A 67-year-old grandmother’s Charity trek along the Wales Coast Path nearly turned fatal last summer. This is after a wrong turn left her trapped neck-deep in a muddy estuary ditch.
Charity trek: Lost grandmother ignores faulty signs
Janet Baldock, a retired psychotherapist from Wiltshire, had walked nearly 700 miles of the 730-mile route. This is to raise money for the Support Dogs charity, which she lost the trail in Carmarthenshire.
She was just five weeks from completing the four-month trek. Each morning, her husband Nigel dropped her off at the point where she had finished the previous day.
She walked roughly 15 miles before he picked her up and they returned to a rented cottage or Airbnb. Most of the journey went smoothly.
“I thought I would need lots of rest, but I didn’t need it. And the weather was amazing,” Baldock said.
However in July, as she reached Carmarthenshire, the signage failed her. Instead of climbing uphill to the road, she drifted down toward the estuary.
Hidden barbed wire turns ditch into a death trap
Baldock also narrated that she tried to skirt the edge, hoping to reach a field and climb out. She jumped over channels of water successfully until she reached a ditch.
She added that when she turned to go back, a herd of cows approached. With trepidation, she decided to forge on.
“I saw a little bit of wood in the water in the ditch, and I thought it would be just like ankle deep or something,” she said.
Baldock further explained that she eventually escaped, though she has not detailed exactly how. Despite the near-death experience, she said most of the walk was a great experience.
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