Day 7: Kirkby Stephen to Keld, 11 miles (Lisa’s Version)

Photos

From our huge, old house in Kirkby Stephen, with the cold interior and lovely antiques, Gordon and I took our time departing in the morning. We stopped at the chemist to buy extensive items for blister-treatment, went to the library to use the internet, and stopped at a local bakery for some sweets. Gordon had a blackcurrant tart and I had a love cake (shortbread with strawberry jam layered in between). By the time we left Kirkby Stephen behind us, it was 11:30. In the early part of our walk, in a 30-minute rain shower, we arrived at Nine Standards, a group of nine large and well-constructed cairns, that marks the shift in the watershed. Now, the raindrops will accompany us on our march to the North Sea! For the majority of our walk, we strolled across a boggy moor where the mud reminded us of used coffee grounds in color and texture. It was, at times, a saturated and hungry landscape that threatened to swallow your leg or at least your ankle. Bog-gone-it!! We can’t take any Moor! Still, we were feeling pretty good, pretty happy. Gordon had some nice blisters and we both had a sore knee from our last hilly day in the Lakes District, so the soft ground was a welcome reprieve. We had some more rain, passed some distant fields covered in buttercups, passed through a couple more cow pastures, and we were in Keld along with the sunshine at 5p.m. (Almost) everyone we know was staying with us at the YHA Keld and we had a happy reunion to celebrate our half way point while we took turns using the washing machine that took one hour to run one cycle. In a hiking magazine I found a brief article that said, “Carnivorous Sheep: You Decide.” Apparently, a sheep was found eating the carcass of an animal, or possibly, a bird. In the same region, in the previous year, a 67-year-old lady, peace be upon her, plummeted to her death after a herd of sheep herded her over the edge of a cliff. Gordon and I did have an incident with the cattle, but the sheep seem harmless (and brainless) enough. We decided to buy an air horn…as a precaution.