Wednesday April 5 – 21.4 km (180.2 km)
There was an option today to take the high route or the low one; the guide book described the high route as pretty bleak and unpleasant so we opted for the low road. It is described as the Royal Road to Reeth with meandering rivers, meadows lush with wild flowers…well it was a pleasant walk through fields of new born lambs and along rivers with pheasants abounding but it wasn’t quite the lushness as described! The day was another easy one, great for sore feet and meant we could start late and stop for a leisurely lunch in Gunnerside. So meadows, walls, barns and lambs were the staple of the day, not forgetting ridiculously narrow squeeze stiles between the fields…making me feel like I may have to give up on the crisps in my sandwiches ( Dan, standing at 6ft 2 had less problems negotiating the narrow stiles and was of course putting this down to his slim physique as opposed to his long legs!). The one event of the day that was slightly disconcerting was seeing a wee lost lamb trying to tag along with another mother who kept head butting the him/her; Dan ( just call him James Heriot) really wanted to help and find the mother but it was impossible for us to help so we left the wee lamb to its fate and hopefully the farmer sorted the situation….I must add that Dan has had lamb dinners twice this week 😜. We arrived in Reeth around 4 and are staying at a lovely B and B; ‘The Manse’. These walks are a very good way to see parts of the country that we’ve never seen before, in fact never heard of before. Reeth is obviously a place of some importance , with the abundance of B and Bs, two hotels and numerous tourist attractions, in an idyllic setting…yet we’d never heard of it!

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