Day 9

Day 9:  Keld to Reeth.  About 25 km.  155m up and 265m down.  Hundreds of stone barns and dozens of gap stiles.  

What a difference a day makes!  A really beautiful walk today and, more importantly, a very dry walk today.  We are firmly in the Yorkshire Dales now, and while I really can't tell you exactly what a "dale" is, I quite like them.  Apparently this is James Herriott country.  

The weather was wonderful for walking today.  Warm, but not hot.  Overcast but just a spot of rain.  We took a detour off the Coast to Coast path for the first 5km or so of our walk.  We joined the Pennine Way trail between Keld and Thwaite, gained a little elevation, and had fantastic views over the river valley and the low-level trail that most walkers were taking today.  They all looked like little ants down there.  We had lots of "gap stiles" to go through today - breaks in the stone walls, usually elevated, with spring-hinged picket gates on them.  Even the skinniest of us found some of them a tight squeeze.  It would have been interesting to see a really large person try to get through one.  And as well as we've been eating, I'm surprised I didn't get stuck in one!  Buttercups (I'm guessing) throughout the fields made for stunning views down over the lands below.  

Thwaite was a quaint little village, but we didn't spend much time there before heading east towards Muker.  We saw some yellow bikes (or more often bikes painted all yellow) in every town we stopped at today - Thwaite, Muker, Gunnerside and Reeth.  Turns out the Tour de France is going through here on July 5th and the locals are very excited about that.  We may have to see if any shops selling swag are open before we leave town in the morning.  Muker was a lovely little village - tea shop, village store and woollens shop.  We sat on a park bench for quite a while, having a snack and watching dozens of cyclists spin by.  Apparently there is some kind of charity ride today which following the Tour route.  Then off by the Swale River to the next town - Gunnerside - where we stopped for lunch at a tea shop there.  We (more or less) followed the river right into Reeth.  Along the way we passed through field after field full of buttercups, sheep and some cows, always with stone barns or homes in the background.  Just a really pretty day.  Particularly on the second half of the walk there were many, many bunny rabbits running around and diving down their holes as we approached.  You can certainly see where Beatrix Potter got her Peter Cottontail prototype from.  

Well, that was supposed one of our shorter days.  With our detour onto the Pennine Way, watching cyclists, stopping for tea and lunch, etc. etc., it was around 6 by the time we arrived at the Buck Hotel in Reeth.  The usual evening routine and soon another day of walking will be upon us!