Saturday 17/12/05
Helped (or was that hindered) John Fleetwood on the last leg of his winter Bob Graham round.
A week of night shifts made me the best candidate for last leg duties.
We were due to finish around 3am in Keswick and John was going well by the Threlkeld crossing.
During the rest stop he uttered the words "I'd have to bonk badly now not to get round". Confidence indeed.
We had a bit of a thrash trying to find the sheepfold at the bottom of Great Calva, which maybe cost 10 minutes.
However, we took a good line from Great Calva to Skiddaw, which with hindsight was quite critical to success.
I'm glad John was still with it enough at this stage to think about nav, as I hadn't reccied this part.
John still seemed confident of getting round on the slog up Skiddaw, but I started to get quite conscious of our speed.
Fortunately John managed a shuffle all the way down Skiddaw and I did need to press him on as we got nearer to Keswick.
We reached the Moot Hall with 6 minutes to spare which was a bit too close for comfort.
John was very lucky with the weather. It was cold enough to turn my drink into slush and clog up the bottle nozzle, the car said -5 on the drive back home, but it stayed clear and with only a light breeze.
A superb effort.
Westmorland Gazette article
