My Advent Calendar - Day 17

December 17^th

Welcome to Day 17 of my Advent Calendar, where I am reliving my Coast to Coast adventure!

Day 10

~ A long day ahead, Tiredness begins to kick in, Flat land and fields, ‘Campers’ has his just reward, Hannah needs tea, We are followed by a dog and told off by its owner, Crossing the A19, A pleasant pub B&B to end the day ~

In most guide books this day is billed as a 23 miler, although you can split it with a stop in the middle. We had pressed on the night before and reduced the distance to about 21 miles, still a considerable distance. The reason why it is so long is because the land is flat and fairly dull. The path passes through field after field and not much else.

            Our bags seemed heavier again, although we were through the pain barrier by now, instead tiredness was beginning to kick in as the number of days of walking entered double figures. There was still plenty of mud around, and despite our two mile head start we were soon being overtaken again. We also met two girls, about our age, who were walking the wrong way. They decided to walk East to West and we shared stories for a while. We were pleased to see that they were also carrying their gear, and camping.
            There were more ‘nice little places’ scattered between the fields and in one we stopped for lunch. We saw several other people including Mr and Mrs ‘we have two different guide books’ who had enlisted the help of their (adult) sons. ‘Campers’ was also back, still wearing the same red t-shirt. He told us that he had blisters and we were silently pleased, seeing it as retribution for his abusiveness to anyone Coast to Coasting the hard way (or the real way as Hannah and I like to call it).
            The day dragged on as did the miles and Hannah began to crave a cup of tea, having not had one in days. There was nothing for it, however, than to press on, knowing we had a nice stop ahead of us.
            Other notable incidents from the day included a close brush with some cows as we crossed their field. The problem was, beyond it was a railway line, which you can’t exactly just run across. We made it though. Later we walking through a farm when a small dog started following us and refused to be sent back. We decided to ignore it and carried on down the lane. Eventually a woman came running after us declaring that it was our fault her dog had pursued us down the drive.
            Eventually we heard the sound of heavy traffic ahead and new the end of our day was near, before that though we had to dodge the heavy traffic. We had tried to avoid rush hour but failed and had to wait a considerable time before the A19 cleared enough for us to cross. Having made it across we were then nearly run over by a car coming out of a lane!
            We polished off the final half mile to Ingleby Cross and The Blue Bell, where Hannah had booked us a night inside. We dumped our bags, showered and went into dinner. Hannah had some tea and the world was back to rights. More people showed up, including the young couple from our very first night. We were shattered though and soon kicked off to bed, knowing the final stage of our journey was now just outside the door. The next day we would set off onto the moors.
 

This could be just about anywhere between Richmond and Ingleby Cross.

 

The Blue Bell.

My Advent Calendar - Day 16

December 16^th

Welcome to Day 16 of my Advent Calendar, where I am reliving my Coast to Coast adventure!

Day 9

~ Yorkshire is muddy, Last of the hills (for a while), Richmond, England lose on penalties ~

After the wet, craziness of the previous few days we were very glad to get back to simple walking again. We began on the road but then left it for the path to Richmond. The weather was dry with some blue sky peeking between the clouds and we made good progress for a while. The rain, though, had taken its toll on the countryside. The fields and woods were very muddy and the path horribly sticky, which slowed us down considerably.

            We were approaching the Vale of York now and the land was flattening out, although there was the odd difficult climb up slippery slopes. At the top of one particularly muddy ascent we stopped for a while and were caught up by two men who we’d not met before. They, like most people, commented on our large bags and claimed that they had also done the Coast to Coast carrying all their gear (‘doing it the hard way’ as they called it), but this time were walking it in 12 days for a different challenge, which explained why we hadn’t seen them yet.
            We walked on and soon got good views of Richmond ahead as we slowly came off what would be the last hill for many miles (although we could just pick out the moors in the distance). Suddenly, as we entered Richmond in the late afternoon, we felt like we were back in civilisation with lots of people and cars and a Co-op where we stocked up on food. Richmond is easily the biggest place the walk passes through and we saw several people we hadn’t met for a while. Nikka was one, she was back by herself again but still enjoying the walk.
            Most people stop in Richmond, some even take a day out of walking and stay for two nights, but we pressed on for a couple more miles. The next day was to be the longest and we planned to eat up a few miles that night.
            We eventually stopped at a pub, called The Hilyard Arms, in Colburn and waited for someone to open up. Not long later the owner’s son arrived and told us to pitch anywhere and feel free to join them. The tent was beginning to smell and so we left it and went inside. The pub filled quickly because of the England game, which we half watched from the other room. You may remember that England made a predictable exit on penalties. It wasn’t a problem though, there were much bigger sporting contests to come!
 

A pleasant morning.

 

Looking down to Richmond

My Advent Calendar - Day 15

December 15^th

Welcome to Day 15 of my Advent Calendar, where I am reliving my Coast to Coast adventure!

Day 8 – Part 2

~ We take to the road, A slow afternoon, Sunshine, Reeth, A pleasant surprise ~

It was still cloudy and damp as we exited the pub and I suggested keeping to the road to avoid getting bogged down. At first this was just a track but after a mile and a half became firm tarmac and wound through several small villages (all ‘nice little places’).

            The afternoon simply became a case of pounding out the miles, dodging cars and keeping our legs moving. There were a few scattered showers but I think we had almost become immune to them. We didn’t realise at the time but I think that afternoon we passed some kind of barrier. The weather no longer affected us (at least not in the same way) and would never again cause us to consider taking a bus. In the rain we’d also forgotten about our heavy bags (a feature in the Lake District) and now we barely noticed them. There were of course other barriers to come.

Muker to Reeth is more than 8 miles and, as in the early days of our walk, we were basically alone. The Swaledale is a picturesque valley, probably why Wainwright chose it when he first planned a Coast to Coast walk. Slowly it slipped by and in the late afternoon we neared Reeth.

            Then, to our joy, the clouds began to clear and bright sunshine beamed down making the final half mile very enjoyable. Reeth is a delightful place and it’s open ‘square’ (which is actually more of a triangle) lit up beautifully. We sat on a bench and enjoyed the view, occasionally spotting other walkers.
            I popped into the newsagents and bought us a newspaper, for two reasons: firstly, to find out what was going on in the world – we felt very cut off – and secondly, to use as stuffing for our wet boots overnight. Newspaper has a wonderful way of collecting all the water inside a shoe; there’s another good tip if you’re planning a long walk soon.

After our stop we wandered down through the village and located the camp site where we would be staying that night. We knocked on the door of the owners’ house and were met by a lovely woman who immediately asked, ‘Are you on the Coast to Coast?’

            We confirmed that we were and she replied, ‘Just a minute. You can have our caravan.’
            We looked at each other, lost for words. Then Hannah said, ‘Are you sure?’
            ‘Yes,’ said the woman, ‘we let Coast to Coasters use it all the time. I’ll just get my husband to come and let you in.’

The husband turned out to be at a pub but jumped straight in his car when his wife phoned and raced down to meet us. We thanked them again and again, it was the perfect end to a tough few days and prepared us well for the ones to come.

            We spread out our gear and tried to dry it all as best as possible and then put the TV on. Hannah had received a text from Dad earlier checking we hadn’t been washed away and the footage we now saw helped us to understand. The flooding in Yorkshire was incredible and had all come because of the rain that we had been walking in for the past three days. We replied that we were fine, and being well looked after and were now ready for the next part of the journey.

The caravan!

My Advent Calendar - Day 14

December 14^th

Welcome to Day 14 of my Advent Calendar, where I am reliving my Coast to Coast adventure!

Day 8 – Part 1

~ Morning, We commiserate with an old man who has an amazing story, and a group of DofEers, Is it dry? We are in rural Yorkshire by lunch time ~

Morning came and we were still in the same place; the wind had failed to move us, in fact our tent had survived well. Sadly the same could not be said for our neighbour, a man, walking alone, who must have been over 70. We’d seen him the night before and had wondered how he was even still on his feet. Over breakfast though he told us an incredible story.

            A few years before he’d been backpacking in the Alps (again by himself) when he slipped and fell down a crevice. His bag cushioned him and certainly saved his life. He climbed into his sleeping bag and waited to be found. It took a day or two, by which time he finished his food, but he was found and it didn’t stop him walking!
            That night in Keld, however, had proven too much for his tent, which had ripped beyond repair in the wind. He did seem somewhat relieved to be going home and was pleased that he had a real reason.
            We also spent the early morning commiserating with a group of teenagers doing their silver Duke of Edinburgh. Half of them had spent the night in the minibus and all of them were pretty miserable.

The wind had dropped, and although it was still raining the fog cleared and we could see more of the valley ahead. Our gear, though was sodden and we hung around undecided on what to do. A bus timetable pinned in the shed revealed that there were buses from Keld to Reeth (our next stop).

            By eleven we had packed all our kit and with the rain almost gone we pulled our feet into wet boots again and headed out the door. As we reached the road a few rays of sunshine crept through the clouds and that made up our minds; we would stick it out and see how far we got.
            We expected the river to be swollen from the days before so we took the high route for a while, which gave us good views of the Swaledale Valley. After an hour or so, though, we began to drop back down as we approached the village of Muker. We wandered through it and found what we were looking for: a good pub. We entered and ordered two solid Yorkshire meals. It was warm inside and we began to steam. Around us was plenty of good rural chat and for the first time in days we were enjoying ourselves again.

 

 Coming into the Swaledale Valley.

 

 Looking back towards Nine Standards, the hill that nearly defeated us.

My Advent Calendar - Day 13

December 13^th

Welcome to Day 13 of my Advent Calendar, where I am reliving my Coast to Coast adventure!

Day 7 – Part 2

~ GPS, We find a road, People, Keld ~

When we planned to walk the Coast to Coast we knew it would rain. Even with the amazing sunshine for the first five days we knew we could not spend 14 days outdoors, in England, without meeting some precipitation. What we didn’t expect was to have about a month's worth of rain 24 hours. Cast your mind back to the third week of June and you will remember that Yorkshire experienced some fairly horrendous floods, it was the beginning of the wet summer, and we happened to get caught right in the middle of it.

            The rain was almost horizontal and hammering down. Using the map was impossible, but without the path we were lost. Our last chance was Hannah’s GPS, which so far we hadn’t used. GPS’s work best with no cloud cover, and lose their accuracy, or don’t work at all in the kind of conditions that we were in, which kind of defeats the object of them, I think. So it was by some miracle that it picked up a signal and pointed us towards the next marker.
            Hannah went in front, myself tucked behind her, and together we tramped across the hill, trying to avoid sinking into the sodden earth. I don’t entirely trust technology at the best of times and in a rain storm, not at all, but it was the only thing we’d got.
            After a while it picked up a second point and we walked on. Visibility was barely more than thirty metres and really we had no idea where we were going. The GPS could have been leading us completely wrong for all we knew. Roughly half an hour later, though, we saw something that almost made me want to cry with joy. A road. Firm tarmac, with a direct route to our destination.

Now don’t misunderstand me. We were still on top of the hill. The rain was still battering us and the wind still blowing a gale. But at least now I knew we could get off the mountain before it got too dark to see, which tells you how dim the light was, given that it was about 2pm on the 22^nd of June!

            ‘We’re not leaving the road,’ I told Hannah. Tarmac may not be great for walking, but I had done enough wandering in the wild for the day and had no desire to go back to it. Hannah agreed and we set off down the road, which clung to the hill side in wide sweeping bends that descended agonizingly slowly.
            The worst thing was that the wind was blowing from that side of the hill, so there was no shelter and to describe how strong the wind was I’ll tell you something I saw.
            At one point a stream (which was more of a river) flowed down the hill on our left, passed under the road and then dropped almost vertically on the other side. Except that when the water gushed out of the pipe on our right the wind caught it a blew it back up, onto the road. It was an incredible sight.
            Looking to our right was difficult because all we could see was rain driving straight into us and mostly we kept our heads bowed and trudged on. Our legs ached and our feet were soaked. My boots had collected two lakes of their own and I was a little bit worried about the effect all this water would have on us. So far we’d been relatively injury free. Neither of us had blisters. But we weren’t even half way yet and I didn’t know how much longer I could go in wet boots.
            Finally the road descended more steeply as we entered the Swaledale Valley and finally a car stopped and asked us if we wanted a lift. However, with only half a mile to go, I decided that I did not want to give in and with some new found courage we pressed on to Keld. Just before we reached our campsite however we saw a large group of walkers coming off the hillside by a different route. We caught up with the back and heard how they had found a path and gone higher up the mountain. They had started earlier but for once had gone even slower than us because they had encountered streams above their knees, which made us very glad we’d stuck to the lower route (of sorts).

We reached the camp site. A rough, back garden of a camp site, with a drafty barn to put things in for a while. It was still raining and the wind blew straight down the site, which meant walking one way was easy and the other a battle. The wind practically put up our tent for us, but then spent the whole evening trying to blow it back down. We were very cold, the temperature had dropped so low we could see our breath and although it was only just after 4pm we both got into our sleeping bags and huddled up to keep warm. Later we came out for some food, cooked by the kind owners, but then it was straight back to the tent.
            This had been our toughest day and our lowest point on the walk so far. That night we both agreed that if the weather hadn’t improved by morning we would have to catch a bus.

 

Looking east from the barn, with the wind behind me. This was taken the following morning, when we could actually see beyond the house.

My Advent Calendar - Day 12

December 12^th

Welcome to Day 12 of my Advent Calendar, where I am reliving my Coast to Coast adventure!

Day 7 – Part 1

~ More rain, Late start, Wet boots, Hill climbing again, Streams have become rivers, We get lost ~

We slept a bit later on the morning of Day 7 and seeing as we were making breakfast ourselves for once we made a slow start. When we did look out of the tent, however, we discovered that the clouds were even heavier than the day before. The camp site was fairly quiet and no one seemed to mind if we moved all our gear into the drying room, which we did.

            When it became clear that the mist and drizzle wasn’t leaving we lifted the tent into a shelter in one corner of the site and packed it away, as best we could, before returning the drying room, which now smelt quite strongly of wet socks.
            We only had about eleven miles to go that day and so we delayed setting off as long as possible, thinking that after all the rain the day before it must blow over soon. We also didn’t like facing the idea of putting on wet boots. By 11.00 though we had to make a move and so we gritted our teeth, wrapped ourselves up, and set off for another day.
            We stopped in Kirkby Stephen (it was going to be the last major town for a few days) to get some food and also a roll of bin bags as extra waterproofing for our gear. Then we wound our way out of the town along a road leading up a hill. The road curves around an opencast mine, climbing all the time, and after passing some trees turns into a track.
            The higher we got the more exposed we became and far from relenting the elements seemed determined to better their efforts of the day before. The top of the hill, ahead of us, was completely lost in the cloud and the wind was picking up. The rain, of course, continued to fall. The track became a stream and we were constantly having to find ways to get around the increasingly large puddles. The ground was completely saturated from all the rain the day before and now the moor land was turning into a quagmire.

The hill is known as Nine Standards Rigg, because of the nine large cairns at the top, however, due to erosion, there are three paths, only one of which goes to the peak. In the morning we had decided not to attempt the ‘summer’ route, but to stick to the lower ones. Having reached the end of the track, though, it was difficult to see where any of the paths went.

            Another huge puddle sent us on a hunt to find a dry way through the boggy grass, a task that was getting harder every minute. Streams were turning into rivers and the path was becoming the main route for the water to get off the mountain. Hannah had found an abandoned, but fully functional, walking pole, which proved invaluable, not only in keeping her upright, but also testing the depth of the water. In one place we were forced to jump where the water would have been up to our shins.

Now we were completely exposed on the open hillside and using the map was difficult. The wind was very strong and the rain battered down harder than ever. The temperature had dropped too, although at the time I don’t think we really noticed. The low cloud made it dim and visibility was very poor. It’s hardly surprising therefore, that we struggled to find the path.

            We trudged around for about half an hour, going forwards and backwards, up rises to see if there was any sign of where to go, but without success. Of course having set off late everyone else was ahead of us, or had abandoned walking for the day, which right then sounded like a great idea.
            We were getting tired, although it was still early in the afternoon and we’d only done about 4 miles from the campsite. I was also getting nervous. We were on top of a mountain, in a rain storm, with no clear direction. We were tired, cold and very wet and I remember saying to Hannah, ‘just get me off this mountain.’

My Advent Calendar - Day 11

December 11^th

Welcome to Day 11 of my Advent Calendar, where I am reliving my Coast to Coast adventure!

Day 6 – Part 2

~ No buses, We soldier on, Road walking, Wild horses, Hannah struggles to get over styles, The rain relents briefly, Kirkby Stephen, I try to make some dinner ~

I re-entered the bus shelter with the news that the timetable was vague about buses to Kirkby Stephen but that there certainly wasn’t one for at least five hours. We decided that Orton was nice, and probably a lot nicer when it wasn’t raining but we would rather keep moving. We looked at the map again and plotted a route of road walking, which might help us to move a bit faster for the next few miles. We donned our bags again and set off into the rain.

            The road was predictably dull although I don’t suppose the fields were much to look at in the rain either. We kept our heads bowed and our shoulders hunched and ploughed on. For a while we did well and started to feel more confident. Three miles slipped by but then the road ran out and we were back to the fields and scrub land. The path was nearby and all we had to do was find it and we would be back on course. However, as we crossed a cattle grid we saw a pack of wild horses standing in our way and decided to try and work our way around them.
            The horses were nervous and began shifting and walking, causing us to go further out of our way. Somehow though we ended up almost walking though them, probably the worst thing to do. They didn’t touch us and having made it past them we walked quickly on, heading in the direction I thought was roughly right. After five minutes though it became clear I had misjudged how much the horses had taken us off course.
            The land made walking difficult and with the rain still hammering down I was getting angry and marched on till I reached a wall. From there we tried to work out which way to go next. Then Hannah spotted some people in the distance and without hesitation we made towards them. After another ten minutes we were back on the path and finally heading towards Kirkby Stephen again.

We trudged on but the long day and the weather were taking their toll and the miles crawled by. Hannah’s legs were beginning to ache and getting over styles was getting tougher, especially the high ones. Meanwhile my boots had given up being waterproof and I was walking with an ocean in each one. We passed The Fabulous Three who had sadly become Two for the day because one of them (I forget which now) had bad blisters. Shortly after they caught us up when Hannah had got stuck at the top of a style over a high wall. We both de-bagged and I climbed up to help her.

            Eventually the rain eased and we were able to enjoy the magnificence of the Smardale Aqueduct. About an hour later we neared Kirkby Stephen and The Fabulous Two left us as they headed into the centre of town, while Hannah and I found our way to the camp site.
            There were a lot of Caravans and a few tents. The facilities were amazing, the toilet and shower block was huge, and even better they had a drying room, with a tumble dryer which we made full use of. Sadly though the nearest eatery was a mile away in town and neither of us felt like walking two more miles that evening. So I unpacked my Kelly Kettle for the first time.
            Typically, on a day that had not gone particularly well for us, it began to rain again, but I got the fire lit and the water was soon boiling. The heat then attracted midges and I felt like I was back at Blacksail. Once the water had boiled we made up some cup soups and instant pasta things and made do, retreating to the safety and comfort of the tent. Tomorrow could only get better… surely?