Our Last Day on Dales Way - Burneside to Bowness-on-Windemere

Sadly but yet with some great exhilaration and feeling of coming accomplishment, we packed up our backpacks for the last time, and after a too-brief nights sleep in the Jolly Angler, headed downstairs for a "Full English" and morning tea. Leaving Burneside, we quickly rejoined the River Kent and walked along its banks, enjoying the wildlife and scenery. 

About a mile upstream, we crossed over a small stone bridge and while checking our map, noticed a sign on the adjacent building denoting it as the home of The Handsome Brewery. Now Joan, who prefers lager beers (in this, the land of craft ales and pub-pulls) had tried a beer with diner last night and really liked it. She had been told it had been brewed by a craft brewer "about a mile away from Burneside", so Joan, figuring this must be the place, went over and knocked on the door, which shortly opened and a young man stepped out. Turned out he was indeed the brewer and asked Joan to come inside and tell him more about what she liked about his beer. Wow - she, who never has been a big beer drinker- was being asked to do a taste test and give a testimonial of "Handsome's" brews!  So, even though it was only about 9:30 in the morning, Joan did her best! It turns out that he named the brewery after his cat - a BIG handsome jet black cat who did his best to keep the place free of mice and licked up spilled beer.

There was one special segment just after we broke for lunch just after Glen Rowan, where the pathway left the empty country road leading to Hag End (don't you love these names?). The guide book said some nasty things about the path ahead (" a particularly bumpy and unkempt field with gorse thickets and long grass.."; "muddy path"; "posts lead across a rough field") but after a team discussion, we decided to take the official way rather than continue walking on the boring paved road, even though both routes came together further ahead. Serendipity strikes again; this turned out to be one of our most enjoyable sections. There were great views of the high rough mountains surrounding the Lakes, and we experienced no "rough walking" or "gorse thickets"  and all in all, just a fine walk in gorgeous country, with no other walkers in sight.
 
It occurs to me that I already did make an Facebook posting back on July 3 of our finishing day, which captured our feelings quite well. It read:

" Yesterday was our final walking day on this trip and was punctuated with an exclamation point at the finish with a gorgeous view of Lake Windermere at the bench at the finish. The reminder on the sign "Ilkley 81 miles" we found to be sightly inaccurate, since we found British miles to be an elastic concept; both Joan & l and I measured closer to 95 miles on our pedometers.

Just to elaborate a bit on those "elastic miles". As an example, as we were approaching Bowness and thought we were getting close, there was a road sign noting "Bowness - 1 mile", from which we took encouragement. After walking for about a mile through several gates and past numerous homes, we came to an road intersection near the Bowness Golf Club, where another road sign told us: "Bowness - 1 mile". Hmmm?  We dutifully plowed along the pathway for 30 minutes more and then, coming upon an elderly woman walking towards us with her little Corgi dog, we asked: "Is this the right road to Bowness?" and were told: "Yes, dears - its only about 20 minutes ahead." 

Even the Dales Way Association takes note of this flexible miles concept. We usually purchase a badge denoting completion of each of our long-distance walks that we affix to the our back-packs. We proudly wear these badges for The Cotswold Way, South Downs Way and most special, our completion of the Camino de Santiago Sanabres earlier this year. Here's the Dales Way badge. Note the bottom line: "82 Miles or Thereabouts".  That sums up the whole "Elastic Miles" concept. 

However, the real point of our long-distance walking is not to just log miles; it's to make new memories & friends.

 

 Once we finally got to Bowness and sat on the official bench denoting our completion, we memorialized the bitter-sweet moment with some pictures.

My Facebook post summed it up pretty well "However long, the walk was gorgeous, with long stretches along river such as the Wharfe, Lune and Kent. Other times we were high up on solitary wind-swept moorlands, with vistas that went to the far-away horizon. We had rain, sunny days and winds to test our resolve and shared most of the walk with our dear friend Elaine Hopkins , aka "Tigger"

Thanks for everything,Tigger! You are a stabilizing and experienced "third leg" of Team Turtle and we are eagerly looking forward to our next adventure together. We are planning on walking the Camino Ingles from Canterbury in England to Santaigo de Compostela in Spain, by way of La Coruna, the traditional route taken by English pilgrims in the Middle Ages.