Day 49 – Tuesday, July 19, 2011 – Keld to Bowes, 12 miles

Keith

Keith, a local game keeper for the Miller Estate, offered to drive me to Keld this morning. Not only didn’t I have to repeat the three miles I had walked yesterday, but I saved over an hour of time. Keith’s offer is one more example of Brits helping me along on my walk. As a result, Alec, James and I all started together from Keld.

Kisdon Force

Today was the first day in a long time we didn’t have any rain. There were heavy clouds overhead, and we were threatened with rain several times, enough to cause us to don our rain jackets, but the rain never materialized.

Our route took us up over Stonesdale Moor in a continuous ascent until we reached Tan Hill, Britain’s highest inn. Erik had stayed there last night, and we missed him by about 20 minutes today, as the innkeeper drove him to a train station. Beyond Tan Hill, the moor is reputed to be very wet and boggy, even on dry days. Knowing that following the Pennine Way through that area today would be very unpleasant, we opted to follow the road for a short distance to a track that avoided the boggiest part and joined the Pennine Way later on.

Proceeding down the track, we came upon more than two dozen parked cars. Because we weren’t in California, we knew it wasn’t a major drug deal, but the reason for so many cars parked in the middle of nowhere was perplexing.

Naturally, we asked the first person we came upon. Again, we weren’t California, so he didn’t shoot us. In fact, all of those folks had been out training their hunting dogs. Unfortunately, we arrived too late for the show, but the object of their training is for the dogs to stealthily move through the heather, and then point to a grouse. When the hunter gives the signal, the dog is supposed to flush the grouse, whereupon the hunter tries to shoot it. Hunting season doesn’t start until August 12, so thankfully there was no shooting going on – because we would have been in the line of fire.. Still, it would have been fun watching the dogs go through their lessons.



Bowes castle

At a fork in the trail, Alec had to leave us to conduct some personal business in Kendal, and James and I continued to Bowes. Tomorrow, James and I will walk together to Middleton-in-Teesdale, where George and Ann will pick me up. I’m really looking forward to seeing them again.



A sign can't deter me



© 2011 Ken Klug