Day 11: Clay Bank Top to Glaisdale

It was a misty start to the morning, and we couldn't actually see the top of the moors ahead of us when we woke up. We had a cooked breakfast in the pub as usual, but I was getting sick of them by this point, so didn't eat it all. I drank lots of apple juice though which was nice. After getting a lift back to Clay Bank Top, we started walking pretty quickly along the Cleveland Way again. The views would probably have been quite nice at this point but it was still pretty misty. Thankfully though, it cleared up after about an hour's walking.

At Bloworth crossing, the Cleveland Way took a sharp turn North(-ish) but we carried on East (as you'd expect really) along what I think was a dismantled railway line. The views down onto Farndale were pretty good - I don't quite know why I didn't take any photos. There were some fighter jets flying around that were either doing some slow manoeuvres overhead, or the perspective just made them look like they were going very slowly. I didn't care that much.

At about 11.30am, we turned off the railway towards Blakey Road and arrived at a pub called The Lion Inn which was situated in pretty much the middle of nowhere. The pub was really nice so we stopped for a drink while we looked at the route for the final day and a half. I was tempted by another drink but Dave had his sensible hat on so we set off again just after 12pm.

The Lion Inn

 

The walk was quite uneventful after that, and after fighting our way through a very overgrown footpath down Glaisdale Side, we arrived at our campsite, Hollins Farm. Despite some worries that it was going to be similar in facilities, both social and otherwise, to the first campsite the day before, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that it was actually quite a nice campsite, complete with showers and TV room. As we set up our tent, the lady from the massive tent next to us came over to warn us that she had her young kids with us, and that they'd never been camping before so she didn't know how noisy they'd be during the night. By this point, we couldn't really be bothered moving so we said that was fine, as long as she didn't mind us camping next to them. She didn't, so we stayed.

We were actually camping a couple of miles from Glaisdale (as there were no campsites any nearer) so we went to speak to the woman in charge about food. We were very happy to hear that the pub in Glaisdale offered free transport there and back if we were planning on eating there, so she rang and booked it for us. The farm didn't do breakfasts, so we ordered a packed lunch which we could eat in the morning and buy lunch during the day tomorrow. With nothing to do until someone picked us up from the pub at 6pm, we did some crosswords and both had a shower.

At this point, we came across a slight problem: as there was no cash machine in Glaisdale, Dave and I had about £25 between us to pay for camping, breakfast, lunch and the Sherpa Van's bag service. We did the maths and worked out that unless the pub accepted Switch, we'd have about £10 left for both of us to eat and drink that night. Not ideal. So at 6pm, we waited for the pick-up with our fingers crossed. Eventually one of the chefs turned up to pick us up, and said that, yes, they accepted switch. w00t! As we drove to the pub, I decided to take advantage of having the chef as our driver, so I asked him what he recommended. He said some spicy Thai chicken thing, which pleased Dave immensely. We saw an old lady sweeping the grass. It wasn't even the grass next to her house apparently.

At the pub, we ran into a doctor named Helen who we'd spoken to a few times along the way. She'd only just ordered so, on her suggestion, we joined her for dinner. I went to set up a tab for the night, and then we quickly ordered our food as well. We chatted about how we'd found the walk so far, and what we were going to do when we'd finished the following day. I think 'having a bath' was high up on everyone's list. Helen also told us that on the fourth day, just before she'd got to Grasmere, she'd come across a family who's father had had a heart attack. Being a doctor, she'd tried to help, but when the paramedics arrived it was unfortunately too late. All in all, pretty grim.

Our meal was quite posh as there was a fancy restaurant beneath the pub. Dave had his spicy Thai chicken, while I opted for the delicious home-made burger. We had a few more drinks before getting a lift back with the chef again, during which I complimented him on his mad cooking skillz. We'd heard conflicting reports about the weather for the following day - one saying very sunny, the other very wet - and as we drove home it started raining quite hard. This didn't bode well at all. We went to sleep, but the rain got so bad that it kept waking us up, and the wind was strong enough that the tent was practically being flattened. During the night, it got so stormy that both of us had to stick our heads out to see if the outer sheet was still attached properly. Thankfully it was. The likelihood of having a sunny final day was looking decidedly slim though.

Day 11 Stats:
Distance: 15.5 miles
Total Ascent: 426m
Total Descent: 527m
Time taken: 6 hours
SMR (Stile-to-Mile Ratio): 0.32