Day 24 Appleby to Langwathby

Another lovely,lightly laden day today. The weather forecast predicted sun, sun, sun with the tiniest risk of a drop of rain later.
We caught the bus from Carlisle to Appleby to start walking back to Carlisle. Before leaving I stuffed a brie, a saucisson, some water etc in my new belt pouch. The journey to Appleby was uneventful. We got off the bus at the station with feeling delighted that my pack was so extremely light. Feeling like a swig of water I took out the water bottle which came with the belt. I then realised that the bottle has a peculiar top. In one position the water stays in the bottle, in the other position the water comes out of the bottle. Janet assured the bus driver that I hadn’t lost control of myself and that the half litre of liquid left on my seat and floor was just water with nothing added by me.

Appleby station is worth a visit having loads of vintage stuff lurking everywhere. The station bloke told us that we could cross over the footbridge to the Carlisle platform and leave from there. The A66 was the first obstacle. We assumed that there would be a footbridge or underpass so that ancient strollers could cross this busy dual carriageway with dignity.

No luck re the bridge or underpass but we did find a break in the traffic in order to get to the central refuge. A further break offered the opportunity to make it to the other side.

Much of today has involved strolling along Roman Roads. My imagination runs even more out of control than usual as we pass over these ancient ways. It is a shame that both Janet and I have forgotten the little Latin that we use to have. All that we can do is mutter salve salve.

No hills or wide vistas for us today. Instead of mountains we had fields of growing crops. For us fields of wheat and barley are just as interesting as mighty crags.

We do like looking at fields of wheat but not walking through them. The fields can be muddy and wet but more importantly we don’t like damaging the crop when we blunder through.

It can be a bit like wading through water crossing these fields.

Evidence of last winter’s floods was very noticeable. Fences had obviously been pushed down by the weight of water from the River Eden along whose banks we strolled. Today the river was torpid, it gave no hint of what it must have been like in full flood.

I mentioned at the beginning that the weather forecast was benign for today. For much of the day we have had sun, almost too much sun, to be comfortable. The exception to this was about 30 minutes of rain in which the raindrops were as big as apples. Janet put on her raincoat and rainkilt. I put on my raincoat and was soaked within about 10 minutes.

Langwathby is pronounced Langwathby. Tomorrow we will walk from Langwathby to another place.