Blogs from Alston, Cumbria, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Last night we’d stopped at Gretna Green to have a break in the long drive home. As we have been to Gretna Green before, we weren’t overly excited at visiting it again. So I looked at the map and decided we should do a detour through the Pennine Way as as far as I recall, I’ve never been there before. The Pennine Way is AONB (Area of National Beauty) and Glyn thinks that’s just bragging. I don’t even agree with it! Yes it is very beautiful but natural? No. The majority of it is farmland and fenced. To my mind natural is rugged, wild and untamed by generations of humans. But that aside, it was pleasant enough and we stopped at Ashgill Force that had a few positive reviews on TripAdvisor. Ashgill Force is a waterfall ... read more

Yesterday is ancient history. Gone are the mist riddled moors of Cross Fell, the rain soaked dales of Knock Pike and the unsighted peaks of Great Dun Fell and Little Dun Fell (6 m height difference and what a difference name wise!) and instead gentle gradients overs well maintained pathways. Sure the gentle gradients go through a heap of fields and yes they were a bit wet taking a toll on Julie’s boots but the biggest obstacle is the fact that just about each fence needs to be crossed using a stile. As such heaps of stiles were the order of the day. They come in all shapes, sizes, configurations and each presents it’s own unique problem. Some are so skinny you pack gets stuck which is a bit embarrassing, some so skinny at the base ... read more

I’m fairly certain we have walked from County Durham into the county of Cumbria. Tomorrow we do walk to Alston and that is Cumbria (how come everyone says Cumbria not County Cumbria but no one says Durham and everyone uses Country Durham?) whilst tonight we are sort of half way. We are actually in Dufton. And the excuse for the lack of blog yesterday. You’ll be surprised to know it has nothing to do with cider or pints of anything. We had walked 37 km so that’s a big day but that too had nothing to do with it. Our accommodation the Langdon Beck Hotel which was really good had very old electrics and Julie’s universal plug was a mystery to the system. The ipad is my camera but it also contains much information that I ... read more