I got up at around 6.45am as soon as it was daylight and started packing my stuff up straight away. I had had a very poor night's sleep due to the cold and my crap inflatable travel pillow which I could never get comfortable with. Chris and Tom fared slightly better than me as they had much warmer sleeping bags but still didn't have a great night's sleep. After packing our stuff up quickly (we did it quick so we could get walking and warm up asap) we had a quick snack for breakfast and set off. It seemed colder than normal but this was probably due me being cold and my core temparature being low. We walked to the end of the lake (not very far) and from here the next bit involved walking through wooded areas next to a stream. At the start of this we found 'Thomas's honesty box' where 'Thomas' had put a wooden box with snacks and drinks in next to a gate where the walkers would go, with a little container for the walkers to leave money for the food that they took. This was nice and gave us a little lift. Then we got lost for a long time due to the lack of a visible path, ending up initially crossing a wrong field and having to backtrack before referring to Tom's Wainwright book with it's detailed sketches done by Wainwright showing the areas along the way. With a combination of Wainwright's book, the OS map and the compass we were able to get back on track fairly soon. Thankfully after this getting lost delay it was only a short walk along a road to out Shap pit stop. When we eventually got to Shap (it wasn't that long but seemed to take forever as we were hungry and looking forward to buying food there) I saw a fish and chip shop and my eyes lit up. Unfortunately however it had just closed down and so we had to settle for a Londis. This was alright though as there was a lot to choose from there and the prices were a bit lower than the village shops that we'd gone to. So of course we made the most of this large selection of food and cheap prices and bought enough of our staple diet of pringles, flapjacks, chocolate, pasties and other snacky foods to to give us a big lunch and ample snacks for the rest of the day. Shap was the biggest place we'd passed through so far (it had I think 3 pubs, at least 2 small supermarket and a couple of parades of shops). After about half an hour or so eating our lunch on a bench in Shap, we walked over a few fields before crossing over the M6 motorway on a footbridge then there were more fields before a track and then moorland. By this time Tom had been holding in a dump for a while and couldn't hold it any longer so had to resort to doing a wild one behind a wall much to me and Chris's amusement. The moorland was nice walking - not too boggy or hilly and lasted a little while before reaching another road. At the end of the road there was a signpost for a place called 'Pleb'. This of course led to some silly photos with us posing next to the sign. Then there was a fairly short muddy path to Orton. We arrived at Orton at around 4.45 and went to the village shop to get food. We asked the shopkeeper about how far/how long it would take to get to our target destination of Bent's Farm. He said this was maybe 3 hours away. After some deliberation we decided we'd have to stay in Orton for the night as going to Bent's Farm would have involved walking along tracks in the dark before trying to find our accomodation in the dark probably resulting in us getting lost. So we went back into the shop and asked where there was to stay in Orton. There were a few B&B's and a pub. We thought that one of the B&B's would be cheaper than the pub so went there and asked how much it would be. £30 each was the lowest they were prepared to go - too expensive. We then tried the pub and managed to get a massive room with about 5 beds for £50 - result!!! Our funds were now very low so we went to the village shop to take advantage of a rare cashpoint opportunity. I took out enough money to last all of us (Chris and Tom had run out of money and had nothing in their accounts) the rest of the hike - £280. The machine only had £220 so this would have to do. This is when the budget started. We spent as little as possible buying enough food for dinner, breakfast and snacks and ended up getting 2 loafs of bread and a jar of apricot jam to make sandwiches, bourbons, a box of cereal, milk and some soup. We returned to our massive room after getting the food and aired the tents and pretty much every item of clothing we owned which turned our room into a laundry. We also looked over the maps and decided we'd have to leave at 5am and walk for a few hours in the dark as we had a massive day tomorrow with no option of stopping early. After a dinner of bread and soup and a shower we went to bed early in preparation for the ridiculously early start in the morning.
Reviews
Wildcamping by the lake - 5/10: was an amazing setting but far too cold and failure to cook the pasta was demoralising. It would have been much better in the warmer summer and with better equipment.
Lessons Learned
Consult Wainwright's book as well as the map and compass if lost, take the opportunities to take a dump if you think you might need one later.
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