Saturday 11 June 2011

Day 33, 7th June

A wonderful day again. Despite the bad weather forecast, it was dry all night and I woke up to a cloudy, but not hopeless day. After just 5 hours' sleep the night before and less than seven that night – thanks Jane Austen and your good books – it was a little difficult to get up and I set the alarm clock to snooze three times before surfacing.

Just as I had almost all on the ponies, it started to rain, so we ended up leaving with me in full rain gear and Maggie also in her coat. We still had about five miles to do along a windy road with a fair amount of traffic, coaches and lorries included, even though the road was barely wide enough in places, but they managed.

At the beginning of Hawkshead, we went past the primary school where I think the daughter of my last hosts went. I had said I might go past her school before she left in the morning, and so it was. All the children came rushing to the window to watch us go past. I hope she had a lot to talk about all day.

I had hoped to find a little shop in Hawkshead where I would be able to get some bread, but it got even better. We took the main little road through the centre of the village with all the shops and I was very pleased to find an outdoor shop as I had cleverly managed to break my water bladder the evening before by dropping it. It probably shouldn't have broken, but it sprang a leak in two places from the impact. I ended up getting an expensive bottle from Zigg, real Swiss made, apparently, and hoped it would last for all eternity at that price and I also took the opportunity to get a waterproof bag liner for the gadgets bag that I had been somewhat worried about if it were to rain heavily.
My little team also made it to Asia as a tourist from there took some photos of us as we went through the town. I could just imagine how she would go home and tell her family and friends all about how they still travel by horse as a common rule in Britain.

We got into some beautiful parts of the Lake District staying almost all the time on tiny roads and some bridleways. Soon we were to start going along the Cumbria Bridleway, which would take us high up into the mountains, so it was necessary to find a place to stay before starting along the path and we found a field belonging to a pub where they were happy to let us stay. The owner even came round later and invited me in to eat dinner and breakfast the next morning – how kind!

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