Ok, this reads like a TR, but there is a point to it being here as looking for advice and reasons I messed up please.
Last year when things were more relaxed, I embarked on more stages of the YWW with my 13yr old son (who wasn't keen on going). We'd already walked to Market Weighton on previous journeys. This time we were walking from Market Weighton to Millington, then Millington to Huggate or Fridaythorpe.
Day one went fine. It was a lovely walk. Straightforward with nice weather and lovely scenery. We stayed at Millington Village Hall, which was £15 each and included breakfast and the use of a full size table tennis set. A great experience to have the hall to ourselves. The only problem was the phone signal being non-existent.
Second day the weather had turned and it was miserable. My dad had a medical appointment in the morning and wasn't sure when he'd be able to pick us up so we carried on with our original plan and started the walk. I didn't receive his text that he was able to collect us that morning until much later.
We left Millington ok, climbing up the steep hill, then along it, another, much faster walker passing us (although I had a large rucksack with tent etc in). We couldn't see any of the view as the drizzling rain clouded around us and was becoming heavier.
Then it started to go wrong. On heading down the slippery hill into a valley I could see the sign for the YWW slightly up the other side and asked my son to go look to see which way it was pointing. He said it was pointing up the hill, going along the valley. We then made the decision to walk along the valley instead. Turns out the valley was going the other way.
Oblivious to the mistake we made our way along what we now call Death Valley, purely down to the amount of pheasant bones littering the floor of it, from the red kites which were circling above. The rain was getting heavier but as I stopped to check my phone's map, which wasn't working very well due to the rain and signal, I spotted something hanging from a tree.
It was a large bird tangled by twine around the feet, but as I approached, it flapped its wings. We must have been around an hour trying all sorts of ways to reach it, but it was just out of reach, and in the meantime we had got colder and wetter. I had the What 3 Words app so that logged the position (despite not having a signal for anything else) and later called the RSPCA with the info who went out and found it, but it had died. It was a pheasant. I thought it was a red kite due to the huge feet and beak lol.
On leaving the bird we headed up the hill, managing to find ourselves back on track (but not for long). We walked along the edge of a high field and came to a gate. Now, I don't know how I managed to get this wrong, and how my version of how I viewed things differs so much from how the map looks, but the sign for the YWW said straight ahead. We carried on seeming to go straight ahead, with a steep slope to the side, working our way along the slippery narrow path but stopped, noticing a bunch of cows blocking our path a short distance away.
Checking my phone map again, we had gone the wrong way again. On passing through the gate, we should have turned left and gone down hill, and when we had gone straight ahead we had in fact turned right. As I said earlier, I really don't see how I made that error but the map doesn't lie and I can only assume I was disoriented by the rain and stress at this point. We then got back on track and I made the decision to follow the road at this point which was slightly longer, but a much easier journey. As you can imagine, by this point my son was extremely annoyed, wet and cold, and I've put him off walking for life.
I've come to the conclusion that my navigation skills are awful and I'm embarrassed at how badly this trip went. I actually avoided the forum for a good while because of it. Can anyone shed any light on why I viewed things one way, but on paper, they are completely different? All I can think of is if things went this badly so close to home on relatively decent terrain, imagine how it could have been in somewhere like The Lakes. My pride has taken a battering.
Here's the maps of where I should have walked, and what we actually walked.
https://imgur.com/a/9ao8LsR