A walk across the North of England – Day 8
We leave Hawes in the rain and briefly follow the Pennine Way before taking the path less travelled towards Mellerstang and Kirkby Stephen. Sunlight shines fitfully on distant hillsides but we never seem to catch up to it and plough on through knee-deep bog and heavy rain. A handy tip if you’re thinking of doing something like this walk, is to plan it for after hay-making. When we walked, the meadows were knee deep in gorgeous flowers which, after rain, held every drop of water for hours afterwards making straightforward public footpaths into a wade through sodden grass. Not as tiring as deep snow, but not far off either.
We’re twa drookit dugs by the end of the day. We assemble a tower of sodden boots and socks on the heater in our room and go for the best curry we’ve had in years. The small restaurant is packed and in a clumsy effort at foreshadowing, we joke that this is a superspreader event in the making.
Not much sleep that night as down in the bar below our room things were getting wild with a dominoes tournament that lasted until well after closing time. Chapping!
Lars
Are you doing these beautiful paintings as you go)
Kristina
Not exactly. I couldn’t carry all the stuff! I use an iPad to sketch: the first one of Whitby was done on the spot, and there are a couple of other sketches-that-didn’t-make-paintings coming up in the final days.