Shap to Kirkby Stephen

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Longest day so far and an anxious Ellis from the night before.

Up early again for an 8am breakfast (it’s nice being able to have a guilt free full English - apparently we actually need the calories!!). Ellis still feeling nervous about having to cover the furthest distance so far - over 20 miles in a single day.

Noisy start with the first bridge over the train line and then the second bridge over the M6. But soon managed to put those behind us within a few miles. By mile 6 however we could still see the M6, and I wasn’t sure that we should have been able to. Yep - we’d taken a slight detour (or, in layman’s terms - got lost). iPhone and Google maps to the rescue we set a corrective course and headed to Orton.

What a stroke of genius that was!! Firstly tea and cake in the local cafe was delightful, but the best was yet to come - Orton has itself its ver own chocolate factory which has a very strong Ellis magnet somewhere in its core, which pulled us in. A bag of chocolate bars (no, we haven’t eaten them all yet) and two amazing ice creams later we were back on our way.

Rejoining the route just out of town we headed across countryside to Sunbiggin. Not a lot to see there, but just liked the name.

We continued with some feet reparation (love Compeed), together with SIS energy gel, and pushed on to the 18 mile mark where we broke our longest walk ever record.

We eventually made Kirkby Stephen in just over 7 hours at a distance of 19.6 miles. The day then through up its last surprise - Ellis wasn’t content with 19.6 miles, so made us walk around the town until the magic 20 mile distance was achieved.

Ellis had obviously enjoyed the day and truth be told it was our easiest day so far. No monster climbs and gritty descents made for a reasonably (although still long) nice walk.

Bring on tomorrow!!!!

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