The guide book does say this is the longest and toughest day on the Pennine way and these hills do hold the English records for bad weather. But I do think he went a little overboard and insisted we call him once off the hills and descending. If we didn't call he would call out the mountain search and rescue. Scary. I was more nervous about not having a cell phone signal to make that all important call.
Did we have good navigational skills? We assured him that we did.
We left the B&B and about 20 yards away, within full view of our concerned landlord, took the wrong path. We had to back track and nipped quickly around the corner in a hope that he had not seen us. At this point he was probably already on the phone to the search and rescue.
Once back on the Pennine way we confidently made our way up the long ascent to Great Dun Fell and then across broad sweeping plateaus to Cross Fell (i may have said this before but this is most definitely THE highest point on the pennine way - 893m)
And of course the weather was atrocious.
Torrential rain and thick clag (northern for mist). Visibility once more terrible and it became a wonderful exercise in navigation and I really enjoyed putting my new found compass skills to test. But also glad Mick was with me!
From out of the clag, two shapes in the form of wet Englishmen, descended and headed towards us.
It was Mick that initiated the typical English greeting:
"A good day for it, isn't it"
And the reply:
" Yes comes and goes....old chap, what what"
And they disappeared back into the clag.
Unable to break because of the weather (that hadn't "gone" at all but had been full on), we were happy to reach Greg's bothy (hut) to stop for a limp cheese sandwich, a YHA left over. Soaking wet from my non waterproofs and freezing cold, I layered on all the dry stuff I could find.
The door swung open and in walked Mr Dry as he is known to us now. I couldn't initially figure out why he looked so strange but then it registered. He was bone dry, clean, sporting a pair of binoculars around his neck and looking as though he had been on an afternoon stroll of bird spotting.
How could he have possibly been in the same weather as us? So unable to resist, I asked.
He proudly whispered as if letting me into a big secret, that he used a small umbrella. Oh, I said as if it explained it all, but could not for the life of me figure out how that had kept him so immaculate and in all that wind and wildness.
Will you be stopping the night here asked Mr Dry? As if we were in a plausible establishment.
I looked around at the cold, wet floors of the primitive rock bothy and could not imagine staying any longer than completely necessary in this dark place. Spend the night? Was he nuts?
Mr Dry then mysteriously disappeared.
As we left to once more brave the elements outside of the bothy, we both agreed that had been incredibly strange. Had Mr Dry been an apparition? Could he have been Greg?
It was a massively long ascent into Garrigill on a boring, hard track and we were so looking forward to the pub.
On arrival, the George and Dragon was all boarded up and horribly closed. But oddly enough and as unbelievable as this may sound, in the middle of a small roundabout in the centre of the village was a barrel of beer and hand pump. A couple of the villagers were pulling pints and offering us a glass to join in. More locals began to show at the pump, filled their sundry of containers with free beer and merrily sat on the roundabout in defiance of the closed pub.
We did remember that phone call to Ray in Dufton. I left a message to say we were down safely, so I hope that search and rescue are not out looking for us now....hic!
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This is my favorite day yet.
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