the cumbria way – 16 Sep, 2018
Day 39 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Chapel Stile to Grange
Distance: 21km
Cumulative distance: 985km
Well, the weather turned at about midnight, and I suspect it was the outskirts of Hurricane Florence that did the damage as it spread its tentacles across the Atlantic. Fortunately I was tucked away inside my tent by midnight, so I had enough shelter to at least attempt weathering the storm. But there was zero chance of getting any sleep as the wind and rain lashed the campsite relentlessly. I was warm enough and rather enthralled by what was happening outside so I lay there wide awake for hours listening to the rain hammering away. The excitement of the situation eventually wore off with the realisation I was facing the prospect of a tough slog through the Lake District on very little sleep. But I began to felt more and more tired and just as I was drifting off to sleep there was an almighty gust of wind, and the roof of my tent caved in. I was no longer close to sleep. Momentarily I was concerned I might need to exit my tent in order to reconstruct it, but before taking such drastic measures I reached up and gave the collapsed roof a firm push and the entire thing snapped eight back into place. Yet another advantage of my tent’s one aluminium pole framework. Sleep was a million miles away now, though, as the gusts of wind descended.
I’d been in a situation like this once before in Iceland where the wind was coming from all directions. You would hear it coming a few seconds off in the distance, and then brace yourself for impact. Occasionally it would pound into the side of your tent, but sometimes it blew over the top. And so I lay, in the middle of the Lake District at about 2am with my mind whirring away, and the wind and rain completely settled in. About an hour later a huge gust pounded into my tent and the roof caved in for a second time, but another shove upwards resurrected the situation once more. Eventually the wind died down and I managed to drift off for a few hours’ sleep. I was even rewarded a small break in the weather at about 8am, allowing me to pack up my soaking wet tent in relatively dry conditions.
By the time we set off the wind and rain was back and hammering us from all angles, as the drab forecast suggested it would. I was not surprised to here Sam and Tiff had also struggled to sleep last night. They had the added disadvantage of having not brought a sleeping mat! With our spirits slightly damp and our clothes already soaking we headed up the valley and after 20 minutes received an unexpected surprise. The rain stopped! Off in the distance blue skies were approaching and the rest of the day was relatively dry. Well that was until we had to negotiate raging torrents of water on the ground, but we’ll come to that. For the moment we followed a river upstream through a colourful valley bordered by steep hills throwing off little waterfalls in every direction.
We were heading in the direction of England’s highest point, Scafell Pike, not too far from where we were walking over a mountain pass out of this valley and into the next. When we made it to the end of the valley we started heading uphill and had several hundred metres worth of altitude to climb to get up to the pass. This was the steepest slog I’d had since the Offa’s Dyke Path, but it was made easier by a series of stone steps and switch backs. I passed an elderly couple then another couple on the way up and finally made it to the top where I waited for Sam and Tiff, who weren’t too far behind. There were a couple of fell runners up there wearing short shorts and singlets, who were covered in mud and heading for higher ground. Fair play to them, I’m certainly not that keen! Right at the top of the hill was a little stream which needed to be crossed, and I found a narrow section upstream. It still took plenty of careful navigation given the water underneath was rushing at a rapid pace in the direction of the hill we’d just climbed but I managed, and then suggested to one of the couples they cross in the same place. After a little snack we pressed on across some ground with yellow mounds of earth sprouting out all around us.
After a while we passed a cairn before the downhill started, and geez it was steep! Another river was tumbling over this side of the mountain, and quickly turned into a series of breathtaking cascades. The path was quite close to the river and we were afforded some stunning views of the waterfalls, and also of the new valley stretching ahead of us. We eventually made it down into the valley after working our way down the endless switchbacks. It looked like a Formula 1 track at times such was the tightness and regularity in some of the bends in the path. There was a bridge over another river down below and I aimed for that, passing a stack of sheep with my knees crying out in pain before the downhill finally flattened out and I made it to the bridge. I took a quick look at the map and realised the path actually stayed on this side of the river, and that crossing the bridge was not required. So we climbed back up a fraction, rediscovered the Cumbria Way and pushed on up a seemingly endless valley. It was challenging walking on wet, muddy ground and every now and then we had to ford a river by stepping over slippery rocks. By now our boots and feet were all soaking wet so it didn’t matter too much if we ended up in one of the rivers, so long as it wasn’t too deep I suppose. Soon enough the path itself turned into a little river as the sheer volume of water from the previous night’s rain surged downhill. It meant we were walking in almost ankle deep water for miles.
The river we were following eventually flowed into another as the valley took a hard 90 degree bend to the left. More water on the path followed, and a couple more river crossings were successfully handled before we came to a road and decided to switch course to try and get away from the ground water. We crossed an old stone bridge, walked through a little village and then came to another village where we impulsively stopped for ice cream at a little shop. As we sat there eating our ice cream a bunch of competitors from a nearby hill run came running past with Sam offering words of encouragement to each of them. He also acted like a marshal, pointing them all in the right direction.
The last few miles were beside yet another river snaking its way through a green wood. We passed a stack of boulders and what might have been an old open cut mine and then came to the campsite which was marked on our map. All three of us traipsed off up to the farmhouse to let them know we planned to camp on their ground for the evening, but there was absolutely no sign of anybody. We banged on every door at the house, and eventually a car turned up but they were only a couple of paying customers at the B&B the farm also offered. They told us they would tell the farmer about us if they saw them. Hmm this was slightly frustrating. There’d been explicit signs coming up to the farmhouse telling us we must pay before pitching up, but the first part of that equation was clearly not possible at the moment. Sam and I walked into the little village of Grange to see what we could find out. One of the two cafes in town was just closing up, and the man inside informed us he did indeed know about the campsite we were after, and suggested we could just pitch up and that they would come and find us later.
‘You wouldn’t have a number for them would you?’ I ventured hopefully.
To my surprise he replied ‘Well you’ll need the area code firstly, which is 017687.’
‘You wouldn’t have the rest by any chance would you,’ I continued.
‘That would be 77298.’
‘That was slightly random’ I said to Sam as we walked out and up to the payphone. I dropped in a quid and rang the number, leaving a message to say we would be pitching up in one of their fields, and that they were welcome to come and relieve us of some cash at their earliest convenience. Twenty minutes later we were pitched up and getting stuck into some dinner, and by about 7.30pm we were all in bed absolutely buggered from the day’s walking and the recent sleep deprivation. About half an hour later the owner of the farm cycled down and only charged us a fiver each. She was really nice and even pointed out the toilet block, which Sam could’ve used during a moment of urgency about an hour earlier.
