Coast-to-Coast Day 8

Kirkby Stephen-Keld (10 miles, 5.5 hours). Over the the last week, we have picked up where we left off in 2016, and started to tackle the Eastern section of the Wainwright Coast-to-Coast walk.  We stayed with our friend Sarah in Nateby on the outskirts of Kirkby Stephen, and set off from her house with a fairly poor weather forecast. In view of this (and one or two minor ailments), we decided not to tackle the tough walk over Nine Standards Rigg, but walked on the B6270 road towards Keld, then joining the 'green' bad weather (December-April)  route off Nine Standards to drop down to the farm at Ravenseat. This was a good decision, as there was driving rain, mist and  high winds above about 400 metres, so tackling the high route (and the notoriously boggy paths off the Nine Standards summit) would have been a bit foolish. We'll come back another day to summit Nine Standards.     

We paused for lunch at Ravenseat Farm , the home of the famous Yorkshire Shepherdess, Amanda Owen. A board in the farm lane promised Cream Teas and other goodies, but at the farm, there was a large 'closed' sign, and no evidence of Amanda (or any cream teas).  We were joined for lunch by a very persistent Shetland pony that insisted on rummaging in our rucksacks and lunch boxes, for any available tit-bits. 

After Ravenseat, it is a pleasant walk down into Keld, to join the River Swale, which the route will follow in the coming days. .   

We finished the day's walk at Keld Lodge, which displays plaque stating this is the half-way point on the Coast-to-Coast route (about 95 miles from both St. Bee's and Robin Hood's Bay).