Ratty

Kristian and Eric headed off yesterday to see Kristian's other Grandma and Kate headed off this morning. Just three Australians, David and Jenna and Marian and Andrew left at Moor End. Time to take the Ratty.

The Ratty is a small gauge railway from Ravenglass up into the the Esk Valley. We walked through the fields to the Miteside Halt (the Mite is one of the three local rivers). It's not a major stop on the route:

so you have to stick out your hand to stop the train as it comes around the corner.

We made good progress initially,

But soon ran into trouble as the steam engine had trouble gripping the wet tracks. The biggest problem emerged as we got to a 1 in 53 gradient that stopped us dead. We backed up and had a couple of attempts at the hill, which took us repeatedly past a shed with an impressively large spanner.

Two attempts at the hill failed,

so we backed up again, which took us past the spanner again....

 [drum roll, please]

annnnd...no. Spanner again.

In the end they sent a diesel engine from the other end of the line to give us a hand. We had a few more sticky moments, which involved the conductor running up and down the line with bottles of grit and a few more reversals, but eventually made it, only an hour after scheduled arrival and with a sense that we'd had a proper adventure. The engine was swung around to face the down line on a hand pushed turn table and we took ourselves off to the cafe for lunch.

We headed back down on the diesel service secure in the knowledge that gravity was our friend.

After getting off at Miteside we walked along a bridle path to an old mill, then back via the lanes to Moor End.