With a little help from my friend...

Today marked another milestone. Well, 21 of them to be precise. Walking from Shap to Kirkby Stephen is the longest distance I will have to go in a single stretch, so Day 6 had been looming large in my head. If I could do this, the whole thing would feel much more within my grasp.

At the risk of ruining the suspense too soon, I made it ... with a little help from my friend who point-blank refused to let me stop for the last few miles. One of Mark’s observations from his time on the Camino was that ‘the universe provides’. Well, on this first stretch of the Coast to Coast, the universe provided me with him and, for that, I am forever in its debt.

The walk itself was through open moorland, farms and rolling hills - quite a stark contrast from the Lakes that we’ve now left behind and with more respite for my overworked lungs. There are fewer features to navigate by but we did spot a few more signposts and it was comforting to keep bumping into fellow Coast-to-Coasters, Alex and Kieron, throughout the day having left the rest of our buddies behind in Shap (Inge and Brian were sensibly walking half the distance to Orton). A beautiful stone bridge and an aqueduct towards the end of the day were also welcome distractions.

We made a couple of brief detours to pay our respects at Robin Hood’s grave and to take in an ancient stone circle but otherwise we focused on what had become our number one goal - getting to Kirkby Stephen in plenty of time to feast at the town’s famous (amongst walkers anyway!) Indian restaurant, The Mango Tree. Towards the end, Mark was definitely hallucinating curry, whereas I was fixating on the  possibility of a cup of tea and a bath.

That’s why I could have kissed my landlady at Fletcher House B&B on my arrival when she led my aching body up to my room past what has to be the best sign I’ve ever seen. It read simply: To the tub. I did ask her to be on standby though in case she needed to call the Fire Brigade to hoist me back out again!

Tomorrow I walk alone, except I can’t imagine that it will feel that way. I have so many people willing me onward and sending me little messages of encouragement - it’s like having a whole army of supporters by my side.

Day 6:
Walked: 48,164 steps (21 miles)
Stayed: Fletcher House B&B - go for the bath alone!

Ate: The Mango Tree

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post watershed

Day 7 and, after a hug and a point in the right direction from Mark, I was on my way again - this time solo. This must have been exactly how Christopher Columbus felt when he set out to discover new worlds! I wonder if it was raining quite as much on him.  Dressing for a long walk when the forecast for the day is mixed is no mean feat and it’s probably no bad thing that no one else had to see me as I stripped off my wet weather gear later in the day only to find that you could still wring me out underneath it all! The big focus for today’s walk was to reach the Nine Standards Rigg which marks the point at which you cross the watershed of England and any rain that falls drains eastward to the North Sea instead of westward to the Irish Sea. Fortunately, I could just about make out the nine giant cairns through the mist but, as far as I could tell, the rain was still going nowhere other than running down my face and dripping off the end of my nose!  I struggled...
Read more

The ocean at the end of the lane

The three or four people reading this blog already know that I successfully completed the Coast to Coast Walk yesterday afternoon at around 1:40pm. Either because they were there to cheer me in and buy me the obligatory pint (thanks Mum and Dad) or because they have since been sent copious amounts of photo evidence. I dipped my boots in the North Sea, which must have added an extra 200 yards to my walk as the tide was fully out, and made a wish as I cast our pebbles carried from St. Bee’s beach into the water. How do I feel now that I’ve done it? I think it’s too soon to say. Perhaps more on that in a day or two. As Terry Marsh, the writer of the excellent guide that has accompanied me on this journey puts it: “success, in the final analysis, is a very personal thing. Few people will know of your triumph and most of those will think you are mad.” He also says, “There will have been bad days, almost certainly, when spirits were low, or feet and shoulders ached, or the p...
Read more

Lightning strikes

I spoke too soon about the brilliance of my friend rota. My friends, of course, remain brilliant but the rota is in tatters. A few bolts of lightning struck the East Coast mainline during Thursday night’s storm and the kind of transport chaos that only the UK specialises in predictably ensued. Poor Dan spent several hours at King Cross trying to move north but to no avail. So, I will be doing the last 6 days (instead of 5) on my own. But every (storm) cloud has a silver lining and the delays and cancellations also disrupted Liz’s journey home to Newcastle  meaning that we could spend more of my day off together. We walked the castle walls, ate ice cream down by the river and drank coffee on the market square. We also had the perfect start to the day visiting the stunning Millgate House garden. We were the only ones there and the overnight downpour had left everything smelling fresh and sparkling with raindrops.  Having seen Liz off on the bus back to Darlington, t...
Read more