7: St Bees and THE WALK

OK & now we start walking

Great breakfast by Nicola at Fairladies Barn after an ordinary nights sleep – we had a skylight above our bed (only about a metre above us) and it rained and the wind howled all night!  We didn't know it at the time, but hurricane Katja was just hitting the UK - possibly it was better not to know...

So off we set down to the beach to dip our boot into the Irish Sea and pick up a pebble to carry with us for the journey and take some 'before pics'.

From the beach we followed a very steep (or so we thought then) track up around the headland to the lighthouse, a fence on one side and a 100 metre drop down to the sea on the other – the wind was really blustery and hard to keep your balance at times. 

We then turned inland, around Whitehaven, and passing through a couple of tiny towns till we got to Moor Row where we stopped at the “walkers pop-in café’ for a great cup of tea and the lunch Nicola packed for us (& possibly a sweet treat...). 

Just before we went into the café there was a guy walking a dog that kind of looked like a hairy greyhound and he was training it to walk with him – anyway I made a comment about his dog so he stopped for a chat – the dog is a lurcher (larcher?)  Owner had heavy Yorkshire accent and few teeth so difficult to understand – and they go rabbiting – the dog catches the rabbits and brings them back to him alive - there was something about the dog putting the rabbits in piles of 25, but surely a dog can’t count to 25?  Maybe I got that bit wrong – but anyway they catch 6 to 8 thousand every year!!!  That is a lot of rabbits!!

Then through Cleator and up through a pine forest – a particularly nasty hill that went on and on for an hour – Geoff if you are reading this – thank you – it’s because of you that today was just difficult, not impossible!!  At the top of Dent Hill the wind was incredible and really cold, so I pressed on ahead of the others and reached a similarly nasty downhill first – grassy, slippery and STEEP!!  Just kept muttering to myself that I wasn’t scared and I could do this!!  Raining on and off didn’t help!  Anyway we all survived and got to the bottom, though muddy and tired.  Joe ended up carrying some old dudes pack for him cause he had fallen over a couple of times and couldn’t manage it himself.  Lots of winding paths at the bottom – stilly very muddy – till we hit the main road into Ennerdale bridge.  We are staying at a pub in town – The Shepherds Arms - was looking forward to a hot shower but had to make do with luke warm (possibly not even luke warm)…  down to the bar for a drink and dinner.  My fish was ordinary (this is not my night) but others food looked really good.  Mandy has a couple of really yukky blisters, but otherwise though we are all stiff and tired and our feet are burning, not too bad.  We have survived day one!!

Again, will add some pics later...