We woke to grey skies, Jonny, after opening the tent door, immediately asked where the sun from last night had gone? He started asking a higher power for the sun to come back. By the time we had the tent packed away, Jonny had got his wish. The sun had broken through the haze and looked like it was going to make for a glorious day.
We set off, made out way through Keld village itself. A friendly vicar said hello while he was sorting out the posters on his church, I did wonder how such a small village could fill a church so large. On the other side of the village we cross the river and start to ascend up the side of the valley again. From here the path went round a hill, still climbing, along a path which was very tricky to negotiate. There were several points where there was a near sheer drop to the valley floor and into the river at the bottom. A few times standing on loose stones left my heart in my mouth, slipping quite close to the edge. There was one moment after I slipped where a rock did go over the edge, followed by nothing, no sound of it hitting the bottom at all, like a cheap moment in a bad action film set in the mountains.
The path merged with another about a mile from Keld, and this allowed the path to widen. Also the path moved away from the edge of the cliff face. Moving from the edge meant that we were more sheltered from the little breeze that there was that morning, I soon began to suffer the heat. I slowed down a lot and ended up struggling up the side of the valley on to the moorland above. Half way up I heard voices behind me, a group of (how to put this nicely?), less youthful people, were approaching me fast. I decided that I should move to the side to let them pass. As they passed they were all very friendly, well mannered and the like. I was not impressed with one bloke though, who thought he should rub in the embarrassment of being overtaken by coffin dodgers by telling me “I’ve got a tin knee, ya know?”. Thanks mate.
Making it to the top we had a quick stop and carried on. We went over the moorland above the valley for a while. This was better, the wind was blowing over the moors more, and there was some intermittent cloud cover. The moors gave way to another valley quickly, back in the shade, out of the wind. This valley was very short we were down one side and climbing up the other within what seemed like only a few minutes. 
We stopped for a quick breath at the bottom of the valley amongst the ruins of an old farm. The climb up the other side, seemed to take hours. In all the time that we were climbing we saw no one, and we had no confirmation that we were going the right way up the valley. The path was not very distinct and I was worried that we were going to reach the top and find we had climbed up the wrong part of the valley. The valley disappeared completely before we reached the top. We ended up trudging over heather and bracken, trying to find a path which alluded us until we had actually gotten to the top. From here all we had to do was follow the track, which was easily big enough for a car to pass down, to the road at the end. At this point we can’t really call it moor land, that seams to nice. It was more a baron waste land, with no plant life at all, just rocks as far as the eye can see. I said to Jonny at the time that if it wasn’t for the track, and the occasional fence, I would have no reason to presume I was even on on earth. It could easily have been the set of a science fiction film. It was a place which left me cold, there was no beauty here at all. I think I would have been more sympathetic to it if the weather matched its mood, but the weather was quite cheery, and the landscape, dull.
The heather returend a lile or so later and was joined by a more industrail scene. Here the remains of an old lead mine tower above the track. I saw the buildings, with the wide track from the road and thought to myself that here is a place which could easily be turned into a youth hostel, much in the same way as Black Sail hut had been in the youth hostel. Then it hit me, water supplies; lead mines, probably not the best mix.
Looking on the map it seemed like we would be on this path for some time, it was many miles to travel until we crossed the road, the first sign of civilisation since we left the Keld. However, it was all downhill, on a large, even track and we were at the bottom very soon. We had a quick stop at the road, where we decided to detour again from the prescribed route, again favouring the route which followed a road meant for all traffic. This was another road, much like yesterday afternoon. The first section had very little in the way of any life, the second, as we began to approach Reeth, began to fill out with farms and villages.
We eventually reached Keld at around four o’clock. We hung around in the village centre for a short while, enjoying a can of fizzy pop, going into the local supermarket and getting dinner for the following day. We didn’t buy much because we knew we would get more tomorrow. We then went down the road to our camp site on the other side of the village. We knocked on the door where we were met by a slightly over friendly man. He told us that he was doing a special offer for all those on the coast to coast walk: a caravan for the same price as a tent pitch. Naturally we didn’t argue. It wasn’t the best caravan I’ve ever seen. There was no plumbing and we still had to use the campers toilets, but these weren’t far away. On the upside, we didn’t have to pitch or take down our tent, we had a TV and a charging point for our phones. We also had a bed each, which was more comfortable than the floor.
On the moors I found myself bored with no beauty to look at or occupy my mind. I decided to think up names for my blisters. Having a caravan made it a lot easier to burst Rebecca and Jemima because I could sit on the door step. Bertha, wasn’t so much an issue today, but the colour of what came out of Lindsay was disgusting, a sort of baby food brown.
Seeming as we had a luxury caravan, and had finished at the luxury hour of four o’clock, we decided to finish off the day with a luxury pint and steak pie at the local pub. A nice way to finish off a day which all in all I didn’t enjoy that much.