The Walk - Stage 5 - Patterdale to Shap

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the comments. I can’t tell you what it means to us to hear from you and read your words of encouragement.

Kidsty Pike, at 2559', is the highest point on the C2C walk. However, the combined elevation gain for this walk is over 4,000’. Fortunately, there is an alternate route and we are taking the low road and not climbing this fell. It adds some mileage to the walk today but doesn’t require bouldering up, and up, and up on our rock tender feet. We will only climb about 1,000’. Yay!

Before I start with today’s comments, I have to mention fell runners. We’ve seen several run past us on the trail, and once saw several wearing race numbers. I can’t even imagine running over that rocky terrain when I was making sure I had one foot firmly on a rock before lifting the other. Jo Anne and I had a name for them: totally crackers. 

We start off with a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. The choices are full English, vegetarian, and continental.

Jo Anne has gotten smart and ordered exactly what she wants. 

I ordered the full English. Tried everything but left much on the plate. 

We got our bags packed up for the Sherpa and head out.

We walk from our hotel through the little village of Glenridding, which is on the southern end of Ullswater.  This is where we catch a ride on a steamer to take us to the north end of the lake up to the riverside village of Pooley Bridge. Ullswater steamers have been sailing out of Glenridding for more than 150 years.

As the steamer pulled away from the shore, I turned and looked back at the mountains. We were leaving behind this lovely part of the world with a tinge of sadness in our hearts, and I knew I would likely never see it again. I said, “Good bye, Lake District. I will miss your beautiful landscape and people – but not your steep fells!”

We leave behind Honister Pass, Grasmere, Dent Fell, Rosthwaite, Keswith and Ennerdale Bridge, to name a few. St. Bees already seems like an eternity ago. I guess the only good thing about leaving the lakes behind us is that now the walk will become easier and the elevations will be gentler.

We can breathe a sigh of relief because we have survived the hardest part of the walk, the Lake District. Little did we know the worst day was yet to come. 

I wonder how any of the rest of the trip can compare to the beauty we have just seen.

We travel on in silence, trying to absorb the quiet beauty that is all around us. The damp wind makes us cool, as we glide on the deep, clear, lake, but we hardly notice the wind because of the breathtaking views from the picturesque lake surrounded by wooded mountains.

After the serene boat ride, we pick up the trail again at Pooley Bridge and will walk 13.5 miles into Shap. The scenery is even more beautiful than I could imagine.

Now it is onward to the Yorkshire Dales!

Pooley Bridge got its name from a bridge that was built in 1764. The bridge washed away in the great flood of 2015. I have heard several locals talking about that awful recent flood.

This route takes us up Askham Fell. It is a bit of a climb (1080’) but nothing like what we had just done in the Lake District.

But of course, more rocks. 

Looking down over Ullswater

And back across to the Lakelands. 

We met these two cyclists who were riding a loop with a group of other riders. One was 81 and the other was 85. Neither one looked even close to that age and they hopped back on those bikes and took off up the hill. I hope I have half their energy when I’m that age. 

We now start heading down Askham Fell on mostly grassy trails. 

There were hundreds of grouse butts in this area. They must have been really camouflaged because we never saw a single one.

Snowberry - a member of the honeysuckle family

The midges have been out. I’m sure I inhaled and ate a few yesterday while climbing up to Grisedale Tarn. Kind of hard to keep your mouth closed when you are gasping for air. 

Spiraea 

Hyacinth 

Our first fall foliage

Brilliant begonias 

Then we walk down country roads, cross beautiful wildflower meadows, sheep fields, cattle and horse pastures. We walked right through some farms.

Rust colored pollen on my pants and shoes. Oh well, maybe it will soak up some of the sheep poo which is EVERYWHERE, along with a lot of sheep. So many woolies, that we can’t find even 1 square foot of poo-less pavement or grass to sit on. I honestly believe these animals are inputting at one end and outputting at the other—at the same time. When I was adjusting my walking sticks. I stuck my hand right in it. Soon as I could. I wiped those things down, which was good until we started walking again. 

It is a welcome relief to be walking on level soft grass for miles at a time, with no rocks to climb!

Signage is a rarity and sometimes the maps are very unclear, but the phone apps are helpful.

We stopped for a snack at Bampton’s cafe and coffee shop.

Caramel shortbread 

Crumpet

If you click on this photo and zoom in you’ll see a bumble bee. He’s on the largest group of flowers. 

We had to duck under the shrubs on this part of the trail.

We pass through many small hamlets and farms.

We climb stile after stile. But here’s the thing. If you’re tall, you can simply slip your long ol’ legs through the slots and walk on. But if you’re short like me, your bottom and hips better only be 9 inches across or you’ll be stuck and squirming like an ox trying to step through a rubberband. It can be done, but not without a struggle or the person behind you laughing like crazy. After a while, crossing pasture to pasture, these quaint slot or “squeeze” passages get a bit annoying, and all that compressing doesn’t minimize hip size AT ALL.  
Rosgill Bridge spans the River Lowther, which flows from Wet Sleddale to meet the Eamont near Penrith. We're never far from the river for the rest of the way to Shap Abbey. 

"He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers." 

Psalm 78:16

We walk in field after field.  Finally, we see Shap Abbey in the distance so we know we are in the right general area. 

The abbey at Shap was one of the many monastic houses established in England during the 12th century. It belonged to an order founded by the German Saint Norbert, and owes its founding to a baron named Thomas son of Gospatric, who held lands in the Westmorland of William of Lancaster.

Towards the end of his life, Thomas made arrangements for the establishment of an abbey on his own estates at Preston in Kendale, but before he died in 1201 he changed his mind, and instead granted the canons a site 20 miles further north on the banks of the Lowther. He allowed them to quarry stone and fell timber on his land. The place where the abbey was founded was then known as 'Hepp', meaning a heap. Less than a hundred years later the name had changed from Hepp to Hiap, and then to Shap. The new abbey was dedicated to St Mary Magdelene. 

Walking from the abbey to Shap is all uphill. Seems like we’ve done a bit of that. 

There are flowers everywhere. Dasiphora, member of the rose family

White variety of dasiphora 

You can post a letter and make a phone call here. 

Tired bodies trudge along and we make our way to the fish and chips shop, called Shap Chippy. It's becoming a habit (we can blame Alfred Wainwright for that). 

The most beautiful dahlias I think I’ve ever seen. Their garden was full of them. 

Primula

Shap is a gray little town, surviving mostly due to C2C walkers. Many houses date from the 18th century and are a bit forbidding. The A6 used to be the main route from NW England to Scotland bringing much prosperity to this area. In 1970, the M6 motorway opened, putting a halt to the traffic that used to come through Shap, as well as the decline in once-prosperous shops, hotels, cafes, garages and other services. A few of those remain to supply Coast to Coasters like us, but the economy of the village now depends on the granite works and quarries, which take away from the beauty of the place, as you might imagine.

It is getting late in the day and shadows are beginning to fall when we make it to Kings Arms Hotel, in the middle of town. It was one of the Coaching Inns and one of the tallest buildings in Shap. It is believed to date from the 1700's. Before the coming of the railway it would have been a hive of activity, serving the needs of travelers on the great road from England to Scotland. The Inn was also the first post office in Shap. With age comes a few oddities. The floors are sloped to the point of feeling like you’re rolling out of bed. 

It was a good choice to take this route because it was so beautiful.  If the key word from yesterday was rocks, the key words today are water, wildflowers, and farms.

Everywhere we go we hear music; from the whistling winds to the ocean waves, the gurgling brook to the rushing river, the birds chorus to the sheep’s refrain. 

We enjoyed this idyllic route walking through woodlands, lakeshore, and rocky crags.

Our room has three twin beds, giving us room to spread out a bit. Most of our  rooms have been a tight squeeze. As usual, the kettle for tea is on a table along with snacks, and the window is open, allowing the fresh English air inside, along with traffic noise from this busy street. Hopefully it dies down before long. 

We are thankful for another wonderful day, incredible weather and hopes that our bodies rest well this night in Shap. The weather forecast for the next two days is rain. Praying it won’t be heavy or last long. 

When I crawl under the covers I am too tired to think about anything except, “I just want to sleep.” 

Todays stats:

31,361 steps

13.4 miles 

16 floors