C2C day 8 Kirkby Stephen to Keld

I met the lovely hostel keepers this morning—a charming couple who clearly understood that the way to a hiker’s heart is through their stomach. Their two little hostel dogs had mastered the art of looking pathetically adorable while you eat breakfast, hoping for scraps. After a proper cooked breakfast (the last warm, dry thing I’d experience for hours), I packed up and stripped my bunk like a responsible adult.

Then I looked outside. It was absolutely tipping down.  In a moment of questionable judgment, I abandoned my cape to the hostel’s lost property and attached the backpack cover my sister had thoughtfully given me yesterday to replace the one that had blown away on the windy day 5 up on Kidsty Pike.

Off I marched into what I’ll generously call “liquid sunshine”,  following some charming little paths out of Kirkby Stephen. I spotted a delightfully homemade sign someone had put on their house—clearly many walkers had taken a wrong turn on their little street!

After threading through more paths and lanes  I reached a lane marked “pedestrians and quarry personnel only.” This is hiking’s equivalent of a VIP entrance—except instead of champagne and celebrities, you get mud and sheep.

Up the hill I trudged toward the quarry, where I discovered I was apparently attending the Great Sheep Convention of 2024. Every sheep in Yorkshire seemed to be there. Despite the rain trying its best to wash me down the hillside, there were actually some lovely views—when I could see them through the swirling mist.

The lane evolved into a track, then into a grassy, stoney, wet path. But then—miracle of miracles—I reached the start of the newly laid flagstones!

These weren’t just any old stones. Oh no, these were the product of an extraordinary project. 300 pallets of stones trucked to the quarry, then helicoptered (HELICOPTERED!) in small loads and dropped along the Nine Standards path like the world’s most expensive breadcrumb trail. 

The path exists to prevent further erosion and because, apparently, this bog has been eating hikers for years and requiring so many rescues that someone finally said, “Right, enough of this nonsense” and called in the cavalry. With helicopters.

I skipped along these magnificent flagstones and before very long, 7.5k into the days walk and having gained over 500m in elevation, I was at Nine Standards. The rain and wind go worse here and visibility played peek-a-boo with me—one minute I could see the Nine Standards (nine large cairns built for… reasons? No one knows why, which is delightfully mysterious), the next minute I was walking through the inside of a cloud.

At this point, I faced the Trail Choice Dilemma™: Blue trail (late summer/fall), Red trail (spring/early summer), or Green trail (winter/for people who’ve given up). I’d planned on blue, considered green due to the weather resembling a monsoon, but then decided to follow whichever trail had those lovely flagstones. Because at this point, I was basically a flagstone groupie.

A fellow hiker coming back up the blue route looked a bit worse for wear. “Stones only go a short way,” he shouted “then it’s impossibly boggy.” Meanwhile, the red route had flagstones stretching out as far as the eye could  see, like the wonderful yellow brick road, except gray.

I was getting properly cold now, with the wind and rain. But those flagstones! They were making me feel like a hiking superhero, covering ground at warp speed (well, warp speed for a soggy human in a bog).

You could certainly tell these stones were fresh out of their helicopter delivery—leftover pallets scattered around like Amazon boxes after Christmas morning.

Then, after about 1.5km, amid a pile of mud and an abandoned tractor,  the flagstones STOPPED. Just… ended mid bog.

Cue five minutes of hard slogging through what can only be described as nature’s obstacle course designed by someone with a grudge against hikers. But then—plot twist!—the flagstones started again! I may have done a little happy dance.

And five minutes later, they stopped again.

On I went through the bog, fighting the wind and rain, then out of the mist a warming hut materialised like something from a fairy tale. An arm waved me toward it—I didn’t need a second invitation. My hands were so cold and wet I couldn’t even get my phone out of my pocket, let alone navigate.

The “warming hut” was warm in name only—there was no actual warmth, but it was DRY and out of the wind, which at this point qualified as luxury accommodation. Two other refugees from the weather were already there, looking like they’d been through a washing machine.

I’d foolishly thought we were almost at the road. After defrosting my hands enough to check my map, I discovered we were at the shooting box—still 5km of trail to the road. The others were leaving, so naturally I decided to follow their brightly colored pack covers, capes, and jackets through the mist like the world’s soggiest conga line.

All was going well (using the very loosest definition of “well”—we were cold, wet, wind-blown, and muddy, but in better spirits) until—oh no, I don’t believe it—a SWOLLEN STREAM CROSSING! I successfully jumped it with the grace of a soggy gazelle, but I didn’t get my hopes up. Sure enough, there were two more crossings ahead, another day of cold water up to my knees.

 I squelched into Keld (20km, 5 hours of liquid adventure),  and salvation! The welcome sight of the Keld Green Cafe.   There was a roaring fire and six other similarly soggy souls with steam rising all around us.

Cup of tea: ✓ Toasted teacake: ✓
Gradually returning to human form: ✓ Happiness level: Rising by the minute ✓

After an hour and several more teas and a cake (because calories don’t count when you’ve been fighting bogs all day), it was time to check into Keld Lodge, an old inn that was conveniently right next door.   My small single room was two flights up and complete with toilet, wash basin, and the kind of narrow stairs that make you question how people in the olden days ever moved furniture.

The shower room and drying room were one floor below my room, so first I performed the Great Boot Emptying Ceremony outside (turns out they’d been carrying about a cup of more of bog water between them) and hopefully added them to the collection in the drying room.  Then had a glorious hot shower.

There’s no cell signal here, and thanks to recent floods, the internet is also off.  So I can’t send my daily “still alive” message to my husband and sister, who are probably imagining me being consumed by the bog. I should get signal up the hill tomorrow—hopefully they won’t have called mountain rescue in the meantime!

I had a hearty veggie curry to finish the warming process and off to bed now, to dream of dry socks and flagstones that never end!