Day 5: Shap to Kirkby Stephen
The previous night, we had heard rumours that the fish & chip shop opposite the pub served cooked breakfasts, so when we woke up I went to investigate. It turned out that it did, but it didn't open till 9am, so we passed the time packing the tent up and chatting to the three guys who had set up camp late last night. They were also from Nottingham, and were taking the more-relaxed approach to the Coast to Coast: they had no campsites booked, and were more than happy to be walking until 8 or 9 o'clock each night. They'd also smoked about 4 spliffs before we'd even left the campsite.
We had breakfast and I bought an extra sausage sandwich to take away for lunch. Despite being told that the pub whose garden we'd just stayed in would be open at 9am, at 10am there was still no sign of anyone, so we left the bag for the sherpa van around the back and phoned them to tell them where it was. We started the day over some pretty varied landscape, crossing the M6 and walking past Hardendale Quarry as well as the standard countryside fare.
As we passed Oddendale, there was a sign next to the footpath that read, "Caution! Snakes are at large in this area!". I had visions of giant snakes appearing, but none did. Apparently there were Adders in the area we were about to cross, and that if we saw any we should leave them alone. Just in case you'd try to stroke it or something. It then gave us the phone number of the nearest hospital that we should ring in a snakebite-related emergency. We didn't see any though which was pretty disappointing. We walked pretty close to what was marked on the map as 'Robin Hood's Grave', but it was uphill so we couldn't be arsed going to look.
As we hit the main road next to Sunbiggin Tarn, I felt the plaster on my left heel move. I stopped and tried to sort it out, but by now my heel had decided it was going to cause me pain for the rest of the day regardless, so we carried on with me adopting a slightly unorthodox sideways-foot walk. The combination of this and Dave's sore knee meant that we slowed down quite a bit, which wasn't ideal seeing as we'd run out of water again.
At one point, the footpath we were on took us past a herd of cows. The bright orange t-shirt I was wearing appeared to catch one their eyes, and after some controversial mooing, the entire herd moved to block the footpath. As soon as I put my jumper on, they couldn't have looked less interested, so we just skirted around them. Soon after this, it began to rain, so Dave and I quickened our pace again. When it got heavier we put our waterproofs on, only for it to predictably stop about 2 minutes later. After taking my waterproofs off again, we walked down the least-travelled footpath I've ever seen.
By this point, we'd been walking for 8 hours, and Dave and I were feeling pretty tired and miserable. As our campsite was slightly off the main footpaths to Kirkby Stephen, we decided to take a small shortcut which would mean walking along the A685 for a few hundred metres. Mistake: it turned out to be quite a busy and winding road with no footpath on either side. We safely navigated it though through constant side-swapping and with my orange t-shirt acting as some kind of warning beacon.
Our campsite for the night, Pennine View, was very neat and looked like a small holiday camp. There'd be no going for a quick wee in the bushes in the middle of the night here. Having run out of clothes, Dave was very happy to find out that it even had a laundry. My whole body was aching by this point and I just felt ill, probably through dehydration, so I tried to drink lots of water. My left heel was pretty sore now as well, and my feet were generally looking rank, so I did what any normal person would do and took some photos of them. I've censored the pictures below for those of you who'd rather not see them (although the pictures are pretty blurred anyway) but the curious ones among you can always click on them to see them in their full glory.
While Dave went to put on a load of washing and have a shower, I crawled into my sleeping bag with a bottle of water and tried to re-hydrate myself. When I eventually worked up the energy to go and get a wash myself, it was possibly the best shower I'd ever had, and I was in there for about half an hour just soaking my aching muscles. Seriously, Jesus himself could have been standing outside waiting for me to get out and I still wouldn't have been any quicker. As it was, there were plenty of showers so I didn't feel guilty. My muscles felt a lot better afterwards, but I still felt ill and considered going straight to bed. But after checking the route for the following day and finding out that it was about half the length of today's (11.5 miles compared to 18.5), I felt a bit better. I forced myself to eat some dinner at the nearby pub before heading back to the tent. Dave would later say that it was the worst food we had all holiday, but I was too tired to actually notice. After someone on today's walk telling me that the Compeed plasters generally worked better if you attached them the night before, I decided to give them one more go, so I stuck them on and then collapsed into bed just after 9pm.
Day 5 Stats:
Distance: 18.5 miles
Total Ascent: 619m
Total Descent: 698m
Time taken: 8.5 hours
SMR (Stile-to-Mile Ratio): 1.89
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