Day 10 - The Long March

A thirty seven kilometre trek today, about which the cantankerous old Wainwright had little good to say. However, while he may have inspired this walk, we neither have to stick slavishly to is fictions, nor believe what he says about the points of interest on the way. So we didn't.

 

Straight out of Richmond this morning we deviated from the path, forsaking the advertised boggy footpaths for a pleasant stroll along a track by the Swale to the ruins of Easby Abbey. There seems to be a little more of this abbey ruin left standing than many others I've seen. Of course, the Tudor fatboy's thugs did a comprehensive job of knocking things down, and Henry Viii personally ordered the monks there to be hanged, in retaliation for them having supported the "Pilgrimage of Grace", a northern led protest/rebellion over the split from the Catholic church. Other abbey ruins have been comprehensively plundered by the locals who were encouraged to view them as a kind of "free quarry", but the monks of Easby were kind to and popular with the locals, so I wonder if what remained standing of the abbey was left alone out of some kind of respect.

 

The next twenty or so miles consisted mostly of road and path walking through and alongside field after field of oilseed and other crops. Part way along, we said goodbye to the Swale, which has been our Guide and companion for the last few days.

Geographically, today was not very interesting - in fact the sameness of it all made it seem a much longer walk than it was, which was a bit dispiriting. What we did get, though, was a nice little village pub stop for lunch at Danby Wiske, and quite a bit of wildlife to ogle, including yellowhammers, hares, linnets as well as the usual cows and sheep. Still no pigs, though. I am a little worried about Mike, though. Between you and me, I think he might be losing it. Sometime around mid afternoon, he stopped, pointed and excitedly cried "look, a sparrowhawk!" doubtless shocked at being thus identified, the bird concerned revealed its true identity by denying Mikes statement with a mighty and resounding "QUACK!".

Tired and weary (or given my drugs for toothache intake, maybe that should be wired and teary) we arrived at tonight's B&B, Park House, just a mile or so beyond Ingleby Cross. We've generally been lucky with our accommodation, and this one was a gem, the owners Mike and Beverley greeting us with a glass of bubbly before showing us round their place, which is really dedicated to walkers. Since its quite a trek to the nearest pub, they fed us, too, and you won't hear any complaints from this direction regarding either the quality or quantity (no wonder the table is so sturdy) of the repast.

 

My tooth still hurts.

 

 

Day 9 - Chinese Dentist*

It took a while to get started today. After yesterdays liberal soaking we got ourselves down to the pub for food (black pudding scotch egg, yum!), crashed out at the B&B, and were the accosted this morning by one of the biggest breakfasts so far. I have to admit that I scoffed at the suggestion in the guidebook that by the time the walk was half done, most people can't stand the sight of bacon and eggs, but maybe there's a grain of truth in there. Still, where we are tonight, kippers aren't on the menu, so it's same old same old tomorrow. Hard life, eh?

 

Breakfast polished off, I popped outside to fumigate my nose with best Virginia, and was immediately accosted by one of the owners two dogs, who dropped a tennis ball at my feet and laid down with furiously wagging tail. I mean, what's a bloke supposed to do? So, I obligingly lobbed the ball into the middle of the vegetable garden (not what I was aiming for, but there's a reason I never made the school cricket team) only to have the drool covered object deposited back at my feet seconds later. Floyd, Ted and Rowley take note. Eventually, Mike got fed up with waiting and fetched the dog's lead, with which he proceeded to drag me, protesting, off on today's route.

About an half an hour into the stoll, we noticed a traffic jam at one of the stiles in front of us. There's a bunch of folk on the walk who, if you were to judge a book by its cover, you would not have thought of as coast to coast walkers. They have a little trouble with the squeeze stiles popular in these parts, but take nothing away from them, they are completing the same stages that everyone else is. One of the nice things about this walk is that you do tend to run into the same people every day or so and, if you want to, you can walk together for a while, or just keep trekking. Today, that meant we ran into Phil and Ann again, and we carried on with them pretty much to the end of today's walk.

 

Round about midday, and halfway through the journey, we stopped off at a tearoom for a hot drink. Others had the same idea, the place filled up while we were there for the next hour (not the fastest service ever) but clearly we had the idea first, and the latecomers were just slaves to the trend we set! While chatting to a Dutch couple we found out they had spent the previous night in the B&B run by the people who owned the tea shop (spot a pattern here?) we dried out in yesterday. I mention this seriously uninteresting fact simply because I commented "oh yes, the blonde girl from Kent" to which Mike added "not a natural blonde, though". Visions of Sean Connery drily muttering about non matching collars and cuffs assault me, but I swear he was never out if my sight for more than two minutes...

 

Navigation is easy at this point. The walk is so popular that signs appear at regular intervals. Eventually, we rocked up at Richmond at two thirty or, perhaps more appropriately and in keeping with the title of today's post, tooth hurty*. For I have developed a nasty toothache. This isn't what I'd expected to suffer on the walk, though we've obviously been eating the miles (groan if you want to). It's not nice though, and as we were walking past a dentists I popped in for some advice, explaining that hot drinks were making the left side of my face explode in pain, while cold drinks were ok.

 

It happened that the person the dentist was waiting for hadn't turned up, which is how I found myself staring at the ceiling while an Austrian called Stephan hit each of my teeth in turn with what felt like a small sledgehammer. Eventually he declared he could see nothing wrong, recommended a toothpaste for sensitive hampsteads, and suggested I forsake coffee and stick to beer. What a jolly sensible fellow.

 

Richmond. Well, compared to the places we have overnighted so far, this is a teeming metropolis, with shops, pubs, restaurants, a castle and a big river with waterfalls on it. A couple of days ago, I posted a pic of Mike above a waterfall twenty, thirty miles back. Here he is again, downstream on the same river. It's all growed up now.

Tomorrow will be our longest walk, some twenty three miles or so, but reasonably flat. It'll be an early start, and will once again see us in the middle of nowhere at days end. Feet, knees, teeth and net access permitting, I'll post more when we get there.

 

 

Day 8 - Snail in Swaledale

At breakfast today we had snail. I know what you're thinking, but you're on the wrong track, we weren't eating snail, it was falling from the sky. For the uninitiated, snail is not, in fact, a biblical precipitation of molluscs, but rather an indecisive mixture of snow and hail. It's just as nasty as you'd expect it to be. Fortunately, by the time we'd munched our way through the usual mountain of bacon flavoured cornflakes, the weather gods had made their minds up, and we emerged to be pelted by tiny, sharp, ice pellets. Which was nice.

We elected to take the low level route today, in part because of the weather, but also because the Swale is a pretty river with many waterfalls and quite a bit of wildlife. Mike sometimes has a one track mind, and has been known to stop dead on the path if he sees an interesting bird of the feathered kind (I am apparently not allowed to comment on his behaviour if he sees interesting examples of the 'other' variety). He will, if pressed, blame a misspent youth for his avian expertise, and his grandfather for his knowledge of doubtful rhymes about them.

 

These random perambulatory cessations mean that apart from having been perforated in a variety of locations by the pointy ends of his walking poles, I have learned something. I can recognise a curlew by its call, skylarks by their flight patterns and grouse by its flavour. No-one told me this trip was going to be educational, damn it! The accompanying picture here is of a pair of Oystercatchers in the Swale. As far as I can tell, the Swale doesn't not actually support Oyster kind, so quite what they are doing there eludes me.

 

What we have missed, as a result of forsaking Wainwright's preferred high route for the riverside is a whole bunch of industrial architecture, beginning with the ruins of Crackpot Hall. This was not named after a bunch of loonies who lived there, though that would be more interesting than the real story behind the name, which I have already forgotten. Mike's rather unkind comment was that in spending several days walking with me, he'd seen quite enough old ruins, thank you very much. He'll probably regret that later, it's his turn to buy dinner at the pub.

 

It was so damp today, even the sheep were trying to hide. We finally arrived in Reeth in the mid afternoon, cold and damp. My waterproof and breathable jacket being wetter on the inside than the outside - a feat which I don't understand - and fell gasping and shivering into a tea shop. Tomorrow, we hope, will be a dryer day.

 

Day 7 - Spending Hours in the Bog

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!)

 

 

 

 

Day 6 - Chips with Wainwright

With another twenty mile day ahead, it was a relief this morning to wake to a fine, dry day. According to the iPhone weather forecast yesterday, there was a thirty percent chance of snow, but fortunately that information was about as accurate as Stevie Wonder with a 38 special. Having ordered a packed lunch from the lady at Brookfield, who is becoming a legend amongst Coast to Coasters, it was necessary to rearrange the rucksack to fit all the food in, and then time to wave goodbye to the sleepy, country village that is Shap. That's a mainline railway to go under and the M6 to go over, via a bridge that surely must only be used by coast to coasters.

 

Despite its length, today's walk was billed as a recuperation day after yesterday's slog. It was certainly easier, but perhaps not as exciting, or with as much varied scenery as the days already gone. No less enjoyable, though and it still had its moments, like the viaduct on the disused railway in Smardale.

We also encountered a few limestone pavements, which gave me a chance to educate Mike, and now you, in the correct descriptive terminology for these features. The stones and the gaps between them are called Clints and Grikes. The compass sows that some of the Clints point northwards, meaning that those at ninety degrees must be... Clint Eastwards.... (sorry).

 

Mike's leg still hasn't fallen off, so I've not had to shoot him yet. This is fortunate, as it was his round in the pub after we had supper at the Coast to Coast chip shop which claims Wainwright as its most famous (late) regular customer.

 

So far, so good. I have to recommend this walk and I must be extremely "mellowed" by the experience, I've even noticed a distinct lack of profanity in my language, which is normally peppered with naughty words. Tomorrow we may pass by Nine Standards Rigg, a series of massive cairns atop a hill., and completely surrounded by killer peat bogs. Whether we do or not, the day is described as the "watershed" on the trip. Perhaps, as on the BBC, my language will deteriorate post watershed, but I f****** well hope not.

The end of the day will see us in Keld. Time will tell whether this fine hamlet has Internet access, we've just found out that it has no mobile signal...

 

Day 5 - A Jolly Decent Shap

I won't assault you with pictures today, mostly because I didn't take any. There were many things worthy of photographs, but both cameras were buried deep in the rucksack, for today, IT RAINED!

 

Oh boy did it rain. Last night, my bed was in the eaves of a converted bothy. Quite charming, warm and comfortable, but only inches away from the pattering of the raindrops on the roof. When I was up and dressed this morning, and trying to find somewhere to partake of the day's first roll up, I couldn't help but notice that last night's playfull bubbling stream which skirts the edge of our B&B for Wednesday was now a raging torrent.

 

Since the clouds were hiding the tops of the hills today it was clear that there would be no view for the tops, and once we'd established that Mike's leg hadn't fallen off overnight, and that the high route would be in cloud all day, we decided to walk the shore of Ullswater, and cut across to Shap, our end for today. We were joined by a couple we'd met on the packhorse bus, on day one; Ray and Christine.

 

We got scenery and rain in equal measure but, honestly, we can't complain that we got this far without getting wet. The walk along Ullswater was a gentle climb, with views out over the lake at evey stage. While the other lakes we have seen so far have been undisturbed by trafic, there are steamers on Ullswater, travelling up and down its length. In fact, one of the suggestions for todays walk was to take the steamer to Pooley Bridge and walk from there, but that would be cheating! Before Pooley Bridge, we veered off and across the fells, plenty of boggy patches ans swollen streams, which was to set the tone for most of the rest of the walk. Coming down into Bampton, the countryside has already changed dramatically. The fields are flatter, the grass thicker and longer, but the sheep seem just as happy. The sight of what's left of Shap abbey, after Henry VIII's bully boys knocked it down and pinched all the valuables to annoy the Pope signalled that we had only a mile or so to go, a very welcome sign!

 

After today's twenty mile slog, we finally reached the B&B at about five pm. Four drowned rats. When a lady meets me at her door and tells me that if I take off my clothes she'll bring me tea and scones, I don't argue. The legendary northern hospitality in action. There will be pictures soon, in which I can promise to be fully dressed, if indeed I appear at all...

 

Day 4 - When Helvellyn Freezes Over

We, and everyone else who was staying, have survived the Quaker guest house we resided in last night. I point out that the others have survived too only because Mike and I were the youngest guests by a positively geographical interval, and I was reasonable sure that at least one would pass away overnight. Judging by the multiple colours on Mike's leg, however, I am concerned that he may have contracted Ebola. Worry not, though, if anything falls off I have a plastic bag to collect the bits, and will faithfully record the details in these pages. (Dont worry, Chloe, I've got my own binbag - your bivvy bag is quite safe!)

 

Tonight, in Patterdale, we're at a place we have seen on TV (in Ms Bradbury's walking programmes) as Wainwright himself (a man who would have made the Grumbler seem cheerful) stayed here back when it was Monroe's Lodging house. It's just how you'd imagine it to be, but as I've supplied a photo, you don't have to.

 

Our walk started with a fair climb alongside Tongue Gill, which tumbles down the hillside in a series of pretty waterfalls, while we stumbled to the top to Grisedale Tarn, which despite being fairly compact had white-topped wind-whipped breakers which would probably have tempted many a surfer. You can't see them in my picture, but I know that you know that I'm simply not prone to exaggeration for comic effect.

At this point and if it hadn't been blowing a seventy mile per hour headwind, we'd have had a choice of two high level routes; Helvellyn and the fearsome Striding Edge, or the slightly lower but no less impressive St Sunday Crag. Elf and Safety decreed that we take the valley route between the two, which still proved cold enough to freeze the nuts off a brass monkey, of which fact the supplied picture of the aforementioned safety Elf provides mute evidence. I've never before been quite so pleased not to be a brass monkey...

 

Despite the gusts we made good time, and arrived here in time for an early afternoon ale. Tomorrow threatens to be a little rougher than today, weather wise, so if it looks nasty we'll take a low level alternative route. Otherwise, it's a slog up Kidsty Pike to say goodbye to the lakes from a high point.