Day 7 May 19th

Another shortish walk today (11/12 miles), taking us on our way through Swalesdale to the pretty village of Reeth, there are two routes to take, the low walk through the valley or, our chosen route, the high section over the moors, these take in the old abandoned lead mine works.
We started our walk dropping down to the rivers edge, crossing a footbridge, I'd crossed this bridge last year, its the crossroads between Pennine Way and the Coast to Coast. This time though, I was at the halfway stage, last year I'd perhaps have another 30 or so miles to reach that point.

Falls near to the PW, C2C crossroads

We walked for a while alongside the river before starting to climb up alongside Swinner Gill, passing by Crackpot Hall, an old derelict building. The route started to get steeper, the sides of the valley getting narrower, I thought it was a great stretch to do, by the time we had to turn easterly along East Grain we knew we had worked bloody hard so far. There were many derelict buildings around this area, lead mining must have been thriving many years ago.

Crackpot Hall

Path over Swinner Gill

 

 

Lew (mountain goat)

Top of Swinner Gill

We walked on Melbecks Moor now, dropping steeply down, then climbed steeply out from Gunnerside Gill, there was old mine buildings here also.

 

 

Gunnerside Gill

Gunnerside Gill

 

Gunnerside Gill

 

 It was then a matter of getting heads down and eating away the miles, rather barren moors then reaching the open grassy hills in Swalesdale once more. A few miles from Reeth we met Robert, a solo walker we got chatting to, the time quickly passed by as entered Reeth, found our stay for the night, Kings Arms public house. Robert came and joined us for a pint, talk got round to him being a motorbike enthusiast, Lew then began talking bikes, I never knew he had a bit of a passion for them, they were really having a fine conversation. Not being a biker I took the opportunity of leaving them to it, I went for a shower then came a down bit later, Liz and Jo had arrived by this time.

Back into Swalesdale, green and pleasant countryside