Nina's Ark

Arriving at Moonwalk City
Originally uploaded by Lidwit.

Pink Central, the hub of all things MoonWalk. When we arrived it was a cold, dreich Saturday evening and we were anticipating the worst. This is the point when you ask yourself, quite seriously, what the hell am I doing this for? The prospect of 26 miles in the pouring rain was not a pleasant one. Added to that we were having to try to tiptoe through the mire as the field slowly but surely turned into a mudpit courtesy of drizzle and feet.

Consoling ourselves with the thought that at least it was only for one night we squelched in confident that if nothing else, there would be good humour and cameraderie among the Moonwalkers. We were, after all, all in the same big, muddy, pink ship. The trip to get here had been a good one having met other walkers, Helen and Fiona, on the train. We struck up a conversation and eventually shared a taxi to the Meadows. We never saw them again after that. I wonder how they got on?

Once inside the tent we began to realise just what a big event it was. 10,000 women (well there were a few men in there too but not too many) make a lot of noise and everywhere was a sea of pink hats and flashing, sparkling, fluffy, jingling, multicoloured bras. Truly a bizarre spectacle. With the party atmosphere in full swing, four hours didn't take long to pass and before we knew it it was time to stow our bags and head out to the start line.

By now we were all just desperate to get going. This is what we came for and the sooner we started the sooner we could get finished and home to a hot bath and bed. Something that was becoming more and more appealing as we donned our plastic ponchos against the rain and tried to stop our feet from slowly sinking into the mud. In about 8 hours it would all be over and hopefully we would be the proud owners of a moonwalk medal.