Steve and Steff's Honeymoon trek

Orton Revisited

After a lazy morning get up (is 11am considered lazy on a Sunday?), we started wondering where to go for a potter. It has to be near the motorway (or else it would take ages to get there) we had to park near a pub (for the après walk beer and food) and it had to have fantastic views. Normally the Lake District is the ideal spot, but during the C2C we have found some brilliant places, one of which is Orton.
It is just on the other side of the M6 from the Lake District, so has less traffic, fewer people and yet still has a fantastic landscape to have a slack-jawed gawp at.

It also has some of the most accessible limestone paving and outcrops this side of Malham. This is actually missing (in my view) from AW Wainright’s Coast To Coast route. It isn’t very far from the main route, but ought to be in there for it is an amazing piece of natural sculpture. It is also all Open Access land, so I would recommend anyone to take a closer look around there. I will also very firmly kick myself from here to Blackpool if I find a ton of litter scattered around the place next time we visit.

The weather wasn’t exactly fantastic, but the clouds scudding past the mountain tops where very moody.
When we got to Sunbiggin tarn, we propped ourselves up against a signpost to eat our butties. A bloke from Natural England got out of his car and asked us a pile of questions. Why we visited the area and what we knew about Open Access land. One of the questions he posed was about what extra amenities we would like in the area. Our first reaction was “NONE!” I think of amenities as car parks full of people dropping litter and beef burger vans giving off noxious fumes. After he went off satisfied with our answers, I stood there finishing my butty thinking “I could do with a bench to sit on.” Ah well. Opportunities missed.

Back at the George (pub, obviously) in Orton, Steff did her usual trick of introducing herself to someone’s dog. I chatted to the owners, Rob and Jo. Lucky devils live in Orton and have their own website www.coolpics.co.uk.

If anyone is reading this and is interested in what routes we take – this was a 14 mile jobby, by the way – let me know and I might start doing a sketch map.

- Steve.