Day 6 - Friday: "The final painful and emotional countdown"

And on the 6th day Caesar gathered the Centurions for the final route march to Bowness. His troops were fuelled by an early pit stop and homage to our corporate sponsors Greggs. Caesar was unrelenting as he wolfed down his sausage roll before reaching the city gates.
What followed was a tough morale sapping 17.5 miles walking to the west end. This was despite yet another great spring day. The weather through the week has been unbelievable and the team have done their best to match the permatan of the DuraC bunny.
The morning saw us following the River Eden. An advanced party were motivated by a workout of 80s music. The scenery was pretty and it was a twitcher's paradise. Steady was tweeting away as he walked but this was nothing compared to the curtain twitching in the village of Beaumont.
As we followed the wet flatlands of Cumbria, midges joined the wildlife cast list for the week and at least 3 of them found their way into Tom's mouth.
Team morale took a further battering as we faced marshlands monotony where the end was always in sight but seemed to be continually moving further away.
The final push was then upon us and the efforts of 5 months planning and training were about to pay off. We rolled into Bowness and marched as one to the finishing post.
After team hugs and photos we decamped to the Kings Arms for the most miserable welcome you couldn't have wished for. Perhaps it was because we ransacked the landlord's supply of pork scratchings. The team's emotional rollercoaster of a day was topped as Peps raised a glass and grown men considered crying.
Caesar then commandeered a blue and white chariot for the return to Carlisle and he sported the longest bus ticket of all time.
Several pheasants had been spotted in the river estuary and the team convened at one of the Golden Chinese variety for our end of Trek dinner.
As the team reflected, congratulations and thanks were rolling in. Joe Pepper passed on big thanks as did Emma Salisbury (who organises the fund we are contributing to). Fight for Sight themselves rounded off the plaudits.
The blue F4S t shirts were seen all over Carlisle's bars. Caesar's centurions unleashed hell on the dance floor as the team worked off our last ounces of energy. The DJs gave us several shout outs and "keep on moving" was the team song of the night.
The final day stats were 27.62 km in 36827 steps burning 1861 calories (and just in case you were wondering a packet of pork scratchings contains just 216 calories).