Monday 26th July - 17.5kms (nearly too many) Keld to Reeth - Don't Cramp my Stile (sic)

Col here:-

I now understand about the sayings "up and down dale" and "make hay while the sun shines". The days journeying started with , as usual, a jaunt up a steep slope outside Keld but at least there was the River Swale and some waterfalls to keep us company. The boyz decided on the low route along the river for the first part of our walk and it was quite pleasant. The other option was the "industrial route" taking in old mining sites along the ridge top. We made good time into Gunnerside where we had lunch. At this point your more normal Wainwright modus operandi kicked into operation. We had to climb up a steep slope which just kept on going up and up then a walk along the ridge top past some very isolated farms and then down into Kearton and down again to the River Swale and along the river into Reeth where we are staying tonight.

A lack of internet facilities will mean that this blog won't be posted until tomorrow night when, hopefully we will be in Richmond which is a fairly large centre and it should have all the mod cons. Saw the farmers cutting the hay and bundling it up as we walked through the fields in the first part of the walk. You would not believe what constitutes an ensuite over here . As long as you can squeeze a toilet and a shower into the same space as the original room you have an ensuite. Tonights is ridiculously small again although to be fair last nights stay in Keld at Butt House was quite nice on all fronts including rooms. No shower but you could have a bath.

JR here:-

The title of tonight's blog was suggested by Peter as he clambered over yet another stile. The stiles have generally been quite good, if torture on the knees coming down the other side, but the ones around here are tighter than a fish's proverbial. They use slabs of stone to reduce the gap in the fence to about 6-8 inches which has lead to a general cramping of our style getting through them. At least we don't have too many of the high ones (so that you can climb over the fence) which, because of my general lack of flexibility, were not helping with my vertigo. However I seem to have mastered perambulation although at least one attempt to assist a fellow traveller with directions (which also required me to talk) lead me to (almost) trip over a small pebble which of course resulted in the usual comments about my capacity to do more than one thing at a time. The paths continue to to be pretty rough at times. There are lots of wild flowers and I took some photos of a what appear to be the most common for anyone who is interested. Discovered what stinging nettles look like thanks to Col - I thought it was some form of wild mint - fortunately this occurred before answering the call of nature then under contemplation otherwise I suspect the results may have been painful.

Peter here :-

The subtitle of tonights rant is peter flies undone. You will recall the joke about what rednecks do for entertainment - watching the bug zapper. In my case as a child I entertained myself for hours on the back screen door of our house in Bathurst swatting flies. Today they got their revenge on me ! Going down a laneway squadrons of flies jumped me from nowhere and continued to harass me for kilometres. At one stage I was so frustrated I waved my walking pole around and managed to belt myself on the back of the head - I guess the morale of the story is not to fly off the handle :-)

Al here :-

A very gentle stroll through the sheep shit and nettles of Swaledale was made more pleasent by my blisters calming down, not sure if that's a good thing or not. Was definitely the easiest walk so far and we took it easy. Highlight of the day was huge number of stiles and gate types we had to negotiate.