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I was woken through the night to the sound of heavy rain and it hadn’t subsided at all by breakfast time. I also got quite a shock when I saw that not only was my ankle, foot and lower leg still swollen but I now had two quite hideous liquid filled blisters around the bee sting area.

The rain was a little unfortunate considering this stage was going to be the longest day walking through the peat bogs as we passed from Cumbria to Yorkshire…The peat bogs certainly lived up to their name! There was a lot of squelching, a lot of mud, a lot of sinking up to your calves and a bit of a struggle negotiating the easiest way through the bog. And then there were the river crossings.  Yesterday, apparently, these rivers were nothing more than a trickle but the overnight deluge had turned them into 3 metre wide torrents of gushing white water. There were 6 of these river crossings which required you to walk up and down the stream looking for the narrowest part, try to measure the depth with your poles (they were all above waist height), throw your bag and poles to the other side and then take a running jump and hope to make it to the other side. I have Dave to thank for catching me on the other side each time whilst Howard filmed each attempt on his camera – I’m sure he was wanting footage for funniest home videos – but we all made it without too much humiliation and just some wet shoes.

We passed the halfway mark and made it to our accommodation in Keld, called Keld Lodge. It had been a terrific adventure so far.

Half way

That’s our path…

Guess we’ll have to jump!

Another one!

Keld Lodge

Bee sting gone bad

Day 7, Kirkby Stephen to Keld