Finn and Susan’s big adventure – Day 3, 4 and 5 – Tuesday 18, Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 May 2010 – odds and sods and aborted walks

After spending a couple of days chilling out; ferrying injured parties and baggage between B&Bs; a quick stop in Keswick for spare tent pegs; visiting local waterfalls in Ullswater; an unscheduled amble on the Coast to Coast to check on the boys’ progress; and finally moving campsite back to Newby near Appleby, Finn and I were psyched up and ready to continue the Pennine Way – a sixteen mile climb over Cross Fell, the highest point in the Pennines. Sadly, the weather had other plans …

We left Dufton at seven thirty this morning to climb seven hundred metres to the top of Cross Fell before heading downhill to the village of Garrigill, our scheduled end point. The mist had been really low from the start but I was ever hopeful of it clearing away to give us some amazing views from the fell tops.

However, after two hours of walking, the mist was thicker than ever, to the point we lost the path. My guidebook said the path is pretty indistinct anyway and we needed to follow the cairns as our path indicators. Unfortunately, the mist was so thick and low that there were no cairns to be seen. I thought we should sit and wait it out for a while to see if it cleared but twenty minutes later decided to call it a day and abort the walk. I was getting cold and, to be fair, we could have sat another hour and it still might not have cleared. We then had a very grumpy trek back down to Dufton – we’d walked eight miles, just to get back to the beginning.

Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t allow for me to do this day during this holiday so I need to plan to come back up again for this section – oh, what a hardship!

Back at the campsite, I had a home made (with a little help from the Co-op!) cream tea and gave Finn a bath, before heading back to meet Dastardly and Muttley at Kirkby Stephen. So then followed the fourth hysterical evening in a row with the boys, mainly at their expense of course! Their walking style at the end of the day was a cross between a Julian Clary mince and a John Wayne swagger. Now, although I’ve been unofficial support duty over the week, I feel my involvement tonight went above and beyond the call of duty … while Tristan was showering and Steve was having tea and cake with the other B&B residents, guess who was in the laundrette washing their smalls?!!!! (One, who shall remain nameless, actually stuck all his teeshirts in the wash, so had to go out for dinner in his pyjama top – priceless!) Although I DID get another dinner out of it – and am planning on getting loads more mileage out of this favour too!!