20km (243.42 km) – Wednesday 13th July.

The sun stayed out for most of the day today, which kept spirits up; only one or two stops to change into waterproofs and then change out. Today is the half way point so a real feeling of making progress. We crossed over Bowes moor, which Wainwright called ‘the greatest wilderness in the country’; not sure I agree but it was lovely on a sunny afternoon. We also passed Hannah’s Meadow which is apparently famous because Hannah became an unlikely celebrity after a television documentary about her life on an isolated farm where she lived without electricity or running water – it is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest. We had a pleasant day walking but in the afternoon we have to admit to becoming rather competitive with the couple behind us. We were convinced that the husband of the pair was frog matching the poor wife in order to catch us up so we upped the ante and were almost running up hill and down dale to avoid being overtaken. They probably had no opinion of us at all and we simply needed some diversion after 10 days of marching across soggy moors! The highlight of my day was Joanne firstly offering to euthanise a dying rabbit (I thought not ) and then her saving a lamb, which had its head stuck in the wire fence and had struggled so much as to have become very tangled. Joanne – just call me James Heriot- was right there and fighting to free the poor animal, unfortunately she only had me, the animal phobic wimp, to help. I said I could pull the fence but not touch the animal which was met with a look a strange incredulity. I did finally find an inner strength to help and we managed to free the lamb, albeit on the wrong side of the fence from its mother.  This evening we are in Middleton-in-Teesdale ; a charming little town with No Internet!! Tomorrow is our shortest day yet, so almost a rest day, we’re looking forward to that.

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