The landowner at the start of the third stage wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me. He told me straight away that this was private land and that I had no business here. He had already been annoyed by enough other hikers who had simply walked across his property without asking. That’s why he had put up a gate, which I had deliberately overlooked. I had seen it, even though I had come onto his property from a different direction, but I had decided to ignore it.