Dales Way 6 Friday 24th March

Dales Way 6 Friday 24^th March

Ribblehead to Dent

Today was a bit of a non starter. For one thing, I had a couple of vivid a weird dreams, which meant my blood sugar dip of yesterday had been affecting my sleep patterns. One of them was a dream about the walk: the caravan interior had somehow ‘exploded’ – everything was everywhere, including the built-in furniture and I was telling Sandra that I couldn’t do any more of the walk! That turned out to be somewhat prophetic.

Parked on gravel over soil - what they creatively referred to as 'hard standing'!

Despite that, it was a glorious day - still chilly, but the sun was trying to make up for its absence over the last few days. We decided to take today slowly. The first thing we did was go in search of a campsite with facilities. The scenery around the present campsite was stunning, but it wasn't sense to stay - especially as my electrics were playing games for some reason.
                                    

Storm's ready to drive off into the sunset!

OH had sent me a text with a few ideas on, so we started with the first one on his list. They no longer took tourers and vans, but they knew of another one, owned by the same people. It was actually the second one on OH’s list. The price was quite a bit higher, but having showers, electricity and proper hard ground under our wheels made the extra cost well worth it. It was about a mile or two the opposite side of Sedbergh from where we had spent the night.

We found a layby en route and stopped to take some photos of the fantastic scenery:

That's Sedbergh in the distance.

As I was still shaky, Sandra suggested we walk from Cowgill to Dent, rather than try the full distance today. This meant going beyond Dent (which should have been our next destination) and walking the route back. It was, she said, about three miles, which is only a little further than my usual walk with Storm at home, so I agreed. I thought after a good breakfast, I could probably do three miles without too much trouble.

We arrived at Cowgill, parked near a bridge and set off to walk the three miles back to Dent.

Apparently there are red squirrels here - we didn't spot any though.

The route took us through some lovely fields and countryside. Unfortunately, even with the photographs to remind me, I don’t actually remember much of it. I do remember it was sunny and I also remember a bit of a run-in with a couple of llamas, that turned out to be alpacas. We were crossing a field that held a couple of ponies, a couple of sheep and two alpacas. When we started across, they were all at the bottom of the field and nowhere near us. They must have spotted us though, because the alpacas decided to investigate. At first, they just walked up the field, but then they started to trot then run. They certainly looked friendly enough, but we didn’t hang around long enough to find out if their looks were deceptive or not. We shot across to the stile; Sandra pretty much leapt over, but Storm couldn’t find a way through. In the end, as the alpacas closed in, I heaved her up and over the stile and then climbed over as fast as I could – just as the alpacas reached the fence. Phew!

He looks cute, but looks can be deceptive; we didn't hang about to find out if he was really friendly or not!

The path took us up and over some lovely fields, past a lovely old Dales barn...

...and climbing quite a height with having superb views of the mountains (Howgills I think) all around us – snow capped and lovely in the sunshine.

Eventually, we decided Storm really needed to learn to climb over stiles herself. She is too heavy to lift, especially while clambering over them ourselves! It was difficult to get her to stand on the wooden planks that pass for steps, but eventually we managed to convince her on one or two that she could actually get over them herself. Then there were the ladder stiles! And the stone steps sticking out of the wall stiles! The variety is endless. At one stile, she refused to climb on the wooden steps and there was no way underneath for her. She sat on one side of the stile, while I stood on the other. In the end, I said ‘Oh come on Storm, just JUMP’. She stood up and did a little hop over the fence next to the stile! I didn’t even know she understood the word ‘jump’ – whether she did or not, she was over it! For the ladder stiles, Sandra made a great suggestion. She said she would go over while I held Storm back on a short lead. Then as I approached, she would shout encouragement to Storm and I would let her have her head. It worked! We only had to do it twice – after that, she knew what to do by herself. She seemed very pleased with her new stile skills anyway. And so were we – no more heaving a heavy dog over a precarious stile! Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get a photo of her doing her new thing!

The walk turned out to be a good bit further than 3 miles! Even walking slowly (ie not rushing), I don’t walk less than about 2 miles an hour and this walk took us 2½ hours. I had estimated we would be back in Dent at around 1-1.30pm (lunchtime); as it was, we didn’t arrive until 2.30pm – way past time to eat again. Despite having had lunch on the way, when we arrived back in Dent, I was shaking again. I asked the girl in the pub where I went for a second lunch how far it was and she said by road it’s about 4½ miles; by the footpath, it’s closer to 5 miles. Oh dear! 

Poor Sandra looks quite fed up; this walk wasn't turning out quite as she had anticipated

After we had eaten, Sandra set off back to fetch the car as we had planned and I waited in The George for her to return. There was a lovely roaring fire which was welcoming, as the weather was still cold

Dent itself was so pretty. At the edge of the village, there was a car park and the area was crowded with tourists - Dent is a bit of a magnet. But away from the car park, people spread out and seem to all but disappear. Despite the tourists, Dent is still a quiet and quaint village:

And that was about it for me. On Saturday, Sandra set off to walk by herself while I rang someone to get some advice about my condition. It was suggested that I wait till I had had no dizzy spells for 24 hours and that I eat 2500-3000 calories while walking. In the meantime, I needed to eat lots of carbohydrates (amongst other things) to get my sugars balanced again. Other than that, I relaxed in the van with Storm.

On Sunday, we drove into Kendal for church. I took some cheese cut up and ready to eat in case of sugar dips and ate a big breakfast before we set off. None of it helped and I had dizzy spells during the service to the extent that I didn’t stand for the hymns at the end. Of course, that meant I wasn’t going to be walking again on Monday as I wasn’t clear for 24 hours. So in the end, we decided Sandra would walk on Sunday afternoon (we had only planned a relatively short walk for Sunday as we only had half a day) and I would call OH and get him to come for the van, and I would drive his car home (much easier to negotiate on those narrow roads) while he drove the van. I wasn’t even sure I’d actually be fit enough to drive, but as OH didn’t arrive till about 4pm, and I was pretty much eating constantly all day, I felt capable of driving home. Sandra stayed on till Monday and sent me a text saying she had made it to the end (Bowness on Windermere) and sent a selfie to prove it! J

It didn’t really work out how we expected. I haven’t had a sugar problem of that magnitude for years and it was a surprise how long it took to recover. I consider myself quite fit (for my age) yet I wasn’t fully recovered till Tuesday after I had got home. OH and my adviser said it was probably that I had been walking at a calorie deficit every day since the start, which is why it took so long to recover – I needed to eat loads to kind of ‘catch up’ the missed calories. I have no idea if that is true or not, but I do know that when I do my next long distance walk, I will be sure to eat plenty even when I don’t feel like it.

So the next project: complete the Dales Way! I haven't given up entirely and I'm working on my fitness to ensure as well as possible that such a deficit doesn't occur again.