Kirkby Stephen

Kirkby Stephen

We Orton'ed of mentioned this but we will...

We both had a good nights sleep after leaving the tent doors open at night to make it alot cooler. We got up around 7:30 and decided to have a relaxed start and planned to leave around 9:30. This was until rain delayed our packing and then the baggage carrier people turned up to take our bags at 8:15 before we had even got the tent down. Arrgh 10minutes of super fast packing started as we rushed to get packed and ready to go. 

After a quick catch up with Josh and Kieran in the shelter we set off to the centre of Kirkby Stephen to find lunch and have a breakfast and cuppa in a nice cafe. From the warmth of the cafe we sat watching the rain bucket down and coast to coasters slope on by their sorrows drowned. After dripping over the floor of the cafe for quite long enough we finally realised the rain was not stopping and that we would have to start walking. 

Turning out of town we knew that it was going to be all up hill from this point to the Nine Standards which are essentially just some big kerns. It rained all the way to the top and as they emerged through the mist we met up with a nice family from Essex. Husband, wife and two children. We had a great chat with them about all manor of things and like us they appeared to be enjoying themselves despite the rain. 

The next point was to negotiate the right path down off the hill. They encourage people to take one if three routes to prevent erosion. We opted for the blue route which like most of the others was a quagmire. A huge amount of bog hopping was in order for the next two hours which was all quite good fun as we looked for signs of the path in the mist. We also met an American family who amazed us by firstly being out of America but by also having three very young children which Colin high fived to congratulate them. 

The next most exciting event was arriving at ravenseat farm which we knew from the Julia bradbuy DVD where a lovely farm lady brings you tea and scone jam and cream for only £3. We sat on the same picnic table outside and then moved directly into a barn when it started raining. We were the only ones there but as we sat over the next twenty minutes two by two more walkers arrived until the barn was full of people eating scones and drinking tea. Josh and Kieran even surprised us by turning up along with some new people who were just doing half the route starting from Kirkby Stephen.

Leaving the farm we only had a few miles down the valley to the campsite and to welcome our arrival the clouds parted, the sky turned blue and the sun started shining. Not to long later we arrived and quickly put the tent up to allow it to dry. 

At 6:30 with the arrival of Kieran & Josh (from here on in called Henry & Stedman) Richard's blisters were put to shame when Henry showed us his...words are failing us all on how to describe them the closest description being that they resembled the dead mans feet in the autopsy photos at St Bees.

A relaxing evening in the barn with Henry & Stedman followed with much silliness brought on by tiredness, Haribo & a bottle of wine.