Day four got off to a bit of a bad start. In the night the wind going through the trees above us made one hell of a racket and kept waking me up. Also, god knows where the light was coming from, but there was a constant light coming through the canvas of the tent. It was like the sun never really set. It was odd, it really did seem brighter inside the tent than out.
Breakfast was a quick boiled pasta affair. Water bottles were filled up from the stream and Jonny and myself were taking our tent down when Gus finally got up (Gus was the name of the other camper in our little woodland squat). We left him to his breakfast at around half past eight, fully well knowing that if he walked at the rate he was telling us last night, he would probably overtake us in a few hours time.
The walk along the rest of Haweswater was not as bad as I had thought it was going to be. The worst parts of it were out of the way the night before and we were at the other end of the lake in around an hour and a half. In that time there was not much going on around the lake, but there was a lot of wildlife on the shore. The usual sheep which scurried up and down the hillside, but also of note was a stampede of about seven or eight stags which ran past me. Jonny said that he didn’t see them but did see a single deer. I dunno where they must have come from then?
I was hoping to see a huge dam at the end of Haweswater, but a wood blocks the view from the path and when the path moves round in front of the dam, then there is a small housing estate blocking the view. A short walk from here and were soon in farmland territory. The hills here are forgiving enough for a tractor to go up and for cattle to graze. The grass is green, the roads are wide and the paths are soft underfoot. It is also the edge of the Lake District. From here to Shap should have been a walk in the park compared to the ordeals of the Lake District, but I didn’t get a very good nights sleep and I, foolishly, did nothing about my blisters. They really should have been burst the night before, but they weren’t.
It was around 11 O’Clock that Gus predictably over took us. Then he stopped for a sandwich, then he overtook us again. There isn’t really much to say about the section from here to Shap. The way was easy but I was tired still and so I found it difficult anyway. It wasn’t particularly spectacular, which is why we forgot to take any photographs, infact watch any advert for Müller yoghurt and you’ve got the general gist of it: pleasant but nothing to write home about. The only thing of note at all way Shap Abbey, which wasn’t really that spectacular either.
Arriving in Shap at around lunchtime we decided to have a rest, eat something and stock up on supplies. I was eating my way through the heavy tins of food as fast as I could to try and relieve some of the weight from my rucksack and was replaced as much as I could with several days supply of sachet foods, anything with “just add water” written on it. While in the local co-op a nice lady commented on my shuffle of a walk, recognising me at once as a walker and not a local. I was quite amazed really how many walkers there were all congregating around a single shop, but then again it was the first proper shop on the route and there wouldn’t be another for several days.
Sitting outside the co-op, on a high street bench Jonny was having some lunch and I, a packet of sweets. The lady who I had been talking to in the co-op walked past. She asked if I had managed to find something for my feet. I told her that the chemist she had suggested was closed and there was nothing suitable in the co-op. With that she produced two packs of compeed plasters and gave them to me. I was a little bit shocked that someone would walk the length of the village and back again to make sure that I was all right for blister relief. If your reading this; many thanks to you blister relief lady. Jonny was not very happy about this because it meant that I had to get my feet out and play around with blisters while he was eating. The nice lady gave me two packs with five plasters in each, all gone by the time I was finished. I had no idea until I took my socks off that things had got so bad on my feet. I really was grateful to the nice lady after seeing the carnage that lurked beneath my socks.
The whole foot thing put us a little behind schedule and we finally left Shap at around half past two. After leaving the village both the main railway line from London to Glasgow (WCML) and the the main road from London to Glasgow (M6) are crossed over by foot bridges with quick succession. After these there is a steady climb up hill to an abandoned quarry, the footpath is followed to a small hamlet, where the footpath turns and follows across the top of some moorland on the plateau of the hill. The path has neither heavy incline or decline but is fairly rocky and quite sore on the feet. Me and Jonny had some discussions and both agreed that while not brilliant it was much more comfortable to walk on tarmac than on uneven rocks. I had looked at the map and seen that there was a short cut which would save time by being a little longer but on roads. This route also avoided taking a chance in a large bog that was marked on the map, after what happened outside the Black Sail hut, neither of us wanted to be going through any more bogs than we would have to.
The short cut seamed to work for a bit, it was, however, a bit of a mind-numbing route with nothing of interest at all. The section that was still on the moors was hard on the feet and I wasn’t joking when I said to Jonny that if we saw a taxi on the road I’d flag it down. I was at a bit of a low ebb, low on energy, painful feet and to top it all off the sun was coming out and now it was too hot and I was sweating like you wouldn’t believe. I know, too cold yesterday, too hot today, I need to make my mind up. I was grateful for every little breeze that swept past, even for such a fleeting moment.
When we reached the road we could here the church bells coming from the village of Orton. This was good because we knew that the camp site for the night was only a mile on the other side of Orton. Another look at the map showed we could save further time if we went through a farm, taking a footpath across its fields. We could see from the road that the fields had horses in and they were covered in grass. This would be good for the feet and so we went for that route over the road in the end.
The route itself would have been fine if the farm owners hadn’t have taken up all the way markings. We both, in absence if signs and a map which didn’t mark walls, followed what appeared to be a path in the grass, it was semi instinctive. Then we came to a dead end. We could see where we should have gone but to back track would have taken ages. We took the decision to cut across through the farm yard itself. It felt like we shouldn’t be there (probably because it was trespassing) but no one saw us and we were back on track.
We passed through the village at what must have been gone 6 0’clock, because the post office was shut. The village itself was very nice, very quiet with the exception of the odd truck passing through. There was a nice pub/hotel in the middle which was begging for me to go in, but given the late hour I decided not to even suggest it. I was beginning to see that even Jonny had had enough for today and just wanted to get the weight off his back. We managed to walk the final mile very quickly.
We shuffled up the path to the farm house attached to the camp site where an old lady showed us where to camp. She agreed to let us charge our phones in her house for the evening and was very sympathetic to our tales of woe and foot ache and back ache. I had since found out it was Jonny’s back which was giving him jip. The weather by now had turned cold and windy again.
Curiously that night I lost the ability to use my thumbs about four times. They would just lock up and I’d have to wiggle them free with my other hand. I’m still not sure why that happened. It has never happened before or since. It was definite inconvenience to lose the use of thumbs while trying to make a tomato and pasta dish from a packet, but I managed.