Day 4 – C2C Walk

The alarm woke us at 7am and after a bacon and sausage butties we were off down the road. Very quickly we were climbing up a tough hill but at the top we were rewarded with a view of the stunning Angle Tarn. It’s a small lake but has 2 Islands and a cove and as Mark said “it looks like something off Lord of the Rings”. At that point the mist rolled in and by the time we reached the summit of The Knott it was drizzling enough to put the waterproofs on over the shorts. Another mile up and we reached the highest point of the whole coast to Coast route, Kidsty Pike. And this time we were rewarded with……….a view of white cloud. But the achievement was the main thing. A long decent came next down to the shore of Haweswater and although it was still drizzling the views were back. Haweswater is a man made lake and was the idea of Manchester water company in the 1930’s . They needed a supply of drinking water to provide the ever growing Manchester area and so it was decided to move the residents out of a village called Mardale over to Shap and then build a dam and flood the valley. The village still remains underneath the water and when there is a hot summer the water level drops to reveal the tops of the church and some buildings. This blog is now giving history lessons lol.
The next 5 mils are a steady walk along the shore of Haweswater up to the village of Burnbanks which was built to house the workers building the dam. A brief stop here which included meeting up with a bloke called Thomas who had started at the same time as us and who we’d met at various points each day. We decided to walk the last 4 miles to Shap together and then set off through bluebell woods, buttercup filled fields and then country lanes before arriving at the Kings Arms. The room here is the best we’ve had so far and the meal was stunning and only £7. A few games of pool (for the record I beat mark 2-1)