Day 8

A not so quick trip to the bog

Today we reached 1/2 way - hooray - both in distance and time. We crossed the Pennines by climbing 'Nine Standards'. The top is the watershed of the west flowing Eden and the east flowing Swale; unfortunately most of the water is still in the shed and some is in our boots.


We left early (Colin took another rest day but hopes to join us tomorrow) and immeadiately started to climb, initially on road and then on trail with good views over the quarry back to Kirkby Stephen.

Nine Standards are 9 big cairns/columns on the summit - no-one knows why they are there but we could see them from far away and they very slowly got closer and closer as we climbed. Don found a seat halfway up and insisted on a rest.

We met up again with Australians Geof and Liz and together we finally reached the top

Then we had to descend through deep and oozy peat bogs. This made navigation a bit difficult as we had to make big detours around them. Even the two Geofs with 4 GPSs between them were not sure occasionaly.

Finally we got down to a distinct path and were looking forward to a hot tea/coffee at Ravenseat Farm

Unfortunately it was closed so we had to be content with bread and water at one of their picnic tables.

All that remained was the last 4 flatish miles - still muddy - into Keld. We passed a man and his dog going up and when I explained to the dog how steep it was he decided he needed the stick more than his slave.

Tomorrow is almost a rest day, an easy 10.5 miles along the banks of the Swale.