Weather: Sunny; Steps: 28163 Distance: 11 miles; Time: 6h; Calories out: 845; Blisters: still nil
After breakfasting with the bus drivers we left Kirkby to its merriments and set off across the Pennines. Walked up to Nine Standards Rigg, a curious feature of nine towers of stone, each about 15 feet high, mostly circular but one square. We could see them on the horizon all the way from Kirkby and so the story goes they were built by the Romans to look like an army in the distance.
Because of the incredibly dry weather the normally sodden moreland peat that we walked across was dry and even cracked. Just as well as there are stories of coast-to-coasters sinking to their knees in it. It's grouse moor and we spotted a few as we walked over,
My calories in was not helped by a cream tea in a really remote farmhouse, Ravenseat, I already felt I knew Amanda as she had featured in Julia Bradbury's series on the C2C. She's a nice lady and we had a chat about making gluten free cakes.
6 hours to do just 11 miles shows how many stops we had. The weather is just so magnificent there's no urgency to rush. I found a quarry and spent a happy half hour trying to figure out the geological record from the sandstone.
From there we walked down the lane to our resting place for the night, Pry House Farm, a working farm where they are busy lambing. They have a 1000 pedigree Swaledale ewes to lamb in the next 4 weeks.
Yes you have been so lucky with the weather. It was good that you were able to make the most of the local goingson! I am sure you will feel stronger as the days progress.
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