It was a trip over to the Far East this weekend. No, not the Far East as in Asia, the far east of Cumbria.
We’ve been several times Mike and I over to the Eden Valley area but never with Mark & Becky. This time we also had Mark & Jocelyn too, up from London no less. We’d managed to grab a late, last minute deal on a cottage in Newby. We’ve only ever driven through Newby, never actually stayed there so it made a change.
Cross Fell was our reason for walking over that way this time as Becky has never been. No one ever realises how big Cross Fell is but it’s a fair whopper at 893 metres high and still snow caped as with the Western fells over our way. It was the most lovely, bright day on Saturday with very little wind but still nippy. This for me is the absolute best type of weather for walking. I have to say, when we stopped for our butties at the top we didn’t hang around too long due to the cold but that isn’t too hard to believe being so far above sea level.
Going up Cross Fell is quite different to the rugged, rocky fells in the west like Great Gable and Pillar. No scree to be seen (thank goodness) and hardly any rocks. What does get quite arduous is the boggy and spongy ground. Many a time each and every one of use lost our foot in a pit of black, boggy soil. Saying that, when we got back to the car, the heather had rubbed most of that off so for a walk in February, we were really quite clean. Needles to say, Mac and Cam weren’t quite as clean but by the time we’d driven back to cottage they weren’t too bad although this was detrimental to the car interior.
The cottage in Newby was booked through an Cumbrian cottages agency who kindly recommended The Crown Inn at Morland as a place for dinner. It just so happened to be a mile up the road, perfect, dog friendly, perfect and it had pies on the menu, perfect! The real ale went down a little too well after a long walk but hey ho. All in all, a super little weekend away and now it’s Monday afternoon and Mac and Cam are still shattered so a great result all round!
