Peter starts acting like the C-to-C expert

Got up and had our best bfast of the trip, April had porridge plus scrambled eggs on toast and beans and bacon. Also fresh fruit. I had the standard full English. It turned out this was our favorite B+B. Owners were great, our room was their regular bedroom (they had moved out), so nice bed and shower, food was great, it was quiet and cold at night. Huge winner.

We talked to the other couple at the B+B, who were heading west-east (opposite us), and our upcoming stage wasn’t supposed to be too wet/boggy so I changed into my low hiking shoes. The nice thing about going the opposite way from almost everyone else is we get good intel about the coming route. It turns out we really like going the opposite way because the mornings and evenings are very quiet. That is, we meet all the other hikers about noon as we pass each other on the trail, but before and after that we have the trails to ourselves. And they have these hoards of people because they are all going the same way. Plus if we were going their way April and I would always be trying to pass everyone. Whenever they ask why we’re going the wrong way, we correct them and tell them we’re going the hard way. Aren’t we smug!

So off we went at 8:30. It was cold enough that we could see our breath. Yet it was a clear blue sunny sky. This was to be a 20 plus mile day. Second longest of the trip. And the following day was going to be 16 miles yet really hard. So in fact this was to be the crux of the trip. We could crash and burn or we could kick ass.

Found the path out of town and headed up thru a bunch of different pastures. Of course the fields were very wet with dew so my shoes were getting sort of wet. Irritating. Then April was leading and I was following her, and she took a left around this boggy section, and sure enough I slipped in deeply and my feet got totally soaked and muddy. I was pissed. Especially since she was leading. April laughed and as you might imagine that didn’t help my mood. But then as Chelsea commented, I need to put some of that Vipassana meditation training into action; so I chilled.

Then we passed thru a field and the bull was mounting all the cows. We took a long way around that action! Didn’t want to get that bull mad!

We were heading south along these stone walls and it seemed like we were lost. We thought we should have hit a turnoff before this. The map seemed to indicate the turnoff sooner. Nothing worse than feeling you’re off track. The fear is not really that you’re lost but that you have to backtrack, hence lost time and more miles on the feet. And it really easy to get lost in these fields cause they all have access gates/stiles/ladders. So you could go for a long time sort of mapping the written directions to your current fields. In fact, during this semi-unsure phase April wanted to head in the exact opposite direction, and it wasn’t really as insane as it sounds. Kind of like the time at the doctor’s office when I convinced Ethan he was 19 when he was really 18 (but that’s another story we don’t quite have time for). Anyway I almost bought her arguments; but we carried on for about 20 minutes more and finally saw the house/bridge we were supposed to cross.

We proceeded for about another hour thru fields then came to a road. One route went north then south on the tarmac for 3 miles, but the maps indicated a route directly across on the moors. Shorter, better on your feet; we were feeling frisky (maybe it was that bull we saw earlier!) so we went for it. It turned out to be a big savings, great route. Right after that we stopped for lunch and started encountering all the people going in the opposite direction. Being the Know-it-all that I become on very rare occasions, I began doling out the short-cut info to worthy people. Some people charged pass us and they didn’t get the tip, others we might have a nice “hello” exchange, and then they got the scoop. What power! April had to tell me to leave the hikers alone, they could figure out what they wanted to do.

So we continued on staying to the timing plan, and got to the last couple of hours (25%), and then we kind of conked. We had to go way around these walled in fields in the middle of some bleak moors (not much heather). We could see this gravel plant way in the distance. It took forever. There were ancient stone circles and other archeological attractions just a few minutes off our path, but we said the hell with it. Too tired to look at any more rocks. We crossed a major highway via a pedestrian bridge then limped into town.

Got to the forgotten town of Shap at about 5:30. We calculated that we walked 8 hours at 2.5 mph., then we had stops for food and map-reading.

We were booked at the local pub/hotel. Large room, great shower but it was too noisy. Usually we would have moved rooms but we were too tired. The menu at our pub didn’t look great so we tried to walk thru the town to find another restaurant/pub. Walked about 50 feet to the next building. Their sign advertised Mexican, Italian, Caribbean, and Turkish food. That didn’t sound quite right, and we were too tired to explore anymore so we turned around and went back to our pub for standard English pub fare. Yet surprisingly they also had some Indian food on the menu. April couldn’t resist the peas/gravy thing so she had a mince-meat pie and I ordered chicken tikka masala with rice and nan. Wasn’t bad. Had a pint of cold Fosters too. Score.

Anyway went right to bed after dinner because tomorrow was supposedly the hardest day of the trip. We would be leaving the Dales and entering the Lakes District, mountain trails.

But don’t worry we have a plan. Plan the hike, hike the plan.