Our B&B host, Anton, drove us from Great Strickland to Orton, where we picked up the trail again. This time, Joe and Ben rode in the lawn chairs - without incident. It had been our intent to visit a renowned chocolate shop in Orton, but we were not even vaguely interested in chocolate at 9 am and after the huge Cumbrian breakfast.
We started down the road and met our new friends, Judy, Barry and Nick, along the road. Nick had come up lame and was waiting for a taxi to the next stop. Barry and Judy joined us for the day. Within minutes, the rain started - and did not stop for the rest of the day!
We turned off the road and started up into Ravenstonedale Moor, following directions, but missing the actual trail. We realized our error after climbing a ways and finally found the correct track. Meanwhile the mist moved in and the rain increased. The wind built to gusts of 20+ mph. We were now encased head to toe in rain gear and our boots were squelching through the mud. Many of you know the feeling when your body goes into automatic mode and you move ahead without much conscious thought. Somehow the miserable conditions are mesmerizing and your body forgets how uncomfortable it is. This is fortunate, since constant attention to our state would only cause depression, given the reality that we had many more miles to traverse!
As so often happens when things appear bleak, something unexpected happens to create a bit of a thrill. This is part of what makes travel so engaging. We dropped down into a deep valley and rounded a hill, which revealed a long view up a lovely (even in the rain) valley with a Victorian era viaduct (railway bridge) crossing high above the stream. This was Smardale Gill and the view immediately brought to mind the Hogwarts Express train scenes from Harry Potter films. Even though the railway line was long closed, we could almost see the smoke and steam from the Hogwarts engine!
We could tell that this walk would have been truly lovely if the weather were clear: long vistas of brilliant green pasture lands crisscrossed with tidy stone walls, glimpses into hidden valleys and small becks, horses grazing in clusters, heather blooming in brilliant purples across the open moor. (Isn't it amazing what our "mind's eye" can conjure with the right stimuli!)
We stopped, somewhat out of desperation, for lunch by cowering behind a stone wall. Just that small respite from the wind and slanting rain re-energized us for the track ahead. Several miles later we trudged over what we hoped was the final hilltop and the afternoon sun broke through the clouds, producing a spectacular rainbow centered over our destination of Kirkby Stephen, which was nestled in valley below us. A line from Jim Croce's song "tomorrows gonna be a brighter day" came to mind: "nobody ever had a rainbow, baby, until he had the rain". So, we sang bits of that song as we slogged down the hill toward town.
Kirkby Stephen is a charming market town with a very old Norman church built on a Saxon site. It is also a confusing jumble of narrow streets and impossibly narrow alleyways. After several false starts with the rain teaming down on us, we finally found our B&B and, with immense relief, piled in the door - dripping from head to toe!
We were greeted by our smiling, ebullient hostess who helped us shuck our rain gear and sat us down in a warm, cheery day room for tea and toast! You really do need to experience the rain to truly appreciate the rainbow!
Great photos of the hills and valleys throughout the trip-- even when it is raining.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you are keeping up the pace, and legs and tendons are doing well.
Wonderful array of stones in the fields and used to build stone houses.
See you even varied your conveyances from walking, to boat, to double-decker bus.
But walking does bring you close to the land, and reminds us of the era and places where the flow of the wind, and rain, and soil were key parts of peoples lives.
Look forward to more pictures and lively commentary.