Day 7: Keld to Applegarth

After a fab nights sleep in the yurt we were delivered a delicious breakfast (warm baguettes loaded with bacon and eggs), collected our packed lunches and off we set.

Ten minutes later just as we were crossing the beck who should we be passed by yet again but mountain man in shorts and his mate (who always seemed to be wearing full waterproofs whatever the weather). We thought we'd seen the last of them in Shap as they were going a lot quicker than us to finish so that the mate could go on holiday! I think they'd also managed to shake the amorous German off too...

There are a choice of routes from here - we decided to take the low road and give the legs a bit of a break with a lovely walk alongside the river swale. The weather was actually quite kind to us today and we managed to get down to t-shirts for the first time.

A quick drink stop in Gunnerside at the tea rooms and we were off again. Now so far, apart from Nicky's trench foot and blisters we've been quite lucky with the injury count, until Bev suddenly started experiencing knee pain... uh oh!! Uphill and flat ground are fine but downhill is proving painful. So we're now both great apart from going downhill which is slowing us down somewhat.

The aim of today was to get to Applegarth where Tom and Leanne were collecting us and driving us to camp at Danby Wiske. We arrived at the pub (White Swan Inn) and it took ages for someone to get around to showing us where to pitch the tent etc. We wanted to eat there too - not a lot of choice on the menu and they didn't seem all that keen to fit us in. The food was pretty good (probably due to the local farm sausages and pies) and we turned in for an early night.

To say it rained would be an understatement - it poured... allllll night. The tent really couldn't cope with the volume of water being thrown at it and sprung leaks all over the place. There was I thinking I'd have a nice cosy night with dry feet (think again Nicky) We woke up with wet sleeping bags, pillows and clothes...
Tbc