Coast to Coast 2009 – Day 4

image1068466344.jpgRob relaxes at lunch time in the sun, beside Haweswater Reservior.

I’m still a day behind in posts, I’m writing this at the end of day 5 in The Black Bull in Kirkby Stephen, but the signal was so hit and miss in the Lakes that I’ve fallen behind a day or so.

Having to rely on GPRS is a nightmare, I would expect more B&Bs to offer wifi nowadays, surely that can’t be to much to ask? Funnily enough the Shepherds Arms in Ennerdale Bridge does have wifi and will even let you have the WEP key and then when you check out, you find out that they charge for it.

Anyway back to Patterdale, Mrs Pool at Glebe House relented in her usual 08:00 for breakfast rule when she realised that we only wanted tea and toast. However we only wanted this because she didn’t do breakfast until 08:00 a sort if Catch-22 situation. With having a very big day ahead of us we didn’t really want to be leaving too late and weighed down by a full cooked meal.

Although she doesn’t own a tumble drier, all our wet gear from the day before was dry and waiting for us in the hallway at 07:30.

I don’t want to moan too much about Glebe House, but even tea and toast for breakfast was poor. If you have no other choice then fine and if your are a solo walker and want to avoid the tiniest room in the world in the White Lion then Glebe House may be okay, but other than that give it a miss. It is cheap though at £26 a head for a twin en-suite room.

The day showed lots of promise and the walk out of Patterdale was warm and sunny, the gradual gradiant up to Boredale Hause let’s the leg muscles get used to more ascent.

We were at the back of a number of people, including a solo walker adjusting a large pack and a number of others, many of whom turned off at Boredale Hause so were obviously not C2Cers. Our morning pace put us ahead of the crowds though and we ended up at the head of quite a long snake of people weaving around Angle Tarn and up to Satura Crag.

The day was warming up nicely and when we were in the sun we were laughing, but the wind forced us to stay in fleeces until late into the morning.

At the turn in the path to Kidsty Pike we heard a couple if loud voices behind us. A man and wife had appeared from nowhere and were rocketing up the path towards us, they were immediately named the Turbo Twins and they whistled past us just after the summit. We didn’t see them again until later.

The sun is lovely and warm beside Haweswater and we stopped for a restful lunch before sauntering along the lake side path to Burnbanks. We meet the solo backpacker here and he follows us across the fields and pastures into Shap village.

It was getting late in the afternoon and we headed down the long village to Brookfield House, the last house in Shap and for me, the best place to stay, not just in Shap, but anywhere along the C2C route.

As we approach the Greyhound pub the Turbo Twins, who are sitting on a table outside the pub, spot us and immediately drown their drinks, gather up their packs and head quickly down the road towards Brookfield. It is obvious they want to get there before us, but we still don’t understand why.

The welcome was just as I remembered from my last stay – brilliant. Margaret welcomed us in and plied us with tea, scones, little cakes, flapjacks, cheese and onion savouries and sausage rolls, all homemade and absolutely fabulous.

We had a great meal at the Greyhound, which was packed with locals and walkers on this Bank Holiday Saturday night. I also found out that City beat Blackburn 3 – 1, so that rounded off the day nicely.

I’m feeling a little warm in the face today, but the sunhat did some good because there’s an awful lot of very red faced walkers in the pub with us 🙂

From deluge to sunburn in just 24 hours; don’t you just love the English weather?

Mobile Blogging from here.

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