Back on track

Sadly I have a period of mourning to announce. The source of much mirth in a previous post, Pad's donning of the waterproof trousers, well, Pad left them in the drying room at Keswick youth hostel. Cue the donning of the ankle gaiters (more of that later).

So, yesterday we assemble for breakfast and Mick's had another idea. It's raining stair rods outside, so we should abandon plans for the day and move on to the next youth hostel, Hawes, re-starting our Coast to Coast from Shap. Hawes is the centre of the Wensleydale cheese tourist trade. No sign of Wallace or Gromit, but in the pub there's a bunch of guys at the bar and printed on the back of their jackets is 'Drink triple, see double, act single'. Hmm.

Our walk today is from Shap to Orton, eight miles. The path winds up to the M6, which we cross via a footbridge, with Mick looking like a veteran SAS operative – his black beanie pulled down and walking poles poking out from his rucksack, shotgun-style. 

It's a super walk, over windswept moorland, with areas of gnarled stone, a bit like the Burren in County Clare. It's easy going underfoot, with tracks and lovely wide grassy paths that feel like shagpile carpets underfoot.

We meet a German guy, Hauke, who is writing up the walk for a travel company. Turns out he was in the same hotel as Howard last night.

It's not a long walk, we have to make an excuse to stop for lunch just before we arrive in Orton, by a little stream. That's when Pad reveals that he is, 'developing a growing and long-lasting hatred for Wainwright, for all the suffering he's putting me through'. Here's our reaction...

This little vignette beside a deserted farm reminded me of The Italian Job. Get it? The sheep in the barn did.

Back at the hostel Mick suggests a G&T, but it's only 5pm. I feel like the strict parent when I say, 'Oh no, it's far too early.' But it's only half an hour before I crack. We spend the evening at the White Hart, though they've run out of Wensleydale Cheese & Onion Flan – bah – but we get on to reminiscences of Mick and Pad following Mum to France, and so on...