Day 10: Kirkby Stephen to Keld

With our friends, Rob and Sharon, we decided over dinner last night (at the Black Bull pub), that we'd take the easier, faster, less boggy "Green" route down off the moor into Swaledale. (Peter was able to persuade a number of other walkers to do the same, so that over the course of the day, we saw a number of familiar faces, mostly passing us by.)

All the school kids in town showed up to send us off at around 9:30 :)

We'd gotten a bit of a late start because Rob decided to finally put aside his "Depression Mentality" and buy a good set of walking poles to replace his defective ones from Amazon. (Of course, he's keeping the defective poles in his luggage so he can return them when he gets back to the U.S.). While Rob was buying the poles at one of the two outfitters in the relatively small town, Peter reminded him that he should really buy a Camel pouch for Sharon to be sure she's drinking enough water. He did so.

A group photo of the four of us as we head out of town.

A look back at Kirkby Stephen; in the foreground is one of the many limestone quarries in the area.

From the heights over Kirkby Stephen, we take one last look back at Cumbria as we head into the Yorkshire Dales.

 Peter dons his polystyrene industrial accident "overboots" to splash through the boggy moorland; the experiment has mixed results. It did keep his walking shoes from filling with mud and muddy water, but, lacking any tread on this overboots, the first step Peter took on grass, he was upended, landing on his bottom in the soggy grass, which did him no damage, although his walking pole didn't fare as well. As he fell, it stuck in the mud about a foot down and bent over as he fell. He managed to straighten it out to be serviceable, but not enough to telescope closed at end of day. Oh well!

Starting down into Swaledale...

Down to the road and the entranceway to Yorkshire Dales National Park, where we were greeted by some strange sounds coming from the moor. At first it was not clear what they were -- they sounded like chickens. But then we saw: red grouse, dozens of them, in the hillocks of the moors, calling out to one another.

Peter chatting with Bill from St. Albans, VT, hoping to raise his spirits a bit. 

Looking back at the formation (called a "scar") we've had before us since Orton.

At Rowantree Gil, the Green trail branches off to the right, but we decide to keep to the road and avoid any further trapsing through bogs.

Winding our way down the road past unused stone buildings whose purpose is unclear to us... abandoned homes? shephard's huts? sheepfolds? paddocks?

This group of buildings, we learned was a former shooting lodge; and indeed, as we neared Keld, we encountered a massive grouse hunt, which involves 60+ beaters and earns them some good money from sales to fancy London restaurants, as well as fees from wealthy shooters. The video below was our attempt to capture the scene, but they were so far away that the audio is probably more instructive than the video itself.

Along the way, we noticed a number of man-made "caves" like the one toward the right (above). We earned from a helpful young woman that these were lime kilns used in the limestone mining days.

One of the consequences of the geology of the area (sedimentary rock---limestone, sandstone, and shale) is that it is constantly eroding and collapsing like this section of road.

A closeup of an old lime kiln.

Coming down into Keld, arriving around 4:30, a mere 7 hours from our start. (Good time for us.)

A view from a window in our room at Keld Lodge, formerly a Youth Hostel and before that a Hunting Lodge.

A view from the breakfast room at Keld Lodge.

At this point, you may be wondering if our "drums along the Mohawk" approach was having an effect. That morning, in Kirkby Stephen, we tried it again with a group of women from Adelaide, Australia, with whom we had been crossing paths. No they had not heard anything about a money belt (but oh how sad for Therese). So Therese went upstairs to get her daypack ready for the day's hike. And she noticed that a bandana she had packed in a plastic bag (no more wet things!) looked bulkier than a bandana ought to look. With trembling hands she took the bandana out of the pouch, unfolded it, and lo and behold: the missing money belt! Now she remembered what had happened: she had hidden it inside the bandana to keep it "safe," should anyone come upon her daypack. A little too safe.  Later that morning, when we met up again with Rob and Sharon, Therese was delighted to tell Sharon that the money was found "in the secret compartment in the shaving kit"!