Day Five - Shap to Orton - 28 April

Time Departed: 10.30am Time Arrived: 3.30pm Distance: 13kms Weather: Sunny and chilly Accommodation: Mostyns B&B Yesterday was the first time that Henk and I have had an ensuite in our room since leaving St Bees. We took the opportunity to catch up with our washing. I did the washing machine part in the bathtub and Henk did the rinsing in the basin. There were two large oil heaters in the room and we managed to dry our the clothes very quickly. When we came to breakfast this morning we had mostly clean walking clothes on.

Chris, however, outdid us and won the fashion stakes looking very smart in Plus Fours. We were in no rush today as we only had to do thirteen kilometres. We wandered down the very long main street of Shap calling into the Co-op to buy lunch and try and get some cash as we were running very low. We had planned to take out extra cash from the one and only ATM in Gracemere but the ATM was in the Post Office and it shuts every Thursday afternoon. We tried to get cash at the Shap Co-op but our cards didn’t work so we paid for our lunch with a credit card. Fortunately, Henk found an ATM in Orton and we are solvent again.

As we strolled down the main street of Shap we came across an old market hall which is over three hundred years old. This is probably the only redeeming feature of Shap. Moving on from Shap we firstly had to cross the very busy M6 using an overhead foot bridge. This is the main motorway between Manchester and Glasgow. After an hour of walking we had morning tea sitting on limestone rocks overlooking Oddendale which is a small farming hamlet hidden in trees.

We could see Kidsty Pike in the far off distance and it was hard to believe that we had walked so far in one day. Further around we could see High Cup Nick which is very dramatic from the top. Ron, Henk and I walked around the top of this three years ago. From Oddendale we had to do a bit of walking through peat and heather before getting onto a wide, green path. We had another break at one thirty near a plantation and we enjoyed sitting in the sun. We slowly made our way to Orton.

We passed a stone built lime kiln in a farmer’s field on the path down into Orton. The kilns were used to burn the locally quarried stone to provide fertiliser to enrich the land, mortar and whitewash for the traditional buildings. Alfred Wainwright the man behind the coast to coast walk described Orton as “enjoying a quiet rural life in a setting of unique charm and ranks amongst the loveliest villages in the country.”

As we walked through the village to our B&B we could see it was indeed very pretty with stone-walled buildings, daffodils growing everywhere and a pretty little stream flowing through it. After we settled in Neil, Henk and I braved the cold and toured the little village. It has only one post office/shop, a pub and curiously a very popular chocolate shop. We ventured into the shop and tried a few chocolates.

They were divine! We are now between the Lakes District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks. Tomorrow night we will be at Kirkby Stephen and then we have a rest day but we first have to contend with tomorrow’s weather which is looking dire.