Day 5 Sedbergh to Burneside

The longest day today 17 miles at least. We awoke to a beautiful sunny morning and had a lovely breakfast cooked by Susy at Wheelwright Cottage. She even freshly squeezed the orange juice. It would have been good to stay longer chatting to her but we had far to go so after a quick photo call off we went.

Apart from a 10 minute shower in the morning the rest of the day was warm with sunny periods. Thunder was rumbling towards the end but it was in the far distance so didn't trouble us.

The Howgills looked splendid in the sunshine.

Margaret was a little concerned about the path today as a ford was marked on the map. She had made contingency plans but we need not have worried because someone had erected a lovely new bridge for us to cross the stream.

The paths were much kinder today and we made good progress to the Rawthey Viaduct.

We could see the couple from Pateley Bridge just ahead of us and we caught them up at lunch time and then left them behind as they were having a shorter walk today.

All was going well as we crossed over the M6, not very busy today.

It was such a lovely day we stopped for a few minutes in a field high up looking back to the Howgills and forward to the Lakeland Hills. We passed a couple of cottages advertising teas for walkers but as we had a long way to go we passed them by, and what a good job we did. Not long after the break we came across a notice that said 'Dales Way closed ahead, diversion in place as bridges washed away'

We found out later that this had happened the previous week and here is a photo of one of the bridges.

I have to praise Margaret here as she knew exactly where we were on the map even though the notice was telling us we were somewhere else! The diversion took us through Greyrigg and Patton Bridge on a lovely narrow road with great views. The only snag was it was an extra mile and a half!

It could have been worse, it could have been raining, misty, windy etc. Instead it was pleasantly warm so on we went. We found out later that the three ladies got a taxi at this poinr as they were running very late. We carried on and eventually reached Lakeland Hills at Burneside just after 6.00 pm having walked 19 miles. 

What a brilliant place to stay and what a welcome we got from Tony with a large pot of tea and homemade cake. Nothing was too much trouble for him and his wife Caroline. He offered to take us up to the pub for a meal but we didn't really want to go out again so he fetched us fish and chips from nearby Kendal. This is definitely the best place we stayed and I can't recommend it enough if you want to stay in the Southern Lakes.

Tony is very knowledgeable about walking and has walked all over the world and Caroline is a nurse so can deal with your blisters if you have any! I think I had the best night's sleep of the week here.