This was a very interesting day, as we knew that when we arrived at Keswick, and having the Friday feeling, we knew that we would be able to sink a few pints, watch the two World Cup games Brazil vs Colombia and France vs Germany and then head out around town!!!

We pretty much, again, were mirroring the cycle route from Keswick to Kirkby Stephen that we did on Day 1 – but my god everything feels much slower when you recognise everything around you and you’re walking at around 3 mph instead of cycling at 15 mph.

We set off early so that we could arrive in Keswick at good time and at 10 miles we passed via Orlton. The roads up to here were again country roads with no main roads to worry about. The feet were OK if not a little sore still but the shoes were holding out.

At mile 14 we had to join the A6 but thankfully the road had a pavement which allowed for safe walking without getting beeped at by 70mph lorries! We followed the A6 for 10 miles and unfortunately the road became pavementless and we were again back in the way of incoming cars which slows you down massively!

At mile 26 thankfully we were back in Penrith and we got some supplies. I was getting pretty excited here as I knew we were near Junction 40 which was where I always turn off from the M6 to go towards St Bees so from here onwards I was pretty much replicating my way there – but I was thinking about meeting Angela, Sebastian and family after not seeing them for at least 8 days!!!

Unfortunately for the next 16 miles it was the A66, one of the most dangerous roads in Britain and for most of it we again had no pavement and the cars here are stupid. How many times we saw cars overtaking and almost crashing into oncoming cars. There were sometimes little paths which I found and took us away from the A66 at times but they were rare and this was a slow and depressing route. I just wished my feet were better and that we could have taken the route via Shap as originally intended.

BOOM we finally arrived in Keswick around 7pm but my feet were REALLY bad! We found our B&B The Babbling Brook which was decent and got showered and changed. We then headed back out into Keswick town centre, got some fish and chips from the usual The Old Keswickian and then watched both football games, sat down on a sofa in a sports bar drinking plenty of Guinness. Afterwards we went to a pub (maybe Oddfellows) which had some live music in there. We must have sunk (well I did) about 6-7 pints of real ale – but not just any real ale – Jennings Cocker Hoop and Cumberland Ale – actual pints of the stuff whereas I’m usually used to just bottles.

I could hold my own though just – the singer looked like Paul Daniels so we kept laughing about that then we realised that a quite, pretty, lady was being harassed by an innocent but very annoying, very drunk punter. So I created a body dam between this girl and this gentleman and he eventually got the idea and buzzed off. I then carried on talking to this lady for most of the night whilst Aidy was talking to someone else (I can’t remember I wasn’t that sober at this point). At closing time I gave my best wishes to this lady and her friends then Aidy and I headed back to our B&B – staggering due to both alcohol and physical problems haha! On the way back Aidy started running circles around me like a hyperactive dog winding me up!