August 26+27 Ingleton

Long (23 miles), wet, cold, windy, challenging day.  I was really worried about the first part of the walk:  where to cross the river, and later, where to cross back again.  Those issues turned out not to be problematic but lots in between was hellish or at least difficult. There is no waymarking for this route, and, as I think I recently said, but it does bear repeating, the instructions are useless and the gpx data too scant to be at all helpful unless you sprout wings and go as the crow flies.

Tossed camera in suitcase as weather report was muy malo, and though the day started out comfortably, a couple of hours in, the promised rain and wind did arrive.  I was not dressed warmly enough, so was freezing until 3:30 when a low battery signal on the GPS forced me to take off my pack in the middle of a cow dung filled field to change the batteries.  Since the rain was light at that point, I used the opportunity to put on more clothes and felt much better for the last hour of the trek. Yes, lots of high grass, broken stiles, fences and tall gates to scale, barbed wire to climb over, muddy slippery paths that made you fear you might end up in the River Lune, diversions due to landslides, but no rerouting information provided—hands too cold to even open packet of hand warmers—hands almost too cold to push button on GPS.  Thank God I had entered my own data; it saved the day, that and the fact that there was 4G reception so I could use the map on the phone.

So here is a long day:  You are picked up at 6:00 a.m., to be taken to the start point, about 1 1/2 mi. from B&B, which, under normal circumstances I would never do, but a bad weather day that is 22 miles without any errors at all—(from my mouth to God's ear)—is not a normal day. Finally, you arrive at destination B and B at 4:30.  It was a pretty good walk, actually, just overly long and weather made navigating a real kotz in tuchas (pain).

Next morning, with instructions from Sue, B and B proprietress, off to do the 4 1/2 mile circular walk around Ingleton Falls, which are nothing short of spectacular.  Desafortunadamente, still shots of waterfalls are, well, you know, nothing like the real thing!  No movement, no roar, no spray, no thrill!

 Then walked about 1 1/2 miles up the miserable B 3265 or whatever numbers come after the B, a shoulderless wretched road with cars flying past, to get to White Scar Cave. There was a lovely way to get to the cave from the waterfalls trail over a long, stepping stones crossing and then up some fields, but the water was too high to use the stepping stones, so it was no way or the highway.  Got to the ticket office five minutes before 1:00 tour, and lucked out with the tour guide. (I think I may have developed an allergy to tours.)  Anyway the caves were excellently interesting, only no photos to show to convince.

The caves made me think about outer space.....the amount of time for a stalactite to grow one centimetre, the amount of time for any of those geologic formations to form (!) is so huge that it is hard to actually imagine in the way that it is hard to imagine the distances (and time) out there in space.  OK, so it is hard for me to conceptualise those things, which is one reason out of about two hundred why I am not a physicist, astronomer, geologist, or speleologist or many other things!