Distance Walked: 19.5km, Time Taken: 7h 15m, # Beers: 1 pint Butter Tubs Golden Ale
We were fearful of bad weather today so we set out completely covered in our wet weather gear - waterproof jacket, waterproof over-trousers and gaiters. We had fine weather. It was cloudly in the morning but cleared in the afternoon, not much wind and NO RAIN. This was a blessing as today was tough.
We started the morning climbing up to Nine Standards Rigg. These are 9 large piles of stones on a hilltop. They've been there for hundreds of years but no-one knows who or why they were built. They are two or three times the height of a person. The climb up to them wasn't too bad. Most of the route was on a road to a quarry so it was easy underfoot and the gradient was gentle. The last little bit was steeper but still not too bad. There was one interesting bridge over a stream on the ascent. I posted this picture on the C2C Facebook group and immediately got topped by someone who had done the route in June. It was much further underwater that day and was misty to boot.
We met about a dozen people on the route today. We didn't see anyone yesterday which was unusual. Most of the days up till now, particularly in the Lake District, have had a constant stream of other hikers on the route. I'm not sure if the lack of people yesterday was because all the people we'd met had been hard-core hikers who hadn't split the Shap to Kirkby Stephen leg in two as we did, or else they'd just left before we did or if they had more sense than we did and took the bus yesterday. We started quite late yesterday as we had to be driven to Orton to begin the walk and got stuck behind farmyard Ferraris (aka tractors) twice.
Back to the day's walk. Once at the top of the climb it got worse. We had a good 5km of hiking through bog. It added a 1.5km to our distance for the day as we had to keep zig-zagging to find (reasonably) solid ground to walk on. I have become quite knowledgeable on bog flora. I can't name any of the plants but I can tell you which ones have (reasonably) solid roots and which ones are just floating on top of the muck. We did well and never ended up more than up to our ankles in the mud.
Once past the (worst of the) bog we reached Ravenseat farm. This apparently has become quite famous - in the UK at least. The family that owns it has been part of a reality TV series called Our Yorkshire Farm. They have some excessive number of children - 9 I believe. We passed a old stone house+barn building that was being renovated and got chatting to a woman there. She lives down the road and her husband is the builder who is renovating the property for the Ravenseat family as a home for one of their children, Miles. We saw Miles driving a tractor with a collection of building materials up to the site. He looked all of 15 or so. I wonder if he will stay once he finishes school. There is to be a TV series called Our Farm Next Door about the renovations. The film crew were due to show up tomorrow, so we just missed our chance at TV fame.
We got met by Richie, the Head Badger support van man, in Keld. It turns out Keld is tiny. It does have 1 pub with rooms but was fully booked. We are staying another pub about 20 minutes drive away. This one has heated towels rails that are heated! They have good food too. I had smoked salmon fishcakes that You Could Eat and a lemon posset that was Not Bad. We stay here two nights and I'm trying to decide if I have the lemon posset again or try the Eton mess next time. Important decisions.
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