I was right

Yep, it was muddy! Ankle deep mud in places, nicely churned-up by horses etc and no alternative but to wade through. Needless to say, I had to hose Rusty down when we got home. Good run though, took just over an hour and beside a couple of interesting Bovine challenges, a nice ramble through the countryside. It's a shame most gates etc don't have a 'dog gate' as I ended up having to cart Rusty over about a dozen of them - reasonable upper body workout though :)

One field of cows threw down the challenge to us. But being a hardened veteran of charging, man-eating bulls I had no problem dealing with these (definite udder check before we entered the field though). They encircled us but it was more of a 'get out of our field' move rather than my previous encounters which was more like 'we are going to tear you to shreds and eat you'.

Note to farmers;
1. don't take down footpath markers
2. don't put rabid, very fast bulls in fields where the public are granted passage
3. please keep pathways accessible

Thanks!