, but the full extent of it was not yet available to us because of large trees. In fact, the most we could see was the playing field, which was groomed for play, and the first stone wall that served as a fence. Walking alongside the playing field, we were somewhat unprepared for what came after unlocking the first gate (always re-lock any gate once unlocked). Gone were the manicured
lawns and nets. These were working fields, the grooming of which came from the livestock (sheep and cattle) whose hooves churned the soil and whose hunger kept the grass short. And of course, there was the fertilizer that kept the grass growing and the livestock fed: there was cow dung and sheep shit everywhere, to the extent a queasy or squeamish person would not be comfortable amidst the slip and slide. And there were bogs, formed naturally as the water ran down the hillside or was caught in ruts made by tractors moving across the fields. In those bogs, a person needed to move quickly and strategically in order their hiking boots would not sink deeper than their tops. Fortunately, we were game for all having grown up in the American West.
Once we had cleared a few fields and started climbing, settling into the blast of rain that
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