Day three Pennine Way
Distance: 35km
Cumulative distance: 107km
Before draining the last of our pints and retiring to our tents last night, we struck up a conversation with Allen who told us he was walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Naturally this sparked instant interest among our party, and we were all fascinated by his story. For starters he’d done the Pennine Way with his dad when he was a much younger chap, back in the days where flagstones didn’t exist and wading through waist high bog land was the norm. Camping gear wasn’t quite so advanced four decades earlier either, so he spent much of that hellish trek sleeping underneath old newspapers. Fortunately his equipment had been upgraded for his LEJOG trek, and he was making pretty decent time although more than half the journey was still laid out before him. The most curious response he provided to our line of questioning followed the enquiry of ‘Why are you doing this?’
He replied simply: ‘I’m due for a hip replacement later in the year, so I figured I might as well wear this one out completely before they go to work on me.’
Absolutely brilliant.
I slept okay, despite the cold, and the fact there was 16 miles stretching between us and lunchtime. There’s no watering down the sheer length of 16 miles in one go on foot. I once walked from Queanbeyan to Holt in West Belconnen to visit my mates Blocka and Rochelle, and that was a similar distance. Luckily we were up nice and early and able to punch out a strong start, through the village and up a hill, although it wasn’t long before we’d lost the path and become entangled in a farmer’s field with seemingly no way of escape. No bother, we had a look at Jimmy’s trusty digital OS map and figured the direction we needed to head, then strode forth determined not to be slowed by any obstacles in our path. The largest of those was a stone wall topped with barbed wire and that took a little bit of navigating, but once we were all safely over and strapped into our back packs again we linked back up with the Pennine Way and were back on course.
Within moments we were back in among the moorland which looked as bleak as ever in the dewy, morning mist but the path was fairly flat and well defined, and it allowed for some rapid miles. It gradually wound us up a hill, and the boys bounded ahead as per usual while I stayed at the rear in third gear desperate not to burn too much petrol in the early stages. The yellow landscape sprawled in every direction for hours before a stone building off in the distance started coming into view. The path slowly but surely took us towards the grey structure and once I arrived Jimmy had already fired up the stove and was making a glorious pot of coffee in the biting cold.
We’d arrived at Top Withens which supposedly provided a hefty chunk of inspiration to Emily Bronte before she wrote Wuthering Heights. Whether or not that is accurate is a matter of constant dispute, but it doesn’t stop thousands of tourists turning up every year to visit the dilapidated stone building. They don’t tend to walk 50 miles from Edale though, rather jump out at the coach carpark just up the path and stroll down with their daypacks, dressed like fashionistas and smelling of cologne. Luckily, for the moment we had the place to ourselves and were able to rest our weary legs and guzzle our heart-warming coffee. It had been a strong start, but the reality hit us pretty quickly…there was still a good 10 miles and possibly more before our lunch stop. Jimmy’s ankle was giving him a bit more grief, and while Al’s new boots had provided him much more sturdiness and waterproofing, they’d also started chiselling away at the skin on his feet and ankles and a cluster of embryonic blisters were starting to take root.
Nonetheless it was a peaceful stop and we all combined to pool together our knowledge of Wuthering Heights (I must confess my contribution was minimal at best). As we pondered just exactly what Heathcliff the ghost would have done to pass the time in this stone building, our peacefulness was broken by a group of three ladies who had wandered up from the coach car park to check out the building. They had cameras and seemingly a passionate interest in Wuthering Heights, but bizarrely they refused to even acknowledge that we were there. Until they decided it was time to start photographing the very wall we were sat in front of.
The leader gingerly approached us and said ‘Would you mind moving please, I want to take a photo of that wall. Unless you want to be in it of course.’
Al replied ‘Oh but I do want to be in your photo.’
She didn’t click the camera until we’d packed up and were on our way. It was time for us to go anyway, and now we had a juicy contender for our new quote of the day. Walking away from Top Withens I noticed a series of signs explaining the history of the place, and curiously they all offered Chinese translations. It was the only place on the Pennine Way (seemingly one of the only places in the UK) that gave a Chinese version. We’d been lucky to have the place to ourselves for 15 minutes it would seem.
The path slowly wound us down through some farmland and another town, before steering us sharply up a hill and to the edge of another moor. Visibility had not improved, but luckily the flagstones were laid out before us again and following the path was simply an exercise in not straying into the bogland. But it went on FOREVER, and the boys, having trailed me on the uphill stretch coming up here, had forged well ahead once again until they were well and truly out of my field of vision. I took extra care not to stray. In this visibility, on this bleak landscape of nothingness, losing the path would be disastrous. I had faith in the flagstones and stuck to them religiously, listening to a couple of podcasts to distract myself from the barren landscape I was walking through. The path curved me this way and that, until finally another stone building came into view at the edge of the moorland and I spied Al and Jimmy having a small rest.
Jimmy told me we were about four miles from lunch. Three quarters of the way there, but still with a decent stretch before us – a stretch Jimmy described to me as ‘A little bit lumpy’ having examined the contours of what was still to come. At least we were off that soaking yellow moor, and about to press on across some rolling green hills. I was starving now, we all were. And I could only dream of what pub lunch delights were in store for us on that menu. But then, a harrowing thought. Would the pub still be serving food at 2.30pm? Time was getting away from us as expected and none of us could deal with such a sickening blow as being told the kitchen had shut. Jimmy had the exact same thought as me, and whipped out his phone to make some enquiries. With an audible sigh of relief he told us they would happily serve us food when we arrived. This was a timely morale boost that would squeeze a few more miles out of our wobbly legs.
We were down to three miles as we weaved through a little village, and then had to climb uphill again across more farmland. I foolishly assumed the pub was just on the other side of the hill, but Jimmy broke my heart by telling me there were still at least two hills to go. We trudged on, up and over another hill, then up another from where we actually clamped our eyes on Lothersdale. A more beautiful town I don’t think I’d ever seen. The lads were up ahead, and I had no interest in easing my way down this last hill so I just let gravity take me and I ran all the way down to the road which would deliver our salvation. A few hundred metres further up we found the pub, and all three of us collapsed inside removing our shoes and ordering some refreshments before the angelic bargirl showed us the menus and gave us a few minutes as our salivating became turned into unashamed drooling.
It was a delightful pub, under new ownership and recently renovated if the fancy toilets were anything to go by. I can’t even remember what we ate, but we consumed it incredibly quickly. There was still six miles ahead of us to Gargrave, but we gave ourselves a good hour to recharge and settled on a plan to split up the final stretch of the day. In four miles we would stop at another little village for a pint, before knocking off the last little section and setting up camp.
The problem with stopping is the lactic acid sets in, and every ache and pain which has been bubbling away comes straight to the surface. Jimmy’s ankle wasn’t in the best nick and his face was betraying more and more concern every time he mentioned it. Al had to air out his feet…those blisters were rapidly turning into expanding sores, and he was experiencing a bit of knee pain, much like myself. By the time we fired ourselves up to leave we were all moving much slower, and had to ease ourselves back into stride. We followed a canal for a little while then figured we’d missed a turnoff and had to retrace a few hundred metres, but not before a dehydrated cyclist came up desperate for water. I refilled his bottle with the water I’d just loaded up on at the pub and he was on his way. Four miles down the path we came to another pub and stopped for a refreshing pint, then carried on towards Gargrave. As per always, the campsite was all the way through town and another 500 metres or so beyond the pub we’d earmarked for tea. Severely dragging our feet by now, we eventually lumbered into the campground, and met an old Burnley fan who ran the place with his son. He was a good fella, and pointed out all the facilities before telling us where to set up – right next to the road in and out of town which seemed to be a bit of a favourite of local truckers. We set up in pretty quick time, each grabbed a shower and slowly limped back into town.