Coast to Coast – Keld to Reeth

Posted on 13/10/2013 by Michael

Swaledale Valley

Chapter 9 – Keld to Reeth

The day by the river

Although one of the cheapest of the places I have stayed in so far the so-called bunkhouse at Keld was probably the most luxurious, more by chance than anything else. What is called the bunkhouse is basically an annex, attached to the main farm building, that’s been converted into a separate two storey house. In 2 of the 3 bedrooms there are bunks which means that it can be used as a place for a self-contained group or for individuals such as myself. On the ground floor there’s a kitchen cum dining room cum lounge. What made the place luxurious was that I was there by myself. (Well, not exactly. A couple came after I had gone to bed and occupied the downstairs bedroom but I had the place to myself when I was moving around.)

If it was good to get an early finish the day before I gave myself an added bonus with a late start today – not leaving until 10.20, the latest start on the whole of the trip. The walk to Reeth was only 11 miles or so and I had also decided to take the route that would follow a stretch of the River Swale before going up to the moors again before descending down to Reeth. It was a grey day, again, but at least the rain, more like persistent drizzle, that had fallen just before it got dark hadn’t remained and it didn’t look like the weather would turn for the worse. If I had gone on the higher route there would have been sections of boggy land where I would have been up to my ankles in mud and the views would have been non-existent so I thought there was little point of the additional effort. And anyway, going the lower route I would pass through, or close to, a couple of small hamlets and thought of having a midday pint in one of the pubs.

From the table I was sitting at for breakfast I was looking out over a small waterfall behind the house and across from that 3 or 4 pheasants were searching for food. I had come across the occasional game bird over the previous couple of days, but only individuals, and would start to see many more from now on. The route was starting to enter the Yorkshire moors that were specifically managed for the hunting of both pheasant and grouse.

I don’t think I’d got so close to a grouse before this expedition. They’re not very good flyers and the first one was ‘trapped’ as I came across it along a lane, just at the place there was a gate and when there was a wall on either side of the lane. The only escape route would have been the direction I had come but the grouse’s instinct is to fly away from perceived danger, not towards it even if that was the best escape route. So I don’t think they are the most intelligent of birds (and probably accounts why the not most intelligent of people can shoot so many of them). They panic as they run around but I was able to get a few, reasonably close, pictures of them. These were the red grouse.

Red Grouse

The place I was staying was to the west of Keld, just before entering the village proper, and due to the drizzle, and the fact that I was quite warm and comfortable sitting alone in the house, I decided against going to the local pub. There might well have been a few people I had met on previous days there but laziness got the better of me. That worked out well as the pub was a lot further than I was given to expect so had no regrets when I realised the effort that would have been needed the previous night – I’m doing enough walking without adding any additional miles.

It seems that each part of the country has its peculiarities and little traps to catch out the unwary walker, and in Yorkshire that local joke are the stiles cum gates that are built into the dry stone walls. These are very narrow openings in the walls that often have a gate on a tight spring at one side and a flat, upright stone that prevents any sizeable animal from getting through. Not always, but very often, there are a couple of stone steps on either side of the opening so there’s a certain skill and dexterity to negotiate these obstacles. They tend to be narrower at the bottom, opening out higher up, as they would have been built so that there’s enough room for the feet but then allowing that most people are normally fatter at the waist. But when I say ‘room for the feet’ I really mean room for a foot, as few of these allow you to stand with your feet side by side.

So you have to imagine the situation. You arrive at one of these stiles and open the gate towards you as you step up to the gap in the wall. There’s only enough room for one foot so you have one leg trailing as you use one hand to keep hold of the wall and the other to keep the gate from swinging back and propelling you into space. Now you have a problem. What do you move first? Probably the best bet is to shuffle forward on the foot in the gap until you get to a situation where you can place both feet on the wall behind each other. Now it may be possible to release the gate BUT you have to bear in mind that you have a rucksack which effectively makes your body much bigger. If successful the weight of the gate and its spring presses against the rucksack but not in such a way that it pushes you forward. Now you have the use of two hands. Using them to lift your body you tentatively move forward so that you can squeeze through the narrow gap caused by the flat, upright stone. Then with a supreme effort you launch yourself forward, step through the gap on to the step on the other side, drag your bag through behind you, scraping the sides of the gap as you do so and you are through. If lucky in one piece.

Yorkshire Stile

I’m not that big and my rucksack, although big enough for me, not as large as someone who might be camping. How some other people get through is beyond me, very much like contracting the body as an octopus does to go through impossibly small openings.

Once you’ve got though and congratulated yourself on your self-preservation you look up and see there’s another one less than 20 metres away and there were a lot on this walk, through the fields and meadows alongside the River Swale.

After having seen the pathetic sight of the unfortunate rabbit the day before perhaps it was fitting that this morning I passed by a huge rabbit warren indicating that the rabbit population, in general, in the area seemed to be healthy enough. I have to take the guide-book writer’s word that it was rabbits as the entrance tunnels seemed very big to me but then I must admit I’m not really an expert on native British mammal’s underground construction sites. Also it seemed too low, the land sloped away quite quickly at this point to some hills behind, and too close to the river in the event of a flood – but then, again, I assume the rabbits know more what they’re doing than me.

The idea of a pub crawl fell apart quite quickly. The first opportunity would have meant a slight diversion to the hamlet of Muker. There’s supposed to be a pub there but I decided against the diversion for a couple of reasons. It was still relatively early. Although I had left later than usual I was at this point before midday and there was no guarantee that the pub would have been open at that time during this time of year, not quite the closed season but definitely on the point of closing down.

This is one of the negative consequences of the changes in the pub licensing hours that happened way back in the late 90s. When pubs had fixed opening times you could guarantee that a pub would be open during certain times of the day. If my memory serves me right they had to, as part of their license, coming as it did from the days when pubs were obliged to provide a service to travellers. I welcomed the change in the opening hours but learnt very quickly that this change was a doubled-edged sword and what we gained from the change was far outweighed by what we lost.

Stay behind pubs lost out as their regular customers would remain local rather than travel to a place they knew would stay open illegally. That meant that after years of knowing where someone might be at a particular time, especially on a Saturday, with the changes you couldn’t. One of the consequences of this was that when the pubs could more or less chose their opening hours that the pubs that used to stay open all afternoon stopped doing so as it wasn’t worth the effort if they didn’t have a sufficient number of people who were prepared to ‘break the law’. As things have developed in subsequent years it means that if you turn up at a relatively isolated country pub you have no idea whether it will be open or not.

A lesson in being careful what you wish for.

So I left out Muker and thought of the pint I would have in Gunnerside, another that the guide-book had recommended. On arriving at this village I found the pub shut, but not for the reason above but for the fact that it couldn’t pay its way and had closed some time ago, as have so many throughout the country. Among other things this exposes the limitations of guide books. However well there is an attempt to keep information up to date things can change very quickly and if you are going to actually depend upon such information it would be best to make a telephone call to confirm that the business was still running. This would be highly recommended if your plan was not to just drink but eat in such a place. Turning up on spec would not be a good idea in the present (and foreseeable) economic climate. I was told that this pub had been closed for some time, although looking through the windows it didn’t seem like that long ago.

But this made me think of the plight of pubs along routes such as the Coast to Coast. During the course of the year thousands of people must do this walk. Now, not every one of them will be a drinker but it is not unknown for alcohol to be associated with walking and those pubs that provide food will also be attracting more custom. But now the struggling pubs have a new problem in the fact that the infrastructure of accommodation that has built up to service this growing number of visitors is actually hammering another nail in the coffin of the ‘local’.

At one time British B+Bs were notorious, not for what they offered but for what they didn’t. They didn’t offer en suite; they didn’t offer all day access; they didn’t offer a friendly and welcoming atmosphere; they didn’t offer a home from home more a remand home from home; and they didn’t offer alcohol. Now, many things have changed, including the last. More and more places, with very limited accommodation, I’m not necessarily talking about anything that borders on a hotel, have acquired a drinks license and that is bound to have an impact on the pubs in these small country villages.

In the long distant past when I did any of these long distance walks, or even a strenuous day in the hills, it was almost obligatory to end the evening in the pub. Now you can get your alcohol fix without leaving your B+B, or even camping site. I’ve done this myself in a few places I’ve stayed in so far, even those places where there was a choice. To the best of my knowledge all hostels of the YHA are now licensed, at least I haven’t come across one that wasn’t, so that means even in the most isolated locations you don’t need to leave the front door for the fix. When I was in Shap, after a long and tiring day I wanted a drink but when I knew they served in the place I was staying any inclination to go out and walk again before the next morning just evaporated away. The same in Keld, even though I thought the pub was closer than it really was. And I’m sure I’m not the only one that has followed that pattern.

If the pubs could have survived with the walkers coming in during the day time as they passed through a village and then had those staying locally bolstering the takings in the evening they are now finding that one of their income strands is disappearing. If there might be opposition from pubs to the granting of these licenses when the pub exists the argument of the B+Bs gets stronger if the pub should close. In those circumstances, unless there is a local community group prepared to go through all the hassle of re-opening the local as a community run pub, as was the case in Ennerdale Bridge, then that village will never have a pub again. So even an increase in tourism and overnight visitors is not, necessarily, a recipe for success for the unique British institution. Things don’t look too promising in this region of the country and I came across a similar situation in some villages when I did the Hadrian’s Wall walk a couple of years ago.

Today was probably the day I reached my psychological low.

There were a couple of reasons for that.

Today is my 8^th walking day and I’ve only just passed the half way point. That means there’s still a lot of miles to go and in only 5 days. So even if the final stages don’t have any major ascents during the course of the day each one will be long. That’s a problem but not the most serious one.

That is the rucksack. I’ve never liked carrying a big load and when you have to pick it up and then walk a not inconsiderable number of miles my enthusiasm wanes considerably. It’s not heavy heavy, roughly 12,837 grammes (that’s 28 lb 4.8119 oz, more or less). But today it felt uncomfortable from the off and not just becoming so towards the end of the day. I’m glad I got a more modern bag as my old one was inadequate for the Hadrian’s Wall walk and would have been totally unsuitable for the Coast to Coast. The new bags adapt to each individual’s size and preferences. Carrying it for a couple of days, as I did when I made my short expedition to the Lake District earlier in the year, was no problem at all. It starts to become a problem when it seems that you will have to carry it forever.

I haven’t been carrying the heaviest bag of those I seen along my way so far but certainly heavier than most. Of those I’ve got to know slightly most have their main luggage picked up each morning and dropped off at their next nights accommodation so they carry a minimum needed for a day’s walk in the mountains. A few companies have developed to cater for this wish and they probably make a nice enough profit from it as they are far from cheap. I didn’t even consider investigating these companies but, I must admit, there were a few minutes during the course of today when I wondered if that might not have been the best choice.

I’d pared things to the bone and considered that I had brought what was necessary to cope with any adverse weather conditions I might encounter at this time of year but it was still more than I would have liked. (But then I would have liked to have carried virtually nothing as my preferred walking environment is Mediterranean spring or autumn, or even the summer, which requires no wet/cold weather gear or, at least, it didn’t until climate change also made the weather uncertain in that part of the world as well.) The other issue is that the computer and camera (together with all the bits and pieces needed to keep them operational) weighed in at 7 lb 7.8692 oz (or 3399 grammes), just over a quarter of the weight.

Although these thoughts did have a tendency of making the day a little harder and longer than it actually was (and the lack of an alcohol anaesthetic due to closed pubs unavailable to mitigate such feelings and thoughts) the weather did improve as the day wore on and there was pleasant sunshine as I again came to walk along close to the River Swale on approaching the village of Reeth, my overnight stop.

And the next day was the second scheduled rest day!

So at 16.10 on Thursday 26^th September it was 109 miles down and 91 to go

Now over the half way mark but it’s taken 8 walking days to get there – however the distances should start to roll by as length of walks becomes more pertinent than height (at least I hope so).

Practical Information:

Accommodation:

Black Bull Hotel, £40 for a single B+B. Surprised when I was taken to a room, overlooking the green in the centre of the village, with a big, double, four-poster bed. And another surprise when I looked in the bathroom, no shower but a big bath. So the first treat in Reeth was a long soak in deep, hot water (with bubbles provided by the hand soap lotion). It’s important when you arrive at a place with baths (rather than showers) that you take advantage of the hot water when it exists. Only the most modern hotels and guest houses will have such powerful boilers they can provide hot water on demand when so many people arrive at the same time. I heard members of the group (of 9 I’ve come across a few times and who are now staying at the same place) complaining about the lack of hot water but if your priority after a days walking is a cup of tea – which I know is the case with some – then you have to get used to cold showers.

This is another quaint old building where the floors are uneven, I have to sit still in bed otherwise I’ll spill my tea on the bedside table; the door is a strange shaped piece of wood which fits the doorway – just; and like the place in Shap, even though the walls are thick you can hear voices from other rooms. There’s a certain smell about these buildings which is quite unique. It’s not of dirt but of a kind of ‘lived in’ smell, not the sterile, clinical atmosphere that seems to pervade modern housing – even the likes of my flat which is in a building close to a couple of hundred years old. I suppose the change came when they decided that the straight line was important in house construction.

But, now I’m here, it’s not as good an idea that I’m in the YHA for the second night. That’s a walk of about a kilometre away but, at least, it’s in the right direction for when I start to walk on Saturday. I don’t get the full benefit of a day off having to get out of the room in the morning and pack all my things. But after a late(ish) breakfast I plan to sit in the bar and use the computer until mid afternoon and then head up to the YHA.

Free wifi in the bar area only – blackbull1680 (due to the structure of the building and the fact that it dates back more than 300 years).

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Coast to Coast – Kirkby Stephen to Keld

Posted on 09/10/2013 by Michael

Window

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Chapter 8 – Kirkby Stephen – Keld

The day of the mud

According to the guide-book this could well be the wettest day of the trip, not from the sky but underfoot. At the same time it would have to go some to beat the days when I was walking in the Lake District.

The day dawned, and remained as such for most of the day, with the same conditions I have gotten to expect. Dull, overcast, low cloud but not so low that the tops were in the mist, quite still (so there was little chance of a change) yet surprisingly warm. And dry, that is without rain. I was beginning to realise that during my time of doing this walk the prevailing weather was coming from the east and basically keeping any wet, Atlantic weather well out to sea.

After an indifferent (to say the least) breakfast I left the hostel which, so far, is the worst of the places I’ve stayed in. I’m also starting to get fed up with asking for ‘the full English’ when referring to breakfast. I need to have a fairly substantial meal at least once a day but a full fry-up ceases to have its attractions when it comes nine days in a row. Travelling away from home you tend to implicitly give up the opportunity of choice (so loved in this country at present – and against which I’m in constant battle), the variations on the theme being minimal. That growing lack of enthusiasm wasn’t helped this morning by one of the poorer offerings as the ‘main meal of the day’.

Before even leaving Kirkby Stephen I had (or more accurately wanted) to take a picture of a road sign. People who stand at the end of railway platforms and take pictures of the passing trains are looked down in our society (although it’s an innocent enough pastime) but don’t know how derisory the recording of direction signs would be considered.

But this was slightly different and there can’t be many of them in the country. These are old signs that record the distance to another town or village in miles and furlongs. Furlongs were still mentioned when I was at school but must seem as meaningful as the groat to those brought up under a metric system of calculation. For those who can’t remember, or never knew in the first place, a furlong is 220 yards, 660 feet, 40 rods or 10 chains (although we’re getting far too esoteric to talk about the last two). The furlong is a measure that developed from the strip farming of the Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval period, right up to time of early capitalist agriculture, and a hang over from feudalism. The name itself is derived from a furrow, the line of ploughed ground. Probably the only place you come across that in any regularity nowadays is in horse racing where the part miles are broken down into furlongs (I assume that’s still the case, I can’t remember the last time I watched a horse race).

And on some old road signs. I don’t know if they still exist but there was a series of books when I was younger, the ‘I spy’ series where such signs were a prize if seen on any journey. Don’t know if the series still exists, or even if there is a modern equivalent. But just in case you’ve never seen one I reproduce it below. For those in search of relics of the past it’s on the town side of the chicane controlled by traffic lights as you come into Kirkby Stephen from the west, on the same side of the road as, and just before, the Kirkby Stephen Hostel.

Road sign marked in Miles and Furlongs

Although I’d taken my first scheduled rest day in Patterdale on the previous Sunday I expected to meet up with others I’d met on previous days as they were moving forward in shorter stages so today we would all come together again. I was still happy with my planned routine. But each to their own on this one. I just liked the idea of being able to wake up in the morning knowing that I didn’t have to go far. Others wanted the continuous routine, but they tended to be the ones who were only doing a section of the walk and anyone doing the full length, unless they were racing against some personal clock, would turn the challenge into a chore if they didn’t allow some sort of time off for good behaviour.

Along the route I only came into contact with one largish group who were aiming to complete the full walk, and that was a group of 9 from Leicester. Doing it for charity and sponsorship and (I later got to know) 2013 was the 8^th year that the same organisation (a hospice) had arranged such a trip. They had stayed at the same place in Shap and had their own support vehicle and driver so they tended to move faster than me so I only rarely came into contact with them on the walk.

What I did learn from that minimal contact was the extra time it takes with a group. From Kirkby Stephen we left at more or less the same time and they overtook me as I was stripping off from being over-dressed due to the unexpectedly high temperature. But I soon overtook them as they were at a non-existent junction (as far as I was concerned) consulting a map. It seems they were using maps rather than one of the guide books and that seemed to be making things difficult for no real gain. I can see the idea of trying to navigate using traditional methods but I don’t think that it goes together with a long-distance walk. Some of the days were long enough without adding more time out on the hills discussing which path to take, when the guide books (at least the one I was using) gave a good field by field, gate by gate, stile by stile, description of the route. Use the two together but not just the maps. I’d already realised the advantages of travelling alone, seeing this group – who managed all the stages that they wanted – hanging around and wasting valuable minutes only convinced me more of the correctness of taking on the challenge solo.

Apart from conditions under foot this wasn’t supposed to be a particularly hard day and the greatest effort needed being the ascent to the summit of Nine Standards Rigg, which started just after leaving Kirkby Stephen. The first part of the climb takes place on a quiet country road and then a relatively wide track when the tarmac runs out. From this point it’s possible to see, in the distance, the nine stone pillars which give the hill its name.

Although wet as the path got narrower and steeper it wasn’t as bad as I’d experienced earlier in the walk and that was mainly due to the warm summer. I don’t think the summer of 2013 in the north-west was in any way exceptional, just not as bad as the ones of the recent past, and the colour of the vegetation and the amount of water in the hills seemed to confirm that up to Shap and the moors that led to Kirkby Stephen. Then we came under the influence of the east of the country and by talking to people who were local I got the impression that it had been much drier there than in the west. The streams were not as full and generally the water leaching from the hills was merely a trickle.

Although plagued by low cloud Nine Standards Rigg is only a couple of thousand feet high and was lower than summit allowing for a good view of the pillars if not with a bright background. As with most of these types of structures (and there have been an increasing number of various combinations and incidences of standing stones since leaving the Lake District behind) no-one can say definitively why or when they were constructed and allows for any explanation from the mundane to the fanciful. The mundane: boundary markers – although that’s a lot of work to established a line, especially when so close together. The fanciful: built to frighten the Scots that they would have to fight giants if they came any closer. Of the two I prefer the second.

If I thought I had got away with the water before reaching the stone pillars that belief was shattered over the course of the next hour or so. This had already been signalled by the fact that there are three routes to get to the east past Nine Standards Rigg and each one is recommended at certain times of the year. This is both in an attempt to prevent erosion but also, I assume, to allow people to get through without having to swim through a sea of mud (or really liquid peat).

The route for most people this day was the Blue Route, recommended from August to November, i.e., the driest months. It’s also the most direct and maintains a high viewpoint, the best one on clear days. But it wasn’t easy by any means.

These peat moorlands are very vulnerable and once they get damaged water will start to flow through the little gullies making them wider and deeper as time goes on. Why no attempt had been made to prevent this situation from getting as bad as it is, and only getting worse in the future, is a mystery. Well, not really. It’s all about money and no government has been, and for the foreseeable future, would invest the small amount it would take to both protect and improve this piece of moorland as a public amenity. There may be unspecified billions for the controversial high-speed train line but not a few hundred thousand for such socially and ecologically beneficial projects throughout the country.

It can’t be beyond engineers to come up with a simple, long-lasting and non-invasive solution. After all in 1829 George Stephenson came up with a solution of crossing Chat Moss over which he wanted to constrict the first line between Liverpool and Manchester. This stretch of railway, still in constant use to this day, ‘floats’ on a bed of bundles of heather and branches, bound together and covered in tar and, as far as I’m aware, has never needed to be repaired since as the chemicals in the peat bog prevent the vegetation from rotting down. Surely a scaled down version of that engineering technique could easily be adapted to footpaths on the Yorkshire (as well as other) moors?

As it was the get along you had to clamber as carefully as possible down into a ditch and then get up the other side without disappearing up to your knees in mud and water. Slowly you learn that the best way to get through is to tread as softly and carefully as possible. Using the walking poles you then need to pull yourself up from the ditch, in the process trying not to put too much downward pressure on your feet – but that’s easier said than done. I think that by the time the ground became firmer as height was slowly lost I was better than I was at the beginning, nonetheless it was a stretch that required concentration and not an inconsiderable amount of effort.

I couldn’t have done that section without the poles, or at least not without arriving at the valley bottom without looking as if you had spent an active and wild afternoon in one of those god-awful mud-wrestling pubs that appeared like a plague in the 1970s. At the same time the poles only add to the problems of erosion. When you stick the tip of the pole into the ground and it sinks a couple of feet, without a great deal of effort, you can understand how fragile this terrain and environment really is. Over time, using poles to get out of these small ravines the edges will be gradually pulled away as the poles tear the structure of threads that holds the peat together. You come up with one solution but that then causes another problem!

This terrain is going to dominate second half of the journey so it will be interesting to see how it feels to be walking along the paths of these high moorland areas of Yorkshire.

For that is where I arrived this day, out of Cumbria and into Yorkshire. Getting close to the half way mark – which seems to have taken a long time to arrive – and now crossing a watershed, literally. After Nine Standards Rigg all the water that I plough through or washes over me will be heading to the North rather than the Irish Sea.

It’s a very different terrain in a number of ways. Still lots and lots of sheep but also a growing amount of farm land, both arable and livestock. But an area that has also gone though many changes over the years. On this day’s walk I became very much aware of the number of abandoned houses that line the valley – as the end of this walk, Keld, is at the beginning of the Swaledale River course. At one time many more people would have lived in this area, an area that tourists and visitors might consider idyllic but to the people who would have been forced to live there in the past the area would have been harsh and life hard – not that far from a road but still a long way anywhere of any size in terms of population. Changes in agricultural practices would have reduced the numbers working in the fields – and I don’t think I saw anyone other than another walker on the hills all day. And for the young this place would have virtually nothing to offer. Lots of good filming locations which involve isolated buildings in a dramatic environment.

The other notable event of the day, and that was very near the end as I was coming down an old farm track to the minor road running parallel to the river, was an ‘encounter’ with a dying rabbit. I haven’t seen many rabbits along the route, not least as when they are out to play I’ve either not started the walk for the day or have already finished, but the ones I had seen looked relatively healthy. The one I saw this afternoon was far from that.

I had heard or read some time ago, can’t remember when or where, that myxomatosis was still claiming victims amongst the rabbit population. This afternoon I saw first hand the consequences.

Myxomatosis was introduced, accidentally or on purpose is still open to question, into the UK in September 1953 and soon was showing what damage it could do to the rabbit population. It is estimated that by the end of 1955 95% of all rabbits were dead, a virulence that must hold some sort of record. Those that survived did so by luck and by building up resistance so in subsequent years the population has bounced back and until I heard that it was showing itself recently I had assumed that it was a thing of the past. Like smallpox in the human population, when you reach a certain level of immunity it can be considered to be no longer a problem.

Unfortunately for the rabbit this is not the case. When at school I remember reading a poem from one of the ‘modern’ poets of his reaction to walking in the countryside (it must have been 1954/5) and coming across these pathetic creatures almost rotting alive. The disease seems to one of those that basically eats away at the body until multiple organ failure leads to death. Through the wonders of the internet I’ve been able to learn that this was a poem called ‘Myxomatosis’ by Philip Larkin. I remember how shocked he was on seeing these animals in their sad state but until I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye this afternoon had never had personal experience of the issue.

This was the middle of the afternoon, about 15.00, and the rabbit was beside the path, frightened by my presence but too weak to do anything meaningful about it. I had learnt, 40 odd years ago or more recently I can’t remember, that one of the outward signs of the infection was a swelling around the eyes so was fairly certain of the cause for its distress when I saw that. Added to its sluggish movement it was covered by a small swarm of flies, starting to get their meal before the host was dead. It wouldn’t have survived the night, I’m sure, but wonder if I should have done the humane thing and put it out of its misery. I didn’t, thinking I might have regretted that more than walking on by. A distressing sight.

Rabbit dying of Myxomatosis

Strangely hare’s don’t get suffer from myxomatosis although they can be a vector as the disease is spread by fleas (in the same way that the bubonic plague was spread by fleas from rats). I’m sure the brave scientists at Porton Down would love to have discovered the secret of the selectivity of myxomatosis when they were developing their chemical and biological weaponry.

The final stretch along the road to Keld should have allowed me to witness some of the waterfalls (forces) that exist along this stretch of water but the low water levels at the time meant they were nothing like usual, the pros and cons of a dry summer and still rain free days. And it was certainly pleasant to be arriving at my overnight accommodation a good couple of hours before 18.00.

So at 15.30 on Wednesday 25^th September it was 98 miles down and 102 to go

Practical Information:

Accommodation

Keld BunkBarn

Tel: 01748 886549

The place has a mixture of accommodation, from camping to the bunkhouse. Don’t think they do the traditional B+B. And as it says in the web address they have yurts, two of them in the entrance drive way where the camping is based.

In the bunkhouse, £21 per night per bed – with a help yourself to cereal and toast type of Continental breakfast. Will do an egg and bacon baguette in the morning for £3.50. Evening meals about £8. Has an alcohol licence but there are only cans available. Takes payment with card or cash.

(I apologise for the delay in publishing this post – after surviving the mud on Nine Standards Rigg I got caught up in a metaphorical mud.)

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Coast to Coast – Shap to Kirkby Stephen

Posted on 28/09/2013 by Michael

Shap Cement Works

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Chapter 7 – Shap to Kirkby Stephen

The Long March

This was going to be one of the longest, if not the longest of days in terms of distance. Twenty one miles, over moors so it wasn’t exactly flat as there were countless little hills and hillocks that had to be crossed. There’s another long day after Catterick which does indeed look more like ambling along through level fields – but we shall see.

Now the 6^th day of walking and I thought that I should resort to chemicals in order to alleviate the swelling in the knee. When I did my two day reconnaissance earlier in the year I was pleased that even with a full backpack the poles seemed to have protected the knees. But that was only two days. Things are different when the pounding goes on for longer. The body’s natural pain killers help but not completely so before leaving Shap I sought out an anti-inflammatory. Directed to the Health Centre pharmacy at first I went there only to discover that it only dispensed what the doctor had ordered so had to resort to the Co-op supermarket. Don’t know if it was the most appropriate but it seems to do its job, not in completely doing away with the swelling but in mitigating the effects of all these thousands of footfalls. I now realise why athletes take drugs – it doesn’t hurt so much.

Shap is a strange place. It’s a very quiet village based around one main street that basically runs north to south. Yet very close is the main west coast railway and running parallel to that the M6. Although with the lay of the land you don’t see the railway – but hear the rush of the Virgin trains as they speed along – and the motorway noise isn’t obvious until you’re close to it and you sound leave it behind as you head to the moors to the east.

Weather wise it was a strange day. It was overcast and grey throughout (although the sun did break through for about 45 minutes around midday) but still very warm. In fact the weather has been surprisingly warm all the trip so far. Before leaving there were predictions of an early cold snap and I thought I would be in thermal underwear for many of the stages but it’s been T-shirt and shorts all the way. No sun, even through the clouds, so no tan, but a comfortable temperature nonetheless.

Today was slightly different as there was a reasonably strong and very consistent wind coming from the east. Not cold but annoying. The prevailing wind on this walk is from the west, that’s why most people go from west to east.

Walking into such a wind becomes draining. It’s not the wind battering against the body that makes it tiring, it’s the constant noise. And as the majority of the day was spent on open moors there was little respite. And as I got tired I found that the constant noise started to get annoying, not even allowing the slightest chance of a break.

The worst experience I’ve had of such a wind was in Southern Andulacia, south of Cadiz and close to the Straits of Gibraltar. Because Africa is slowly getting closer to Europe (why it wishes to get closer to Europeans is beyond me. If I were Africa I would be going in the opposite direction) the winds are gradually getting stronger as the wind from the Atlantic is forced through the narrow gap between mainland Spain and the Atlas mountains of Morocco. Sometimes this wind can be consistent and relentless for days on end and it definitely has an effect on the people.

When I was working in Zahara de los Atunes and spoke to the locals about feeling strange after so many days of this wind they told me it was the ‘aire’, the air. This regular and constant rush of air means that Tarifa, the most southerly town in Spain, is famous for two things – the world wind speed record for wind-surfers and as being the suicide capital of country. I survived the winds of the day, probably because I was thinking about how much longer I had to put one foot in front of another.

Although on this day there was a mixture of terrain a great deal of the trek was across wild and desolate moorland. Although everything was grey due to the low cloud, even the greens looked grey, at least there was no rain. Although there must have been other people walking I only saw two other ramblers the whole of the day and for hours I saw nothing alive but farm animals and birds. So if I didn’t get the sunshine I would have liked at least I was relatively warm and dry.

Due to good visibility there were few problems of route finding, the book again coming up trumps here. Nonetheless I did keep the GPS handy and there was another point during the early afternoon where it brought me back to the correct path. There’s one junction on Tarn Moor where the direction to go is not clear. Again I used the compass but not concentrating and checking regularly enough ended up taking an unforeseen and unwanted diversion.

The problem of making the decision not to depend upon the GPS means that I might be reluctant to bring it out until a question arises. That is too late, or has been on the 2 occasions I’ve lost my path. I should be more pro-active in these situations if they arise in the future, using the technology to prevent me making a mistake rather than providing me with a solution when the mistake has been made. This might be even more the case towards the end of a long day when tiredness can cause the most basic of errors.

So far, and it seems unlikely to change for the better, it’s been a disaster for photography. Day after day of low cloud and everything very flat. The sun, when it has appeared, has not lasted that long and not at those times when the scenery has been exceptionally dramatic. On one day I took only one picture and kept the camera in my bag to protect it from the rain, which fortunately stopped but even then when it was possible to see some of the lakes the mountains above them were in the cloud and the poor light wouldn’t have produced a result worth the effort of taking the rucksack off my back. That was the second full day of walking and since then have taken pictures merely to justify carrying the camera and its accessories. It looks like I’m unlikely to win any photographic competition prizes after this particular trip.

So another hard day. Didn’t find it much easier than yesterday when a steep ascent and descent were the order of the day. As with the Kidsty Pike walk fatigue effected the timings. All was quite spot on for the first 5 hours but started to slip for the second four. At the same time doing the walk in 9 hours I thought was more than respectable, so I’m happy about that. The trouble when it becomes a trudge any ‘enjoyment’ just disappears. Hoping that the next rise will give you a view of your destination, when if you thought clearly you would realise that it’s still a kilometre or two away, doesn’t do a great deal for morale.

Have started to encounter casualties of the walk. A couple who took a very long time to get from Patterdale to Shap the previous day decided to abort the long day from Shap to Kirkby Stephen. The guide book is reasonably accurate, but the timings are really for people who are at a fairly high level of fitness and not carrying too much baggage. But talking to them they had definitely made the correct decision as if I found it hard they would have found it hell. To avoid this a number of people I’ve been meeting from time to time have divided what I have done in two days into 3 sections. That does seem to make sense although I think one reason I didn’t pursue that option was the lack of suitable accommodation at the overnight stops. If I could have got in it would have cost an arm and a leg due to travelling by myself.

I want to write something on travelling alone, mainly stressing the advantages, but finding somewhere to stay that doesn’t add considerably to the cost is one of the down sides of doing the Coast to Coast alone and is unlikely to change at any time in the future.

It’s on long days like this that you start to ask the difficult question of why. Why put the body through such torture and stress? Why keep on going over these featureless moors? Why climb all those stiles that always get higher as the day gets older? Why not stay at home with all the creature comforts? By the time I’d arrived in Kirkby Stephen I had stopped asking those questions but I’m sure they will come up again before arriving at the North Sea.

The town itself is not very exciting, although the biggest place I’ve stayed in so far. Went to the chippy to find that they were all closed so ended up with a snack from the supermarket and a couple of Czech beers. Not out of choice. It seems that no one in Kirkby Stephen drinks cold cider even though the nominally cold cabinet has a huge selection of the various types, even those fruit ciders (wherever that bizarre idea came from I’m sure I don’t know), but all at room temperature.

As I lie in my bunk, there’s no one else in this room – the hostel is very quiet, only 6 people apart from myself, I can feel my feet tingling. Not in an unpleasant manner, but definitely not usual. They are glad to not be bearing my weight and that of my bag.

So at 18.30 on Tuesday 24^th September it was 85 miles down and 115 to go

Practical Information:

Accommodation

Kirkby Stephen Hostel

Used to be a YHA hostel but was sold a few years ago in a controversial sell off of assets. Lucky I got there when I did as the warden was about to leave, meaning that I would have to call her to get in – and this was at 18.30, not something I would have liked to have done after such a long day. Didn’t seem to know that I had booked a full breakfast. The place feels tacky and run down and not up to the standard of the YHA places I’ve been too. So much for bringing in the ‘private sector’. There’s nothing that makes it better than YHA hostels.

Paid £20 for the bed in a dorm (although I had the room all to myself) and £6 for a full, cooked breakfast – but not worth it.

Has free wifi but it doesn’t work in all the rooms/dorms but does work well in the communal/dining area.

It’s a ‘conversion’ of a church into a hostel – but it just doesn’t work. The high ceilings make for very strange results. Have seen a couple now and the atmosphere it creates is far from warm and welcoming – churches were not designed that way.

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