May 31, 2015
Miles: 14.3
Time: 9:01 - 4:00Elevation gain: 1,886 feet
Year to date miles: 268.9
Hike description:
Our last B&B had a huge room. Great for pack and luggage explosion.
We woke up to showers. It was a bit of a moody day for me. When the sun came out I was happy and felt like I could hike forever. When it was cold, windy, and raining, I just wanted somewhere warm and dry to stop.
The town our B&B was in, Bampton, is off of our guide book map and the Harvey Map. The owner gave us a shortcut to get back on the trail. We somehow didn't follow his directions completely correctly, but still managed to get to Shap Abbey, at which point navigation was easier. We are now starting to see some Coast to Coast signposts. In the Lake District in the mountains, there are none. No blazes, no posts, no nothing. So different than American trails, where blazes are frequent and navigation is less challenging!
On our way to Shap Abbey we walked through pastures of cattle with their young. They stared at us. They look quite intimidating. At one point they all ran in a group to the gate we had to pass through. We waited patiently until they moved away.
After visiting the ruins of Shap Abbey, we headed towards the Coop in Shap to find lunch. It was a less exciting Coop than the one in Grasmere. We had to find a place to eat. We found a bench on the main road where we ate our lunches in the cold rain. Kind of a low moment. We saw a coffee shop, and walked in. I figured a warm pot of tea would improve my spirits. They were closed :(
We walked on. I was still hungry because I didn't want to sit that long to eat. We started walking through huge fields and moors. That meant we were even more exposed to the wind. We looked for some stone circles off the trail, but they just looked like a pile of rocks. Couldn't tell they were in a circle. They've been there for 6,000 years. We will hopefully see another tomorrow.
We also saw what is theoretically Robin Hood's grave.
We spend a lot of time changing our clothes. We had on and off sun and cold showers. One minute I'd be sweating so I'd take off layers, the next minute we'd have freezing rain blowing sideways. Often, by the time we changed our clothes the weather would change! It is kind of frustrating. Most days I've done really well finding a good combination of layering. Today I did not. I was cold a lot.
We spent the day leapfrogging other hikers from Tasmania and Australia who started the same day as we did. It seems like there are not too many C2C hikers on our schedule. There are 4 Americans we also see. There was a man who was doing a trial run before he does it as a guide next year for the AMC - I think he is now ahead of us though. I'm glad we did this as an independent trip rather than a guided trip. It is more challenging this way (in particular the navigation) and more of an adventure.
In Orton, we stopped at the chocolate factory before heading to our B&B. I had a hot chocolate to warm me up. After relaxing and cleaning up at the B&B, we stopped by Orton's church. We tried going inside for a look, but the door was locked.
And now we are sitting at The George Hotel with Glen literally falling asleep at the table.
They are vegan friendly - at least we both got pizzas. I skipped dessert so that we could get him to bed earlier - around 8pm!
Night: Barn House
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How Coast to Coasters full their hikes:
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