Day 5 - Patterdale to Shap - 16 miles

Kidsty Pike from our room in Shap

This morning we start out in rain…gentle rain but rain gear is in order. Walking out of Patterdale  we hope it's going to be level walking for a while. Er, no. We immediately start climbing into the mist and rain. We walk up and up and it's windy and at times the path is maybe a foot wide and to the right many feet down. Fortunately for us the wind is blowing us against the fell side and not off.  We've passed a lot of young people coming off the hill and all have been camping at Angle Tarn,where we joked we would go skinny dipping. Ha. The wind is starting to pick up even more  and there are two groups of Duke of Edinburgh Award students on either side of the tarn looking wet and miserable.

Just a brief aside….lots of things are hurting…knees, calves, underside of toes…but still we march on happily.

We also ran into the two American women again last night and found out the Margie, the Texan who trained by walking in her local mall, quit after day one and is being ferried from town to town via the baggage van. Deborah, the woman from Colorado has been walking with other Americans and seems to be enjoying herself. So that mystery is solved!

Angle Tarn - rain stops and rainbow appears. A magical spot.

Steep climb down from Kidsty Pike

We keep on climbing up and up then up some more looking out over the fells to a Roman road called High Street and eventually up to the highest point in our walk, Kidsty Pike.

On top of Kidsty Pike

We don't linger too long as we still have a long way to go and it's been hard going.
We know the descent is going to be tough and it is.
Then there's a long walk along Haweswater Reservoir of about 3 miles. 

Steep climb down from Kidsty Pike

Haweswater Reservoir


We finally stagger into Shap after walking for about elven hours and we are so beat we decide to just buy stuff to eat in our room which turns out to be a good plan as Brookfield House, our B&B, is at the other end of the mile long village of Shap. We trudge along  and finally arrive.
This has definitely been  the hardest day so far but we made it!

Looking back on Kidsty Pike, in centre of photo, from Shap