Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It was late afternoon before we approached Shap Abbey, having fought our way through
bracken as tall as ourselves flanking the reservoir and across lush agricultural land. Al-
though I had spent some of the day in the meditative trance that repeated action and regular
breathing promote, I had noted that before the Coast to Coast, any of the sections of today's
hike would have classified as “a good walk;” the climb up Kidsty, the descent and five
miles or so along Haweswater, the trek across farmland, and still we had a mile and a half
to go beyond the Abbey. Although I felt a lingering nostalgia for the drama of the Lake
District, I had absorbed as we walked what I thought of as the Gerard Manley Hopkins
effect. Hopkins was a Victorian poet, who stretched language in new ways when he was
straining to share the almost indescribable impact some experiences made on him. He talks
in one poem, “Pied Beauty,” about the glory of “dappled things,” the “rose moles in all
stipple on trout that swim.” He delights in texture, in movement, in individuality. As we
had left the high reaches of the Lakes, even with my reduced vision, I had noticed more and
more the interplay of light and shadow, the infinite variations of the color green, the effect
of the slightest breeze on grass, thistle down, pine needles. We had walked through fields
of Hopkins' ”brinded cows,” across streams glinting and flickering in the afternoon sun. I
had missed much, yet I was struck by the infinite and ever changing variety of our exper-
ience of our surroundings. This, no doubt, is true also of our everyday lives, but it took an
excursion into nature to make me realize it. We walked through a rich and subtle textured
universe. We did not feel so rich or subtle when we reached the ruins of Shap Abbey. It
is an arresting edifice rising from otherwise pleasant but unremarkable agricultural land.
Shap Abbey was the last religious foundation to suffer from Henry VIII's dissolution of the
monasteries. We were tired, we had walked far enough that day, and for the Brits, who have
seen many such ruins, it was only a minor diversion. I noticed that only the Aussies and the
Yanks lingered long at Shap Abbey and even so Judy's attention strayed. We all had to dig
deep to climb the concrete paved track up the hill from Shap Abbey toward the town and
our eventual lodging for the night. Limping a little, we followed a van containing a dead
animal, and wryly wondered if that is how they cart away unfortunate hikers.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search