Patterdale to Shap

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That’s the Lake District National Park done and dusted.

Over 17 miles today saw us complete the trek through the Lake District - and hopefully the monster climbs are now all done.

Baptism of fire this morning after a nice breakfast. Crossed a very lovely unassuming bridge and through a non-descript gate and into the realm of climb hell. Over 3 hours going up to a peak of 780m - but climbing more than 1,000m with the slight down relief - and covering only 5 miles. Legs burning and feet sore we eventually made it to the top. The highlight was definitely turning a corner on the way up to see Angel Tarn - absolutely beautiful and stunning.

The guide said there was a steep descent to the reservoir, it didn’t say you needed to bring your climbing ropes and get ready to abseil down. It was tougher going up, but only just. Almost made it one piece, until Ellis slipped a bit at the end and broke one of his poles into two and bent the other - so there went my walking poles…..

Then a nice level walk along the bank of the reservoir - I missed the note in the guidebook that said “annoyingly steep climb”. Unfortunately we couldn’t miss the climb itself and had another struggle up again. The rest of the 3 hour walk along the bank was actually quite nice and reminded us of Borneo trekking through the ferns.

Got to the end of the water and only another 4 or so miles to go. Completely different terrain meant we had left the Lake District, and through farmland we went.

We eventually got to the Shap town sign and had made it!!!! Except we hadn’t - the high street in Shap (a town of max 3 people and a dog) is about 1km long and our home, the Kings Arms, was right at the other end. Ellis was not best pleased.

A steak and ale pie for Ellis’ dinner put a smile back on his face. Off to bed to get ready for the 20.5 mile “recovery day” walk tomorrow.

Night night.

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