The Great Pennine Way Adventure – Day 8 – Tuesday 11 August 2009 – Hawes to Keld - 12 miles

It was tough to get going today – we had to leave our lovely cottage for a start, but, after a leisurely breakfast of boiled egg and soldiers, and a pot of Yorkshire tea, followed by our usual car shenanigans, we were finally walking at 11.30 am.

We did all the climbing this morning and all the descending this afternoon. Andy’s feet were causing him some grief and he got quite ratty with me. It’s a tough call between telling someone we’re going uphill when maybe they don’t want to hear it and trying to soften it by pretending you don’t know how far you have to climb. Needless to say I heard a few mutterings behind me of “You’re a bad woman, Susan Long” and “fancy being beaten by a girl”.

Great Shunner Fell was a really tough climb and it was blowing a gale at the top. The trig point is in a stone shelter but it still didn’t stop the wind from biting – for only the second time this holiday I had my waterproof on – still all downhill to the tearoom was our battle cry!

As we trotted downhill to Thwaite and the café, Andy said he really couldn’t carry on with his blisters, so after a coffee each, I left him chatting to a couple of ladies and their Schnauzer dogs who have a cottage in Lewes so walk the south downs a lot and I headed by road to Keld with the couple we’d met at the trig point and who were quite inappropriately dressed in corduroy! (I really need to stop being so sniffy about other people’s attire!)

As luck would have it, the tearooms and pub (next door to each other) were owned by the same people and linked by a corridor so, when I got back to the tearooms for Andy, and couldn’t find him, it didn’t take me long to track him down! He was having a beer with a local gamekeeper who’s getting ready for the grouse shoot tomorrow. The glorious 12th. Mmmmm, and our route tomorrow goes through the middle of the UK’s biggest grouse moor. Argh! There’ll be eight gamekeepers, sixty beaters and hordes of invited guests for the shooting – think we may need to change our walking plans!