Day five was supposed to be our first easy day. Only eight to nine miles to get in to Orton. Some hikers do a hard push and walk to Kirkby Stephen from Shap, but we needed an easy day after getting through the Lake District.
As I said yesterday, the next two days were not in any national park. Instead, these were transition days, making our way to the beginning of the Yorkshire Dales.
We woke to rain. Not the light, misty rain we experienced the day of the dog (it will forever be known to us as “the day of the dog”). No, this was rain… good, steady rain. And woo boy, I was cranky this morning. Ron snored loudly ALL NIGHT LONG. ALL. NIGHT. LONG. I was bloody exhausted and crabby. I needed coffee, a ton of it. IV hooked up and pumped into my veins.
With coffee in flow, I chilled out and was ready to get to our next stop. Leaving the inn, the map shows the path taking you down the main street of Shap, but the innkeep told us how we could cut through the neighborhood across the street and catch up to a right of way that would connect us to the path after it had left the main street.
Right of ways… I suppose I should speak about those. The UK and Ireland are awesome in that almost all properties are right of ways, which means you can walk through them. Ron and I had a really cool hike in Ireland. We went to Dingle to spread my step-dad’s ashes, and in the B&B, Ron read through one of their books and discovered this trail that hugged the coast around the northwest part of Dingle peninsula. We walked through three or four different properties and discovered ruins at the top, not another soul in sight.
But, back to this hike. Much of the hike across England you are actually walking through someone’s property. And I’ll say this, because it really pissed me off, a lot of dickhead hikers litter along the entire trail. Everyday I was filling my pockets with other people’s trash. If you hike across England, don’t ruin it for everyone else. Respect the landowner. Pick up after yourself, cause your mother isn’t there to wipe your ass. And again, reduce plastic use! Bring a reusable bottle and decline the water bottle the B&B’s will offer you!
Okay, lecture/rant over… so, today was all right of ways. Leaving Shap, we walked through several sheep pastures. The rain was coming down steadily and much of the path was mud. In some areas, we could get around it. In others, we didn’t even bother. After the day of the dog, we weren’t going to dick around finding a path that kept us dry and clean. We already knew, that was not going to happen on this day.
The first few pastures were divided by old, stone walls. Some had wooden steps built over them, while others, the steps were made with stones jutting out from the wall. Those ones were a bit more precarious because they were slick.
We arrived at a bridge that took us over the M6, cars racing by below us. We stopped and watched them for a bit… each day, we left our inn or B&B and ventured off into nature, rarely encountering anyone else. Some days, like this day, we didn’t see another person the entire hike. Seeing cars zooming below us, we reflected on how removed we were from “normal” life. It reminded us of how fantastic this trip was and the uniqueness of the experience. We were seeing the heart of the country, and each evening, we were experiencing the culture of each community we visited, talking to locals at the pub and getting to know our B&B hosts.
We finished crossing the bridge, leaving the M6 and real life behind us. The terrain before us was rugged, rolling hills and mud pits, lots and lots of mud pits.
Before us was a small field of grass with a house off to our left. The grass was mown in a large cross, with four squares left uncut. A sign in front of us pointed left and said “go around.” I looked past the grass and saw that the path picked up immediately after. “I’m not going around” I said, with a touch of disdain. Ron chose to obey the sign. Strutting along, halfway through, yet again, squelch, my leg fell into a bog up to my thigh. Ahhhh, that’s why I was supposed to go around 🙄🤦🏻♀️. Ron met up with me with a laugh.
The next few miles was easy sailing, just wet and muddy. On the map, Robin Hood’s Grave is noted, so once we got to that area, we walked back and forth trying to find it. We never did find it. But, as we stared at the map, we realized we could skip a few miles by taking a right of way directly south from just about where Robin Hood’s Grave was allegedly located (turns out, there are a lot of Robin Hood graves across England).
A mile or two down, we say a sign for Orton, leading us through more pastures. We could see the town in the distance with the church steeple rising up to guide us. We had only walked about six miles and were soaked. Head to toe, sopping, dripping wet.
We entered a field with a herd of black cows in the distance. We kept strolling toward them, as this seemed to be the most direct path toward town. As we got closer, though, I noticed one of them had a metal plate in its septum, designating it as a bull. I stopped, turned around, and told Ron, “there’s a bull, we need to go the other way.”
This pasture was shaped in an ell, where we had entered almost in the corner of that ell heading straight across. So when we turned around, we went right to head toward the road. We kept an eye on the herd of cows, which had started moving toward us. As we were a third of the way down, we looked back and saw that they had gone straight toward the area we had entered.
Ron kept looking back until I said, “They stopped! They’re not coming after us!” I was all sorts of wrong that day. We got to the gate, which we opened and slipped through. As we turned around to shut the gate, the herd of cows was feet away. They had started coming at us, and we hadn’t even realized it.
I have no idea if they were charging us, chasing us, or were curious about us. I may have had an idea if I hadn’t told Ron to stop looking behind us! But, at the same time, I’m kind of glad we didn’t know that they had started coming toward us because we would have spooked. Who knows if they would have charged us if we started to run?
We later read that if a bull charges you, you can try to run and jump the wall/fence/gate, or, with your walking stick, give it a hard whack to the nose. Sometimes, the bull will charge again and you’ll have to whack it another time. Eventually the bull will tire and leave you alone to escape.
I will take a moment now, though, to warn about cows. Bulls can be territorial, but you aren’t likely to encounter them. On the other hand, you will encounter a lot of cows, and many pastures, the cows have their babies. These cows are very protective and they will charge you. If you bring a dog with you, they will feel more threatened. If you have a dog and cows start to charge you, let go of the dog’s lead. The cows will likely go after your dog, but your dog will be fast enough to escape while you can also escape.
I recently read an article about how a man died in the Yorkshire Dales this summer by a cow stampede. His wife was injured from the encounter. The article noted that cows are considered the most dangerous animal in the UK, and 18 people have died from them over the past two years. Note though, 17 of those 18 had dogs. And dog owners that don’t know better don’t release the lead.
Give cows with babies a wide berth. Make sure they aren’t trapped between you and the fence/wall. We had another interesting experience with cows, but that tale will come later.
We arrived totally drenched at the inn, but the manager was fantastic. She had us strip off most of our clothes and boots in the entrance, which she hung up in the boiler room. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a proper drying room, but she did her best to get our stuff as dry as possible by the next morning. She took it in stride the huge puddle we left on the floor. She was by far the hardest working individual we encountered on the entire trip, working late into the night and arriving back to open the next morning.
Having arrived shortly before 2PM, we were able to grab a warm lunch and take a luxurious nap! The next day would prove to be another hike that was longer than anticipated. But for now, we reveled in the short, easy hike, even though we had gotten utterly drenched. And, we now had the newfound knowledge that bulls are designated with nose plates in England!
Til tomorrow 👋🏻
Missed any days? Check out my Coast to Coast blog for the rest of our two week adventure across England.
