As was becoming habitual, I woke up early needing to go to the loo. I made the loo dash - across particularly muddy fields - at approximately 5.15am, and then re-set my watch for 6.30am and went back to bed. I'd woken on several occasions during the night afraid that the tent might blow down, so strong was the wind, but all was fine by the morning.
Once I'd packed up I moved into the drying room to boil the water for my flask: it was such a warmly comforting place that I could quite happily have stayed there for the rest of the trip :-) I'd eaten two of my three packets of crisps in my sleeping bag the night before, but I left the third on the tumble dryer for some lucky child to find.
I set off for Hawes at 0820, and arrived there at 0840. I was hoping to be able to go round the Museum of Dales Life before setting off for Keld, but at the same time I was anxious not to repeat the mistake I'd made when leaving Hebden Bridge. I got to the Museum just before 9am and saw a man dusting around inside. He came to the door and told me that they weren't opening until 10am, perhaps because it was a Bank Holiday Monday. I decided to get a coffee at the cafe round the corner and have a think about whether I could wait that late - as realistically it would have meant deferring my start until at least 11am - but the cafe was also closed. That was that, really, and so reluctantly I set off for Keld not long after 9am.
I'd spoken on the phone to a friend the night before, when he kindly rang to check whether I was still in one piece. When I'd told him where I was he excitedly told me that I was hardly any distance from the famous Hardraw Force waterfall, behind the Green Dragon pub at Hardraw, behind which Kevin Costner apparently walked naked in "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves"! I remembered "The Bodyguard", and realised I had to go there, so when I got to the Green Dragon I went in and paid my £2 (or maybe it was £1) and spent a few happy minutes staring at where Kevin had been :-)
On the way to the waterfall I passed Stephen packing up his tent on the campsite. It turned out that Dave had already left, and that they'd had a much less comfortable night than me, with the relatively primitive facilities offered to campers by the Green Dragon. Typically, though, they'd paid more for the pitch than I had on a proper campsite.
To top off my happy experience at the waterfall, I stopped at the little cafe just round the corner and over the bridge from the Green Dragon and had filter coffee with a home made veggie burger! It's an excellent place to stop for breakfast :-)
The rain had cleared and the weather was fine, and beatiful views were apparent in every direction from the earliest stages of the walk. The walk went over Great Shunner Fell, and somewhere near the top I encountered three other people apparently walking together. In due course they turned out to be a young Polish couple, who were doing the whole walk, and an American, who was only doing a few days. On the way down the fell I stepped aside to let the Polish couple pass me, as they were clearly faster and were walking right behind me. About 20 minutes later the American walker asked whether I would mind if he also passed me: I've never encountered such courtesy in the hills :-) Naturally I didn't mind at all, and I continued at my own pace. Not more than 30 minutes later, though, I passed all three of them again, as they'd stopped for a break to take photographs. It looked as though they were having a lot of fun :-)
Not too long after that the path began to get down towards Thwaite. It had been very difficult for quite some time: someone had spread a load of new rubble across the path, but it was full of large stones - possibly too large to be assimilated - and it was necessary once again to be careful with every step, in order to avoid the possiblity of a twisted or broken ankle.
I sat down to take a picture of the path ahead...
...and as I finished the American came past again and we walked together down to Thwaite. He turned out to be Aaron, a professor of political science at an American University, an interesting and amusing bloke whom I liked immediately.
Down in Thwaite there seemed to be a gathering of PW walkers - Stephen, Dave and the Polish couple were there, as well as Aaron and me - and we all basked in the hot sunshine outside a shop which served teas and coffees and various sorts of cakey, yummy things. I ordered a Wensleydale Tea, which was a large pot of tea with a large, thick slice of delicious fruit cake and a cool, moist slab of creamy Wensleydale cheese. It was a delectable combination, but I only managed to eat about half of it - which was probably a good thing - because a couple of feral hens arrived to beg for scraps. One of them was after more than scraps, and in fact it atually hopped up and took a piece of cake from my plate! I didn't mind, though, and guiltily felt that there was more than just a hint of irony to the situation...
After 10 minutes or so, Aaron and the Polish couple moved on, as they were planning to be at Tan Hill that night. The rest of us hung around for another 10 minutes or so, and then set out to walk the last few miles to Keld. The climb out of Thwaite up to Kisdon Hill was extremely steep, but enormously beautiful and satisfying.
Stephen and I saw women turning the hay by hand as we passed through the meadows, and it seems possible that the scene wouldn't have looked very much different a hundred years or so ago.
Having once got up Kisdon Hill, it seemed virtually impossible to get down again.
The walk seemed to go on and on forever, and it was about 5.30pm by the time I realised that I really needed to get a bit of a move on. Discussions earlier in the day had revealed that there were vacancies at the Youth Hostel in Keld - apparently a block booking had cancelled due to the appalling weather - and that had come as very welcome news to me because I'd been unable to find a B and B but was reluctant to camp, as previous visits to Keld had taught me that it was absolutely crawling with vicious midgies at night.
It's necessary to get to the YHA before 6pm in order to put in a dinner order, and despite my earlier cheese and cake at Thwaite I definitely didn't want to miss dinner. Amazingly, the prospect of missing it energised me to such a degree that I actually found the energy to do up all the straps on my pack as tight as possible and then run down the hillside! I ran so fast when I got to the bottom of the hill that it was some time before I realised that I'd run over the river and right past Keld, at which stage I had to make an embarrassing U turn and run back again in the other direction. I got to the Youth Hostel in time to order dinner, but it was a very close run thing :-)
I had a large room to myself at the YHA, with a proper bed i.e. not a bunk. I had some time in hand before dinner, and so decided to unpack the entire contents of my rucksack and take a piccy. Anyone who wonders what all this stuff is can read all about it on the kit page :-)
After a shower it was time for dinner, which was most impressive and far better than I'd expected it to be in a Youth Hostel. I had nut roast - not something I've ever eaten before - with chips, and it really was delicious! After that there was apple crumble with custard, and - for those who wanted it - there had been soup to begin with.
After dinner Stephen, Dave and I sat in the common room downstairs, and chatted with a most interesting elderly man who was staying at the hostel for a couple of days for the fishing. He and his family had lived in Swaledale for 30 years, but they'd moved back to London some years earlier for various reasons. He'd driven up from London that morning, and had already caught 3 trout earlier in the day. He'd put 2 back and cooked the other one for dinner, and was planning a second day's fishing in the morning. I think he said he was 80 something...
It wasn't late when I got up to bed. I used my sleeping bag, and found it far too hot. Still, it was luxury not to be sleeping on the Thermarest, so I just undid all the vents at the side, turned over and went back to sleep again.
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