Today we spent hours in a bog, and I'm not talking about the downstairs loo with a tin of custard and a copy of Horse 'n' Hound (don't ask!) but more about that later... We awoke to a fine day, a fine breakfast and a fine five mile slog up a hill (naturally) before a decision point - Nine Standards Rigg, or "the low route". Technically, because of erosion, the trail to the Rigg doesn't open until May, but since we are only a couple of days shy, and the weather was good, we decided to go for it. It really would have been a shame to miss it, since it's the Watershed for this walk. Disappointingly, I have learned that means that now all the rivers flow east, rather than west - not, as I'd hoped, the BBC definition, which is that after nine pm they allow the 'F' word on TV. I must therefore keep my language clean!
It was genuinely worth the trip and, since my vocabulary is currently constrained, I was forced to say "Yay" on reaching it and "Wow" on looking at the view. No one knows who built the standards, nine large cairns atop the hill, or why. They stand there, mute witness to constancy and permanence. Perhaps that's why, given my love of the ironic, the next monument down (a dial pointing out and naming all of the hills we could see) made me laugh out loud. Erected nearly thirty years ago, it's inscribed around the edge as in commemoration of the wedding of Charles and Diana. Some things don't last quite as well as a pile of rocks.
From here, we hit the peat bogs, big time! We criss-crossed the fells, backtracking where we needed to, hopping, skipping and jumping when all else failed. By this time we'd been joined by couple on the walk, Phil and Anne, the latter (at four foot eleven) being an expert at lightly running across the splashy bits fast enough not to sink in. I tried. I failed. Wet boots. As we rather moistly ate up the kilometres, my anticipation began to build. My target was Ravenseat farm -seen many times on TV, and rumoured to serve the best tea and scones in the area. Finally we reached it to find that, just like John 'O Groats on my first motorbike tour, the bloody place was closed. Never mind, it was a comfy place to sit and eat our packed lunch,share it with the cheeky farm dogs, and to be entertained by Amanda's (the proprietress) free range children
And finally we have arrived at the idyllic village of Keld, nestling at the top of Swaledale. We stopped in the local campsite shop for a cuppa, and moved on to Keld lodge where we are staying tonight. The rooms he are small, but toasty warm and comfortable. And the beer, well, it's nectar. Frankly I'm surprised I can still type. Dinner is calling, more tomorrow (when we are assured it will absolutely p*ss down with rain all day!)
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