Day Eight: Kirkby Stephen to Keld

Kirkby Stephen to Keld: 21 km

Another night of little sleep for us. We are so used to sleeping with a window open, and this room had no opening window. It was hot and stuffy and we both did a lot of tossing and turning. We got up right at seven and had our stuff down and ready to go by ten to eight. We had our usual porridge and toast and tea and headed out the door to the grocery store and bakery to pick up some lunch supplies. We were on the trail by just before nine.

Leaving Kirkby Stephen

Hey--It's us!

It soon started to sprinkle and after debating whether it would rain long enough to make it worthwhile to pull out our rainpants and coats and packcovers, we took shelter from the wind and rain under a big tree to put everything on. We trudged on into the wind up and up on steep farmers' roads until we hit the entrance to the open moor.

Yup, still on the right track

This section of moor land is particularly susceptible to erosion and because of the high human traffic there are actually three distinct trails across. We took the one designated for the summer months, which would take us up and over the fell that marked the English "great divide" between water heading east and water heading west. As we hiked up, the clouds came down lower and got thicker and wetter, and the wind got worse.

A very big chair
It's all very Wuthering Heights at Farraday Gill

The Nine Standards are nine (obviously) large pillars made of small rocks. No one really knows what they are for, but our guide book offers the theory of "exuberant county boundary markers" or decoys to worry the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie in the late eighteenth century. Although the Standards are quite large and evident from the distance, we didn't see them until we were almost standing among them, the mists were so bad.

Ahoy in the distance
Standing giants
Yup, pretty windy
Remarkable Craftsmanship, and they're centuries old

At the top of the ridge, the wind and rain was so bad, I was actually getting alarmed. At times I hiked beside Brent and held his hand, because I felt like I was going to get blown down into the misty muddy mire and get lost (how's that for alliteration?). We pulled out our compass to ensure we took the proper route down off the fells and into the boggy boggy moor valley below. Luckily for us, we were experiencing the first rain the area had received in three weeks, so the bogs were relatively dry. At other times, they are often knee deep or higher, and one can get very very wet and dirty.

Oh yes, we are very soggy

We managed to wind our way down out of the bogs and then got lost crossing through paddocks at the eastern edge. However, we chanced upon the two English ladies who were far better oriented than we, and they pointed us in the correct direction. Our route took us through Ravenseat Farm, which advertised tea and scones. Unfortunately for us, they were not serving that day and so we slogged on into the driving rain.

Explain that to me again?

Had the weather been better, the landscape was beautiful and worthy of far more admiration that we gave it. Each little field or paddock had its own stone barn, and there were fields and barns as far as one could see across the rolling green hills. We were to learn later that the weather in the Yorkshire district can be quite harsh in the winter, and in the past farmers kept their sheep in the little barns each winter.

The beautiful Swaledale valley in Yorkshire

We got to Keld at 2:30, another quick day considering the conditions. I was sopping wet and Brent was no better. However, despite our sordid condition, we were gladly welcomed at our B&B, Keld Lodge. There was a doorless porch off the front step with a bench to untie boots and the floor of the reception area was stone tile, making it easy to clean and soggy socks would do no damage. We were immediately shown to the "drying room," which was in fact the boiler room with drying racks and coathangers galore. We hung up all of our clothes and put newspaper in our boots to dry them out from the inside.

Ah, warmth and light shining in the distance

Our room was fairly small but well decorated and had a nice big shower with lots of hot water and pressure (not a common occurrence!).

After eating a snack, we went downstairs to read our books in the common room. Except we got to talking with an Englishman and then Lou and Peter came over for a drink, and the two little English ladies came in and we all sat there with the coal fireplace going and talked for several hours. There was an atlas in the room, and we got a geography lesson on Australia's west coast and we showed everyone where we lived. We compared climates and obnoxious animals and talked about all kinds of things. It was, as the Danes would say, hyggelige, which means cozy and comfortable. Like I said in an earlier blog, this was one of the best evenings of the whole trip.

We ordered our supper and chose our respective beers for the evening and then waited in the lounge area for our food to be prepared. I had vegetarian curry on rice, which turned out to be a sweet curry with sweet potatoes and grilled vegetables, and Brent had chicken cooked with bacon and bananas with mixed vegetables and curry sauce as well. It was by far the best meal we had the whole trip! I wish we'd taken a picture. The window beside our table overlooked the beautiful misty Swaledale valley; the restaurant was full of happy diners; our waitress was an older lady wearing an apron who was very kind and helpful; Keld Lodge's owner wandered through serving people and asking about their meals. It was marvelous.

Hyggelig

After supper we were so full that we decided to go for a quick walk to settle our stomachs. The rain had stopped and the evening was misty but not too cool. We walked down through the village of Keld proper--our B&B was just on the edge of town, exploring the roads and paths a bit. At one point the tiny community supported a Methodist Church as well as an Anglican Church although it is now home only to a "United Reformed" Church.

The streets of Keld
Keld United Reformed Church and Cemetery
G'night Keld

Day Seven: Orton to Kirkby Stephen

Orton to Kirkby Stephen: 19km

While I wasn't a big fan of the service at the George Hotel, I must say that the porridge there was was one of the best places I sampled the fare. It was piping hot and creamy and had salt added and there was lots of it. Our packed lunches, as we expected, left something to be desired: sandwiches on white bread, a piece of fruit, a bag of crisps and a chocolate bar. Not our idea of healthy, and definitely overpriced at six pounds a piece.

We set out at eight thirty and the Australians soon caught up to us (we're not the quickest hikers when we don't have to be; Brent takes lots of pictures). We hiked with Peter, Shirley and Lou for a good chunk of the morning because our guidebook showed a shortcut through the moors whereas their guide book took them on a paved road for several hours (paved roads=bane of our feet). When we stopped for a break behind a fence to get out of the wind, we finally learned all of their names--after hiking with them and seeing them for six days!

Oh good, we are going the right way
Getting to know our hiking companions

It was so windy today that it brought tears to my eyes as we were walking, and although it was bright sunshine, we had to wear our coats. It made hiking slow going at times.

Glistening grass waving in the wind

Over the course of the day we saw two more stone circles (in case you hadn't guessed, I have a fascination with these) and the remains of a bronze age village. We crossed under a disused railway bed and then under another bed that we had traveled as we went north to start our hike. We also walked through two working dairy farms, which was interesting because it gave us a feel for how farming works here.

Another stone circle, so big it doesn't all fit in one picture
A doorway...into another world? (Not. I tried.)
Fire hazard on the moors: no vehicles allowed
Viaduct and the old railway (vy a duck? vy not a goose?)

We ate our lunches on the Swaledale Bridge (Swaledale was the valley that we were hiking down through). I had been feeling for the past couple of days that our metabolisms had sped up and that our bodies were efficiently using all the food that we were eating--and we were eating a lot! But because of yesterday's short distance, in combination with the chocolate factory and today's gross lunch, I could feel my stomach complaining.

Another way across the fence
A little geology: this is limestone, the first fences we've seen of this rock

We reached Kirkby Stephen at two; not bad for 19km straight into the wind. Kirkby Stephen (the second K is not pronounced) one was one of the bigger centers in which we stayed. It had a tourist information center, several pubs and tea houses, a bakery, a grocery store, several antique shops and an outdoor outfitting store. We wandered around town window shopping (we couldn't get into our B&B for another several hours). I would have loved to go antique shopping, but we really were like bulls in a china shop with our backpacks and boots and besides, we really had no room for breakable antiques in our packs. We were glad to see the bakery and the grocery store because it meant we could buy our own lunch materials rather than having to rely on the B&B owner to make what we wanted.

We walked into the church which was, as was common throughout our trip, unlocked. It was a beautiful church and we took a few pictures. I love that the churches aren't locked during the days, enabling us to go in to look around. Someone told us that the churches never used to be locked at all but in recent years, occurrences such as the lead roofs being stolen have forced the congregations to change their assumptions that churches are sacred places.


Kirkby Stephen is quite a pretty Victorian town. All the buildings on the mainstreet are tall and very closer together with small dark alleys that only an Austin mini cooper could get through. Our guidebook says that there was a car chase between some criminals and the police in town at one point and the criminals were able to get away because their car was small enough to maneuver the streets whereas the police got wedged in between two buildings!

Window shopping: It's bank holiday Monday in England, so lots of tourists

We stopped for tea in a little tea shop and who should be in there but again Peter Shirley and Lou. We piled our backpacks outside the door, making quite a hurdle for people trying to get in. We had scones for a snack, for me a fruit scone with butter and jam and for Brent a cheese one with butter. Brent also had a milkshake, which was not a "normal" milkshake: it was very creamy but not very thick or cold. Quite different.

The Jolly Farmers Guest House was clean and quite spacious, but the people running it were not particularly friendly or interested. Staying there also were two little English ladies who were hiking the C2C at the same time as us. They were probably in their early seventies but were so chipper and in shape. Brent and I often commented that if Rachel and I outlive Trevor and Brent, that we should be like these ladies: hiking up a storm and generally enjoying life. We would see these ladies much more in future days.

The Jolly Farmer Guest House
(although we didn't see any farmers, jolly or otherwise, ourselves)

For supper we went to the King's Arms pub and hotel with the pilot couple and the Australians. The Australians had booked us a table ahead of time, and we found ourselves in a cozy room off the bar where we could laugh and talk without disturbing too many other dinner-eaters. We had a lovely supper and a wonderful time chatting, learning about each other and hearing stories about the Australians' other hiking adventures (for instance, the Annapurna circuit in Nepal, which is a hike I've wanted to do for a very long time). It was only at the end of the night that we found out the Florida couple were both pilots. We knew that Mike was an ex-RAF pilot and that Cathy seemed to know an awful lot about planes, but they were so humble and unassuming that they told us that their present jobs were "just staring out the front window of the plane." We really had a wonderful time with the whole lot of them.

From left to right: Lou, Peter, Mike, Cathy, Shirley, Me, Brent

Kirkby Stephen at sunset

Day Six: Shap to Orton

Shap to Orton: a mere 13 km

This day was by far our easiest and shortest, but also a very fun day.

We got a very late start in the morning because we knew it was a short day: we had breakfast at eight thirty and were on the road by...nine thirty? Or maybe later? The Australians were staying at the same B&B and we chatted with them briefly over breakfast. They had taken a wrong turn as they were coming into Shap and kept going--so they didn't get in to the B&B until nine thirty the previous night!

Brent slept in :)

First thing in the morning we crossed the first of two busy highways intersecting with the trail. This one, however, had a footbridge over top, so we could take our time and gawk at how fast people were travelling in their cars hurtling away underneath us.

A quarry: an illegal picture; we were trespassing...

It was another incredibly windy day and so we only really stopped when we had shelter, otherwise walking as quickly as we could to get off the exposed moors. But we passed through some very pretty moor, with limestone outcroppings and stone circles. Also through a variety of pastureland, including one little valley where there was a huge pile of rocks called Robin Hood's grave (not really his grave, but interesting nonetheless--and a good wind break).

"Robin Hood's Grave" Taking our elevensies break.

Hiking against the wind

To my delight, a stone circle

We reached Orton by 1:40 already, and unlike some of the other isolated places we stayed, this was a very good thing, because there was lots to see in the town. It was Sunday and there were lots of tourists wandering around. We walked by the church right away and noticed that they were having some kind of exhibition. It turned out to be an International Festival, put on by the schools, where students researched and created presentations on different countries, all of which were displayed in the church. We toured the exhibits (the one on Canada was lacking, I'm afraid) and talked to some very friendly people in the church about our hike and about Canada. There was, in conjunction with these exhibits, a scarecrow competition going on through town, which we were given judging forms for.

Some cruel and unkind people stole the lead roof off the church.

Hey--A Canada Flag! At the Orton Anglican Church

We also talked to the people in the church about the fate of the Anglican church in Britain. A man told us that they are extremely short of Anglican ministers in Britain. In the Orton area, one vicar serves five churches!

We dropped our bags off at the Hotel, who kindly let us into our room early. Then we headed over to the chocolate factory (if you didn't already know it, we both love dark chocolate). We had hot chocolate made with shaved chocolate, and scones. Our cups came with little chocolates on the side. We also bought a big bar of dark chocolate. We have discovered that pure chocolate is a great energy provider when hiking. We keep a bar in our backpacks all the time when we're hiking and stop every hour or so for a chocolate break. When it's good high cocoa percentage dark chocolate, it's actually quite good for you--or so we tell ourselves. ;)

It was so good, we forgot to take a picture before we started drinking.
So many tasty varieties

After our chocolate break we went out into the town to judge the scarecrows. Some of them were quite ingenius, including an astronaut scarecrow with Apollo 18 flying to the moon (the scarecrow's name was Gordon Brown: a bit of a political statement). :)

Slow boat to China
Norwegian Troll
Leif Eriksson rowing over to the New World

The George Hotel was quite pretty, both inside and out and we quite liked it. However, we had some complaints with the people running it. The staff were not very friendly, our lunches cost six pounds each (that's 12 Canadian dollars) and were not that good. Also, they would not serve us breakfast before eight o'clock, even though we just wanted porridge. We were enjoying our early mornings on longer days, and so were frustrated that they couldn't just throw some porridge at us and let us be on our way.

The four-poster bed in our room--and the 5'10 beam in the doorway
The George Hotel

The restaurant under the hotel was very busy that evening. It was a long weekend in Britain and a Sunday night, and there were lots of families out on camping trips. We had steak and ale pie that took forever to arrive and homemade tasty tiramisu for dessert. I was so full afterwards, so we went for a walk. While we were out, we ran into the pilot couple and agreed to meet with them and the Australians the following night in Kirkby Stephen for supper since it would be their last night of hiking there.

Day Five: Patterdale to Shap

Patterdale to Shap: 25.5 km

Today was a much longer day, and there were sections that were more tiring than interesting. We hiked up and out of the valley at Patterdale directly into the wind. We saw some beautiful tarns, an old abandoned chapel, the faint tracings of a Roman road (so from approximately 300 AD), and some lovely mountain tops. We hiked over Kidsty Pike, which is the highest point on the actual route, although we went higher on our alternative paths.

Toasting platypus nozzles at the peak of Kidsty Pike

We were up and on the trail by eight, since we knew we had a ways to go today. Moreover, there really was nothing for us at the Inn or in Patterdale. We were hiking on more or less alone this morning since we were leaving Gordon and Charlene and Allan behind. (We didn't realize that we'd get to know others later on).

Up at lonely Angle Tarn, high up in the fells, we saw two small tents pegged out very carefully because of the horrible wind. We also saw Canada geese (a little far from home one might say?).

Angle Tarn
Can you see the Canadians in the picture?

We saw a number of other hikers up in the saddle of the mountains; there are a number of hikes in this area, and people were keen to go out and see them. We saw a man and his two dogs. He stopped at one point, took out his camera and took a picture of the two dogs outlined against the mountain-scape. We thought it was neat that the three, one human and two canines, could make such good hiking companions. We also saw a woman running the trail. At times this seemed quite doable but elsewhere the rocks and bog and creeks would make for tricky footwork. We were glad for our heavy boots. Finally, we saw a man mountain biking the trail. Certainly not my cup of tea, I would rather clomp along on my two stout legs rather than try to pedal furiously up the hills. But to each her own, I guess.

The faint line in the middle in the distance is the Roman road

The east wind was blowing awfully hard up on top. We had been advised to do the C2C trail from west to east because that's the way the prevailing winds move and we would consequently travel with the wind to our backs the whole way. Not so. It got so bad that although the sun was shining we put on our rain coats and our mittens. We hiked along as fast as we could in the hopes that the wind would die down in the valley on the other side (it did not).

We made our way down around the Haweswater Reservoir, a lake that used to be small but is now dammed to provide drinking water for the city of Manchester. In the process of creating the reservoir, the builders drowned a town. All that was left of little Mardale was an abandoned farm on the edge of the lake. Hiking around this massive lake was the most arduous part of our day. It just went on and on, with little shade and little variation to the landscape.

High above Hawsewater Reservoir

Once we were around, however, the two mid 50s sisters from Canada caught up to us. The whole time we saw them (they stayed at the same B&B as us the first night) they were never quite sure of their navigational skills. They tagged along behind us for a while, to the point where we felt responsible for ensuring they made it through a relatively unmarked section of field.

The sheep were always posing for us

We were leaving the Lakes district at this point, and the landscape was definitely changing. It was becoming like that of James Herriot fame, green pastures with stone barns and clean white sheep, narrow winding country roads and rolling hills.

A crumbling decaying barn

Before reaching Shap we passed by Shap Abbey, an old Roman Catholic priory. Much of the stone had been reused for surrounding buildings but the main bell tower remained, along with the foundations of the other buildings. We spent a while looking around the site, imagining how the priests must have lived their lives. We found the "toilets," the fishing hole, the pantry, the garden and a lot of other interesting functional aspects of life at the Abbey. Very interesting.

Brent checking out the pantry

Two new kinds of gates in the stone fence.Shap itself was a cute little town. Relative to many of the other places we stayed, it was quite large, with several restaurants, a library, a school and a grocery store. Our B&B was right at the furthest edge of town, so far that we were starting to wonder if we had missed it or if it even existed. By this time our feet were very tired, and hiking on pavement is the hardest: there's no cushioning in our boots designed for withstanding concrete.

When we did arrive at the B&B, we were most pleasantly surprised. The owner was a very sweet lady who, small world indeed, had been to Red Deer! She fed us tea and scones and jam, did our laundry for us, and was very friendly and kind. Our window overlooked the Lakes District and the peaks to the west in the distance, and up close we could see a dairy farm across the road. It was a lovely stop. Brookfield Guest House was most definitely another one of our top places to stay.

Just a cute little house was Brookfield Guest House

If our overnight stay wasn't good enough, we ordered a packed lunch from the lady that was by the far the best we had the whole trip. We only had 13 km to go that day, so we didn't need a ton of food, which was too bad, because she had all kinds of tasty homemade options for us. We each had a sandwich, mine of which was chicken and stuffing--home made and very good--, we also each had a piece of fruit, an almond tart and a tea biscuit with cheese. Everything was carefully wrapped in wax paper and carefully made. So we highly recommend both staying at Brookfield and ordering her packed lunch!

We went to a pub for supper that night and, not really knowing where to go, chose a pub that turned out to have virtually no one in it. We ate in the dining room all by ourselves and our food took forever to come. However, it turned out that because we were the only ones eating there, the cook had to make it from scratch (hence the long wait) and it was fresh and hot and home-cooked. We both had Cumberland sausage and mashed potatoes (more commonly known as bangers and mash). It came with a moat of brown gravy and steamed vegetables on the side--and all for only five pounds each! By far the cheapest meal we had the whole time, and still definitely tasty.

The sunset from Shap