Day 5 -- Sedbergh to Kendal, 14 miles

At breakfast, I learned the proper pronunciation of the town's name, at least so far as the server is concerned: Setburr -- no hard "D" in the middle and no berg or bruh at the end. So there you have it from someone who lives there. I'm sticking with that, for all it matters, because I left town thereafter.

 

Despite the reasonable distance, today’s walk was extremely slow. Bad footing due to wet rocks, roots and mud combined with difficult route finding, numerous stiles and gates, and an unintelligible diversion due to a bridge closure, all slowed my pace to a crawl – and I didn’t even stop to talk with anybody. That’s because I met only two people during the entire walk.

 

 

 

 

 

One was a farmer who shouted from his passing tractor that I was headed in the wrong direction, “Wrong way, fella, you need to cross the bridge and turn left.” No matter that the footpath sign pointed where I was headed. I thanked him and courteously followed his advice, and when he was out of sight, I checked my map. He was right, the directional post was wrong.

 

Diversion notice (unintelligible)

 

As I neared Kendal, I reached a point where I had a choice: either follow the most direct route along a busy A road that may or may not have a verge, of follow a slightly longer route through pastures that may or may not have decent footing. As I pondered the decision, a local farmer stopped, got out of his car and explained that the A road would not be interesting (I knew that already) but the route crossing the farmland would be better. He assured me that the farm route “had good footing underneath” and that the grass had been mown last week. I followed his recommendation and had a better walk.

 

Shelf fungus growing on tree

Kendal is a large city with too much traffic, but a nice town center. I will take some form of public transportation tomorrow to escape the city limits and avoid road walking.