Sunday April 2nd  – 28.6km(106km)

After a great breakfast at Crookey Cottage we set off with a spring in our step as the sun was shining and the skies were blue, no waterproofs today! The day started with a steep climb, for about four hours. This may sound tortuous but the views were splendid and the terrain comfortable under foot. As long as the ground is not slippery this is my favourite kind of walking; uphill, good exercise and amazing vistas – all in all perfect. We were skipping happily along hand in hand, sorry we were walking along with one of us talking and the other pretending to be listening 😜, laughing about how the route was looking more and more like Oxford street on a busy Saturday when we checked the map with the GPS to discover we were way off route. A rookie error, as they say, and no one to blame but both of us! We retraced our steps but then were 4km (a good hour and a bit on the uphill) up on our estimate for the day. We continued, and had our fabulous sandwiches, care of Crookey Cottage, at the summit – Kidsty Pike, before starting the long, arduous trek back down the mountain. Our fifty (well nearly for Dan) year old knees were screaming as one and we couldn’t get down quick enough! The rest of the walk was undulating and rather wet under foot, making progress slower than we’d hoped but the scenery was beautiful so it was definitely THE day to get in some bonus miles. At one stage the guide book said to be aware of a substantially wet patch, we were rather alarmed by this as most of the day was substantially wet underfoot! All was ok as it turned out and we continued trudging through the quagmire! We arrived late at Shap to be informed that the two main eating establishments weren’t serving food but there was an excellent fish and chip shop. We dumped our bags and headed off to avoid missing last orders at 7:30. We had our best meal of the trip so far, but the third fish and chips so we’re probably not going to be losing weight on this trip! Anyway a fantastic fish and chips plus banana fritters was a perfect end to a perfect day. 

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