Today I am to reach the 70-mile mark of the walk. Over one-third of the way across England. It turns out to be a time of good and unexpected company.
I breakfast with Jenny and Len, then am off at nine to walk to Shap via Rosgill, using public footpaths that cross sheep and cow fields. I have only my OS map and the most basic of compass skills to guide me, and I manage the four-mile trip in 1.5 hours, with several pauses along the way to verify direction (including that, yes, I am to walk straight across someone’s back garden and under their knickers drying on the laundry line—look closely through the gap in that photo), and to hunt for stone stiles that are concealed like secret staircases along miles of stone walls that all look the same.
Thankfully, someone has spray-painted fluorescent yellow dots near each set of embedded steps—a C2C trail-marking color. Once I know to look for them, I feel more confident about bee-lining it through people’s pastures following a dashed line on the OS map.One of the standard detours on the C2C to is go to Shap Abbey, a ruin dating back to 1199; had I come the traditional route through Shap, it would have been almost on the way. I’ve had my fill of abbeys and cathedrals on this trip, however, so I decide to skip the side trip and continue on to Shap itself.
Shap is the largest town I’ve come upon so far on the walk, busy with traffic on Main Street and folks out for Monday shopping. I am disappointed that the post office is only a post office, not also a general store, which I’ve gotten used to in the UK. So I go to the Shap co-op for incidentals, repack an overly stuffed daypack, and take a break for a fresh Snickers bar and writing under a tree at the side of a road. Everywhere I turn, there are fliers posted to protest a dozen wind turbines that are proposed nearby.The town has a certain charm, but right now I don’t particularly want to spend a lot of time here. I’m on another day alone, and I’d rather be in the countryside on the walk. My feet are holding up well, although the little toe on my left foot feels very tender.
At 11:30, I check the library for Internet access. Arg. All the computers are being replaced right now; they may be ready by 1:00. My 50-50 chance of having e-mail access in Anytown, UK, continues to hold strong.
The librarian, a brown-eyed brunette, says, “You’re the second person in ten minutes to ask to use the Internet.”
I am hopeful. “Were the others a couple? Australian?”
“Why, yes.”
I laugh. It must be Elaine and John, who have been seeking out e-mail every other day on the trip, too.
“They just left,” she tells me. “They said they’d go out for lunch and come back in an hour. They might be in one of the pubs.”
I am about to begin a recon of the three pubs in town, but I spot John and Elaine setting up a picnic at the bowling green across the street. We all spread out on a bench next to the green, and then wave Jenny and Len over as they come down the road. They have just walked into Shap from the end of Haweswater Reservoir, where a cab had taken them this morning to rejoin where they’d left the trail yesterday. Our picnic grows to take over both benches and a good bit of pavement.
Tony, a friendly resident from Shap whom Elaine and John had met at the green just before I arrived, comes back to check on his new friends. He meets the whole group of us, and then goes off to encourage the library to get the Internet done for us out-of-towners before 1:00.Elaine and John and I talk about the track from Bampton to Shap, and we laugh over the laundry line as part of the trail. I confess to being lost for a while looking for those camouflaged stiles.
We have a bush saying,” says Elaine: “‘You’re never lost, you’re just geographically embarrassed.’” She’s been geographically embarrassed a few times herself, what with many walks in Australia and elsewhere. “Whenever I don’t know where I’m going,” she says, “I just say, ‘I’m not lost; I know I’m somewhere. I’m right here!’” The sentiment is echoed by one of many charming Wendy the Sheep postcards I’ve seen at villages on the C2C path.Tony comes back to report that the library is moving slowly on the Internet setup and isn’t likely to be done soon, so he invites us to come to his place after lunch to use his computer! I’m reluctant to go—I’m still feeling the desire to be back on the trail—and Elaine and John say, “Thanks, Tony, we will!” I give it some thought and decide to join them: travel is all about meeting people where they live, after all, and one doesn’t always get such a friendly invitation.
So after lunch, our new friend returns to lead us across the park to his house and introduces us to his wife, Joyce, and their small elderly dog, Smokey. Elaine and John take first crack at the computer upstairs, and I spend time with Joyce, Tony, and Smokey in the living room. I drink cold cranberry juice and we talk about my travels and the C2C walk and their history of living in the area. They are gracious listeners, avid conversationalists, and allow me to photograph them in their back garden. I am reminded of my spontaneous visit with Janet and Tricia in Bridestowe. What privileged, personal spaces to be invited into, living rooms and back gardens are.
John and Elaine come downstairs, I have my turn at the computer for e-mail, and we all spend another half hour visiting and sharing stories. We try to get John’s camera to take a timed photo of us from where he puts it on a shelf. It somehow repeatedly fails in this attempt, and we finally manage one with Elaine’s camera.Refreshed, rested, and ready for the road, John, Elaine, and I take our leave of our Shap friends and head out together on the next eight or so miles to Orton/Raisbeck.
The terrain has changed from endless fells to much flatter land—walled fields, swelling hills, limestone quarries (used and disused), a few natural escarpments. We walk a pedestrian overpass above the M6 motorway with cars zipping by below us, and then across the path of old Roman roads long disintegrated into huge chunks of limestone. I see no brooks today, either—all is dry and hot.
At Crosby Ravensworth Fell, the grassy fields give way to a startling expanse of heath and sparse grassland. The area is so flat and featureless that mapped descriptions of “tree” and “boulder”—landmarks I had laughed at reading—stand out as beacons a mile away. A warning posted at the outskirts of the fell warns of adders, but the only snake-like creature we find is a fascinating green caterpillar barely two inches long. Not that I’m complaining about this lack of poisonous fauna, mind you.I am overjoyed when we reach Orton at last. My heels, feet, and ankles are sore and my legs are tired. We get to John and Elaine’s B&B first—a first-class place where chocolates are on the pillows and freshly baked scones await the guests. Jenny and Len are staying there too, and have arrived before we do.
I find out that my B&B is more than a mile out of town along the Orton/Raisbeck road. I’m grumpy about this, not only because I feel more like collapsing than walking another twenty minutes, but also because it means another walk back and forth to town for dinner. The place I’m staying tonight doesn’t offer evening meals.
The one saving grace of the trip to the B&B up the hill is that I recognize the two men coming down it. Michael and David, all smiles, freshly showered, and wearing trousers and shirts instead of hiking shorts and backpacks, are on their way back to town. They’re camping at the same B&B where I’m staying. We greet each other heartily.
“Did you get our note at The Knott yesterday?” Michael asks me.
“Oh, no, I didn’t! I decided to not go up there. You left me a note? What did it say?”
“I don’t remember, really. Something like ‘Audrey—good job reaching The Knott. Enjoy the trip down. Michael and David. P.S. Take this note with you so we won’t be littering.’”
We laugh over the thought of the note being found by others who might wonder who these three people were and whether the lady named Audrey ever made it to The Knott. They head off for dinner, and I keep trudging uphill to the B&B.
When I finally make it there, I am hot and sweaty, especially now that I’ve stopped walking. The plump, elderly landlady is brusque, ushering me into a glassed-in, add-on patio that houses a dining table and some plants. She points to where I’m to leave my boots and trekking poles by the knee-high stone wall and offers me tea. I automatically say yes and am given a mug of brew so hot that a fresh supply of sweat floods from my pores just to be near it.
She and her husband sit with me in silence in the breezeless room—she at the other end of the table, watching me try to sip the scalding tea, him filling a chair in a corner, cane in hand, watching me dab my sweaty arms, face, and neck with my kerchief.
I don’t have a lot of energy left for talk. I am praying for the ability to drink the tea quickly, or for them to quit staring and leave me to myself, but the tea is too hot, and their definition of hospitality is apparently to stay present and attentive to a guest’s every move.
The man speaks from his corner. Loudly. “What are you doing that for?”
I don’t understand the question. “Doing what?”
“Rubbing yourself with that cloth. What are you doing that for?”
Before I can answer, his wife shoots out, “She’s hot! She’s wiping off the sweat.”
He speaks again. Loudly. “Why is she so hot? It’s not hot in here.”
“She just walked in from town.”
“She shouldn’t be hot walking in from town. That’s not far.”
I’m feeling defensive and cranky and irritated at being discussed as if I weren’t there. “It’s far when you start at Shap. That’s why I’m hot. I just walked ten miles from Shap.”
“Shap’s not that far away,” says he. “It’s only eight miles.”
Technically, he’s right, but I squelch the impulse to argue that it’s nearly ten miles from Shap to his house, or to point out how far I’ve traveled door to door today. I give it up to concentrate on blowing the tea to a cool enough temperature to drink.
More silence ensues.
My arms keep sticking to the vinyl tablecloth. When I peel them off, they sound like Velcro being ripped open in a cathedral during prayer.
“What time do you want breakfast?” The question is barked by the lady.
I’ve learned to prefer a 7:30 breakfast on the walk, but not every B&B starts that early; some downright refuse to. “What time do you usually serve it?”
“Doesn’t matter. I can do it at 6:00 if you want. But I have 12 guests tonight, and I feed everyone at once. You’re the first one I’m asking, and whatever time you say it is, everyone else will have it then, too. What time do you want breakfast?”
“Uh.” I stall for time. Sheesh. What’s a reasonable hour to set for a dozen strangers to all eat breakfast? “7:30?”
“OK. 7:30. I’ll tell everyone that’s what you decided. Meet down here. You done with your tea?”
I look down. I’ve managed to drain it by an eighth. “Yes, I am, thanks.”
“Good. Your bedroom’s upstairs. There’s a tub in the bathroom down the hall. If you prefer a shower, that’s outside. Do you prefer a bath or shower?”
I need to go outside to use a shower? “Oh, a bath is fine, thanks.”
She leads me to my room, and leaves me blissfully alone. I head immediately for a bath. The bathroom is carpeted (common here). It’s the only bath available for the upstairs, which means that the woman and her husband use it too, and I feel like one of the family as I set out my toiletries among theirs.
After a change of clothes and a brief rest, I walk back to Orton to have dinner with all the Aussies at The George pub. All our meals come at once but mine...they’ve forgotten to place the order. I finally receive it and it’s such a nondescript meal that I can’t even remember what I had by the time I get back to my room.
On the way home I feed handfuls of knee-high grass over the fence to a black Fell pony and watch the sun set over hills toward Shap. I send a silent thanks and good night to my new friends Tony and Joyce in Shap, as well as to my six fellow C2C’ers spending the night here in Orton/Raisbeck.It’s been seven days of walking, and twelve more days to go before I soak my feet in Robin Hood’s Bay. I am hoping the way gets easier from now on.
Trail miles: 10.5; actual miles walked: 15.5
