13: Day 7 Orton to Kirby Stephens

Getting up this morning to absolutely foul weather - Hurricane Katya really belting the UK around!  Several people at the B&B are trying to decide whether to walk or not today, but we head off into the village of Orton to meet the others.  Wet and cold but worse to come!  We had about 2km along village roads before turning off onto the C2C path, which here translates to open, sludgy, sheep and cow shitty paddocks with the odd road or laneway to follow. 


We got to Bents Farm approximately 11km into todays walk and poor Pheebs was struggling with an injured knee - so she and Pete turned back to the farm to organise a taxi into town.  So Mandy, Narelle Joe and I struggled on through more boggy stuff and by this time the wind is really howling, but fortunately at our backs so going uphill was easier than anticipated - the hardest part was actually staying connected to the ground.  I didn't reaslise that you could also use walking poles to anchor youself into the ground to stop yourself being blown away.  Today I could have used some of those kilos lost last year as balast.

We went past an interesting archeological site 'Severals Village' - off to the side of a valley and unexcavated, but you could see the ruins of a complex of prehistoric villages.  There were also these 'pillow mounds' in the ground which they think were underground rabbit enclosures.  If you didn't know already it was the site of an ancient habitation you'd walk on by and be none the wiser. The site itself has never been the subject of an archaeological dig and its secrets remain untouched and underground.  I would have liked to be able to go closer, but I understand the path has been moved away over the years to help preserve the site and as we were walking through private property so you really need to stick to the main path, plus the weather was not conducive to wandering around sightseeing. 

At one point we were going under a railway bridge at the same time as a freight train, and you couldn't hear the train for the wind!  From there not far into Kirkby Stephens (via a very messy paddock of milking cows) to find we'd been moved from the Jolly Farm B&B to Castle View B&B where we were met by the very gorgeous Katie - she and her boyfriend had done a fantastic job of renovating his Nans home - big clean, calm rooms with spacious bathrooms (very rare here) and lots of hot water (also very rare).  Joe went into town to find Peter (didn't take long - just go directly to nearest cute pub), and the girls followed a bit later (after stuffing ourselves with Katies pumpkin scones & tea), going via the outdoor shop to stock up on gaiters and other bits and pieces.  We heard later that the guy there had his best day sales in years thanks to the Aussies spending up big!  It was then on to the Kings Arms to find Pete and Joe chatting to a couple of guys from QLD also on the walk (the start of a beautiful friendship with Garry and Scot) and another UK couple on holidays - lots of funny chat and a couple of drinks.  Had dinner there a bit later - great pub food!