The "current direction of travel" for anyone is defined to mean the direction they travelled most recently in order to arrive in their current square
The direction has to be the one used to arrive in your current square. If you jump from somewhere else, your previous direction of travel wouldn't matter. Also, upon thinking about it I agree that travelling from the last to first square or vice versa would be up or down movement respectively, but that only holds if the first and last squares are in the same column. If more squares get added, then the problem is still there.