97 Miles Down - 95 Miles Left to Go

Keld to Reeth, 11 miles

We had a lovely night in our private yurt. The rain lulled us right to sleep.

Before departing this morning, I inundated our host with questions about the yurt. Here’s what I learned: He bought them from a company that imports direct from Mongolia. He replaces the canvas exterior every couple of years at a cost of 600£. Initially, he wasn’t licensed to keep them up year round, so he would have to disassemble and stow all 5 yurts at the end of every year. It takes him roughly a day to reassemble each one.

Enough about the yurts…

We had a few choices for our walk today, the high road, the low road, or the way low road. Most of our trail companions chose the former two, but we chose the way low road, as it took us past Muker.

According to our guide book, Muker was one of James Harriot’s favorite villages in the Dales. Once there, it’s easy to see why. It’s a quaint village nestled in a river valley with winding streets and tightly packed stone houses. They had a great art gallery and a brewery that we were tempted to try (but it was only 10:15, and we had a full day’s stroll ahead of us).

We continued along our path for the day which followed the River Swale and passed through several small villages. We stopped at a tea room in Gunnerside for cream tea and visited with some lovely locals.

With a full belly and a beautiful afternoon in front of us, we slowed down our pace and enjoyed birding along the river. It’s probably a good thing I can’t identify species in the Dales, or I’d proudly be boring readers with the list of everything we saw. The birds were abundant!

Over the entire trip, we’ve passed through countless narrow stiles between fields to keep the livestock from passing from field to field . On today’s trek, the stiles were laughably narrow and we sometimes found ourselves struggling to even get our boot width through (even Bob struggled to get his hips through a couple!).

Today‘s trail also led us ON TOP of a rock wall. It started just a few feet off the ground and quickly reached ~6 ft. It extended for several hundred yards. Although it wasn’t terribly high, some of the rock slabs were slick and a bit wobbly. We made it across without any problems, but we did seem to confuse the lambs that were napping next to the wall.

We waited out a rainstorm in a small forest before making our way to Reeth by late afternoon. Just in time for a pint! We’re staying at an inn just above a pub (built in 1734).

After dinner we pub hopped to swap tales of the day with other trekkers we’ve met along the way. Visiting with Trail Friends is my favorite part of the day.

Check out Day 8 gallery if you want to see more pics.

Good night!