River Deep, Mountain High

After a good 12 hour kip (and a good session of teeth grinding according to Leonie), I ordered the full monty at breakfast and we were ready to go by 9.30am. We had opened the curtains when we woke to be greeted by the sight of rain which I must admit didn't do anything to improve my spirits. As I put on my still wet walking boots, I was grateful that today was only 8.5 miles and should in theory only take us 5 hours. I say, in theory, because yesterday's 8 mile walk from Rosthwaite to Grasmere took us 6 hours walking time.

We headed out of Grasmere and up Tongue Gill. We then went up and over Grisedale Pass to Grisdale Tarn. The rain was unrelenting and as we reached the top of the Pass, the wind got worse and worse (no jokes about me eating too many beans for breakfast please). At Grisedale Tarn there are 3 possible routes which you can take and we would have probably taken the easiest route anyway. The awful weather conditions however made our minds up for us. As we passed Grisedale Tarn, the water resembled the North Sea rather than a usually sedate area of water. The wind was by now gale force and Leonie simply plonked herself on a rock and dug her walking pole into the ground at one point to avoid being blown off her feet. I climbed Snowdon a couple of months ago when the weather was horrendous but I would say that today was even worse.

Despite being soaked to the bone, I remained surprisingly upbeat. I think I have now got to the point where I'm past caring what the weather is like. The walk down Grisedale Pass into Patterdale got easier as we got lower, although the rain didn't ease up.

We arrived at our b&b at about 2.30pm and although our luggage hadn't arrived, our landlord Ian kindly helped us out of our clothes (not literally you understand) and showed us to our room where we donned our bath robes, had a well deserved brew and a nice afternoon kip!!

Our bags arrived about 5pm and after a much needed hot shower, we headed down to the local pub for something to eat. A little C2C community has now developed and we again met up with the now familiar faces who we have seen throughout the days and nights since we started. It was good to catch up on how others have found the last couple of days. There's a definite C2C 'community ethos' amongst Coast to Coasters.

We then headed back to the b&b and had a great chat with Ian, the landlord. He told us all about the history of the house, about how Patterdale was the first place in he country after the Houses of Parliament to have electricity,how there are two Coast to Coasts (and how Wainwright ripped the original one off when doing his) and how he fell off a mountain in America, caused a landslide, broke both his wrist and leg and was rescued by a man with no arms who used his toes to phone for help!!! I've seen the newspaper article and it's true! I've only just stopped laughing now.

Early night tonight with breakfast ordered for 7.15am. We head to Shap tomorrow, which is a 15 miler and a tough day apparently.

Many thanks for all the texts of support. I have amended the settings on the Blog so you should be able to post comments now - any rude or insulting messages should be sent by text instead though!!!