Day 29 - Orton to Patterdale
Stayed In b and b last night - Mostyn House. Ate in The George i think, not sure of name.
Off at 8.15. long road walk to just south of Shap. Halfway rain started. Wets on. Up into Wet Sleddale which lived up to its name. Driving rain all the way to Mosedale Cottage. This is a bothy in the middle of nowhere. Arrived about 1.15. Thought I would stay the night In view of conditions so got cooking stuff out and made cup a soup etc and stayed about an hour and a half, then the weather improved and after some deliberation I decided to go for Patterdale. This involved a trek to Gatesgarth Pass, climbing to it's summit then continuing the ascent to Harter Fell. From Harter Fell I was descending Nan Bield Pass, a sort of rocky, notchy coll, and I fell. I cut a vein in my shin. A rapidly applied Elastoplast failed to stem the flow and blood was pouring into my sock and boot. I had a bandage and applied this which seemed to stop the bleeding. I have to say that I was cross. I have never felt so fit in my life and was going so well. It was still a long way to top out of Nan Bield and trek accross to Thornthwaite Beacon, from where i descended via Threshthwaite Cove. I had not been down there before and it was a treacherous descent and then a long walk out to the Patterdale road. I passed three b and bs with no vacancies and eventually got to The Patterdale Hotel At about 7.45 so I had been on the go for near twelve hours but I did not feel particularly tired, just annoyed about the leg. I managed to negotiate a double room down from £104 to £67 b and b. It was too late to get food there so I went accross the road to The White Lion, but suddenly found I could hardly walk even though I had marched hard for five miles or so over hard mountain terrain with hardly any pain.
At this poiint I knew for certain that I would not be able to continue. The distance between where I am staying and where I ate is only about fifty yards and on the way back I found a Vodaphone sweet spot and was able to phone good friends Pete and Liz who are coming to pick me up in the morning. I reckon I was only about two days short of finishing.
The Patterdale Hotel where I am staying is where I spent my honeymoon in 1970. I seem to remember the bill for four nights dinner b and b was £36.
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What rotten luck. Have enjoyed reading about your journey. Hope you feel better soon.
ReplyDeleteHmmm - Mick's comment this morning seems to have gone astray (operator error, no doubt).
ReplyDeleteProbably goes without saying that we're sorry that your trip has been curtailed so close to the end (and after you'd been proudly saying, last Monday, that you'd not fallen over!).
Hope that the malady isn't too serious and gets better soon.
(today's word is 'snowe' hope that's not an indication of a severe change in the weather!)
yes that's huge shame - looking at the map it hardly seems credible to walk the length and nearly the breadth of the Danelaw in the time it has taken us to do a couple of little jobs - well done, yet again!
ReplyDelete(privately of course I blame the high living)
look after that leg carefully - if in doubt, panic and call the doc.
All - I intend to do a retrospective post on the trip today.
ReplyDeletePhilW - Thanks for your good wishes
Gayle - I don't really believe in fate and omens and the like, but perhaps I'd better keep my mouth shut in future.
Gimmer - You may be right about the high living but one never knows about these things so I think I will carry on as normal.
We've been away from home recently on a rather less adventurous visit to Cheam (and then to Kew). I'm sorry that your walk through the lesser known jewels of the English countryside came to an undeserved end. Hard to guard against that one. But no doubt you were planning the next excursion as you were being transported back to Arnside.
ReplyDelete