Our longest day so far, so an early breakfast. Er, nope. Hotel say no. ‘8.30 is the earliest’. Really?? Yep. Hey ho.

A great day’s walking. Hard in the heat and no where to have lunch. Disaster! But anticipated so chewy bars, apples and nuts are a feast. The route started with the Walna Scar track, easy navigation – made for the mining, long since gone. Views are amazing, the sound of moorland birds lovely. A few people around, but within 1km of a car park the people all go. As we leave the scar track navigation becomes a bit challenging. ‘Permissive route’ means ‘not marked on the map, or on the route itself’ and ‘ swept away last year by the river’. We wobbled a bit, tramped through bog but eventually came onto a path. 2nd mistake was following someone else on the fells. I’m not sure they knew where they were going, but certainly not the same was as I had planned! 50 m of climb later to get back onto our path. They appeared to be going into a dead end quarry. 15 mins later, calm restored and lesson learnt!

From the top a gentle walk down inter dispersed with vertical bouldery sections. Dramatic. The ubiquitous sheep laugh at us.

We arrived into The Boot Inn at 5.30. Apparently if we havn’t arrived by 6 they send out a rescue party. It was close, but the Boot is hugely welcoming, warm shower, and water. Yea!!