We then went on with great difficulty till we came to a most awkward place. It was a bridge over a creek, very narrow, and just as muddy as the rest of the trail, with a very rotten paling on either side. I knew that if the caravan skidded it would smash this paling and fall four or five feet into the little stream below. As there was no reason why we should both run the risk I asked Winifred to get out, and then managed to crawl over safely. Presently we came to a very bad bit, nothing but large holes of mud and water, but we ploughed through. Then came a tremendously steep hill up which I tried to rush, but I stuck half-way. Even with the chains on the wheels could not grip in the sticky mud, and unloading failed to help us. I then sought assistance from a farm at the top of the hill, and the farmer, a Frenchman, brought a horse and pulled us up. The trail got worse farther on, and we camped at the next farm we came to. We were in a dreadful condition of dirt and hunger, our feet twice their normal size with clotted mud, the caravan full of lumps of mud, our hands and clothes all over mud. I did not feel much like cooking, so when I went to the farm house for water I asked if we might boil some eggs there. Whereupon the farmer's wife insisted on giving us the eggs as well as boiling them for us, and she also gave us boiling water for our coffee. We thankfully ate our supper and went to bed. After sticking in several mud holes next day, we finally stuck fast in a very deep one, but a farmer ploughing near pulled us out. He told us that the trails got worse between here and Kerrobert, no cars had been through for several days, and he advised us to stop the night at his farm and go on by train next day. So we drove the van into his yard and received a kind welcome from his wife. I wanted to let the vicar of Kerrobert know that we were coming. They said that there was a telephone at the next farm a mile or so away, so I walked over there. On my return I found it exceedingly difficult to find my way in that featureless district, and I should probably have got lost had I not heard Winifred's hail. We tried to make some return for the kind hospitality we received here by helping with the chores, but zeal without knowledge is a dangerous thing, and one of us, washing up the separator, dissected it so thoroughly that the farmer's wife gazed in consternation at the result.