Miles today: 10.3
Total miles: 60.43 (about 1/3 of the way!)
It was another beautiful day and this was the first day we were outside of the Lake District. The good thing about that? NO ROCKS. We were walking through fields and along country roads--what a relief on our joints and feet!
The best thing about today was that we would walk through a field, over a little hill, then down in a valley and unexpectedly come across something like this:
or this:
It was delightful and exactly what we were looking for in a walk. Shap Abbey is near where we are staying. It sits down pretty far in a valley and even Jim started feeling a little fatigued walking back up the long hill into town.
We came into Shap on the north end and made our way down to the end of town to Brookfield House B & B where we met Margaret. She is quite a character and has the perfect job for her personality. We got quite an interrogation about our bag. When we checked it in at the airport it weighed 49.5 pounds. We've taken some things out and now it weighs pretty close to the Sherpa Van limit of 20 kg (about 44 pounds). She thought we might be over the limit! I can't imagine that she had actually lifted the bag. She chatted on for a few minutes, showed us to our room, then told us she had scones in the oven so we should come down to the lounge in 10 minutes for tea and scones. How very English!
When she brought the tea items, all were in beautiful matching rose patterned China cups, saucers, teapot, and plates. She even had coordinating, freshly ironed, embroidered napkins. It was almost too pretty to use. As we were having tea more guests came to the door. We were surprised to see Jeff and Hilary, a London couple we had met in Ennerdale Bridge. We spent a few minutes catching up on each other's walks, then parted for evening meals.
We walked down the block to the pub and had just ordered food when our friend Asad walked in. We hadn't seen him during the day so we weren't sure whether or not he was able to continue. The pharmacist in Grasmere had recommended a product called Compeed for blisters and he said it worked very well so he made it the entire way today.
We had a nice meal with him, exchanged contact information and said our goodbyes. He is going all the way to Kirkby Stephen (21 miles) tomorrow while we are breaking that leg into two days and stopping in a little town called Orton. Supposedly it is an easy, fairly flat stretch, but 21 miles is still a lot to do in a day. Even if they had a moving sidewalk all the way there I'm not sure I could walk that far in a day.
A couple more pix from today:
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