Day six
Shap to Kirkby Stephen
19.8 miles
Dep 0920
Arrive 1835

My first waking thoughts were that I had gone to sleep in the middle of a children's playground. Looking out the tent though I found it was the landladies daughter (7) doing laps round the garden under instruction - 5 more and she was then allowed to come in, her exercise for the morning done.

The nights sleep wasn't too bad despite all the rain though my thermarest repair had not as successfully as I'd hoped. Another slow puncture only became evident once it had 14 stone lying on it do another repair attempt would be needed on the evening.

Tent was packed away pretty sharpish in the wet, but then took advantage of the pub lounge and spread my kit out everywhere while I got myself sorted, and got away with only passing unimpressed look from the landlady. Kit sorted though it was on with wet boots, fortunately I had dry pair of socks for the day to a least make the first hour slightly warm . I was now mentally prepared for another wet and dreary day and as it was going to be the longest so far I was hoping I would find a fellow to walker to share the walk with.

This section of the walk is often commented on as being the full section as it basically bridges the gap between national parks and so seen as a bit featureless but I found it quite interesting and overall l really enjoyed the day.

It started off a bit bleak and industrial in the rain with the crossing of the M6 and industrial sites, but the views soon became lovely though wet.

About 45 mins on though the clouds suddenly cleared and the sun came out. All of a sudden the grass looked green instead of grey and was suddenly lighter on my feet, and even managed a couple of sunbathing stops.

Today held quite a lot of points of interest such as robin hoods grave and the point where Charles II stopped to water his army on the way to mix it up with Cromwell. Sadly I was in such power walking mode I kept reading about them in the guidebook 20 mins after I had passed the points and wasn't prepared to walk back that far.

Not long after I had just realised robin was supposedly buried 1km behind me I met a man and niece moving up very quickly behind me. I stayed with them for a little while before differing food needs sent us our separate ways. They powered on the path whereas I slipped off the route for some food at the chocolatiers in Orton and some sun basking.

After lunch I was back on the path and upon hitting the main track met Aussie boys again, and they became company for the rest of the day.

We had a number of challenges: having to skirt round the aggressive Bullock in the field, fearless cows, immovable cows, and a very wet lunch stop when the weather turned on us suddenly. Made the 9 hour walk go much quicker as we had a good laugh along the way.

The final stretch into Kirkby Stephen was nice and pleasant though pastures and then in though the back of town before popping out on the high street where I said goodbye to my companions for the day. My first stop was the co-op to calorie load as my cheese toastie had been used up a couple of hours before.

The Hostel for the evening was a converted church. Looked very nice the from outside.
As a walked in the door I Met Eloise again who had been on a rest day today. Her first words were leave now! Apparently it was the worst hostel ever - no heating, no staff, no organisation and a scary owner who was rarely there. I had no choice though, money had already been paid. The hostel was pretty poor though and I was also told the cooked breakfast I had paid for would be at 7 or not at all because the cook had another job to get to, so early start for me.

That evening I met steve, an excitable manchester native who had to be convinced to carry on after a 12 hour day in the rain, getting slightly lost and also and failing over and braking his glasses. He would become one of our group for the moors on the next day so hopefully he wouldn't get lost again.

Short day tomorrow at only 11 miles to keld so will hopefully be in by 1500.