Day 7: Glenridding to Bampton Grange

The town of Glenridding suffered a devastating flood...or rather series of 4 floods over the period of a week last December (2015).

 But they've made a remarkable recovery...

One of its 2 main streets during the flood

And now.

The bridge over the other main street just after the flood...











And now.......

On-going repair work.

Our B&B (Beech House) seems to be the only building on our side of the main street that really survived the flooding. (Sorry, no photo; from the outside, it was just an ordinary house.)

Peter's boots, too, have suffered damage, in this case beyond repair....

...so we abandoned them at our B&B (Beech House).

But the loss of Peter's boots have been more than compensated for by the addition of some friends, Sharon and Rob, the couple we'd met at the saddle by Grisdale Tarn. We bumped into them at a small restaurant where we had a surprisingly delicious squid appetizer, salad, and duck breast  (it was a Saturday and the Hotel Pub was booked for an event) where a spunky waitress/sheep farmer had filled us in on some of the details of how the town had responded to the flooding. (Almost unimaginable resilience and comraderie!)

Rob told us that they were going to follow our lead and take the Ullswater Steamer up to Pooley Bridge, followed by a relatively short/easy walk over to Bampton Grange, rather than the grueling 15+ mile walk described in Stedman's Coast to Coast Path like this: "Be prepared to feel very tired at the end of this.. stage. The long climb up Kidsty Pike [the highest point in the Coast-to-Coast Walk at 2560' or just under 1/2 mile], the trickily steep descent down to Haweswater [Reservoir] and the undulating stage above the lake's shore add up to well over 4400' of ascent... With no accommodation directly on the route nor, indeed, any shops, tearooms or pubs, you have little choice but to grit your teeth and knuckle down." The wisdom of our decision to take this easy way out was confirmed when we later met up in Orton with the 4 tough Brits who had breezed by us and taken higher/harder routes than us on several occasions over the past few days; this time they looked genuinely beat and Jack, the Scot of the foresome, shook his head and said: "That was brrrutal!"

But back to our easy day from Glenridding to Bampton Grange. At the comfortable hour of 9:45, we boarded one of the Ullswater Steamers and headed up the lake (Ullswater).

Very happy hikers!

Cormorants

The boat arrived at 11 AM (less than an hour and a half ride). We picked up a sandwich in Pooley Bridge and then with Rob & Sharon, we set off for Bampton Grange, armed with Ordnance Maps Rob had bought from eBay and the same maps on Peter's GPS-enabled phone. After a bit of asking around town, we found the footpath/bridlepath up Askham Fell with breathtaking views back over the Ullswater and the mountains of Cumbria we'd only recently come through. 

Along the way, we met up with some women riding their Fell's ponies

The view forward toward the Penines that we'd soon be walking along and into.

Walking over this seemingly featureless landscape of Moor Divock, our maps indicated that we were in fact passing various oddly named features (most of which we didn't actually notice) such as: Grouse Butts, Shake Holes, Wofa Holes, Dewpot Holes, Cop Stone, Tumuli, and cairns of various types.

After awhile, we left the moor-like land and began to bushwack through farmland, guided by Rob and his maps, checked and sometimes corrected by Peter's GPS readings.

Some friends resting in the shade.

After a bit, we came to a road

That led us into a small cluster of houses that was Bampton and soon, thereafter, to Bampton Grange, little more than a church and our B&B, the Crown and Mitre Pub.

We'd arrived at 2:30 and, although we saw that our bags had been delivered by Packhorse and were sitting in the stairwell of the B&B, the proprietor didn't appear to be around and the door to the pub area was locked.

Therese wandered over to the Church (St. Patrick's) an got a look around and heard a bit of its history from the caretakers.

Meanwhile, the others sat outside the B&B in the glorious sunshine.

Soon, the proprietor appeared from around back where she'd been weeding and watering the garden. We were soon in our rooms, showered, and back down to the now-opened pub. Therese and Rob had beers, Peter worked on the blog, though the internet connection was incredibly slow.

After dinner, Therese went upstairs to grab her wallet to pay for dinner. She returned to our table and said, "Houston, we have a problem."

More tomorrow....