Day six Pennine Way
Distance: 40ish km
Cumulative distance: 203km
After an evening of pretty decent sleep under the novelty of a roof, Al and I convened in the drying room to pack up our washing and I delivered a little plan I’d just concocted. It was Thursday morning, and Leeds were playing the late game against the pigs, Sheffield Wednesday, on Saturday afternoon. If we could make it to Alston by then, we could treat ourselves in another hostel and find a pub showing the match. We had already been told there were pubs in town that showed football (these tend to be few and far between through certain stretches of the Pennine Way) and it would give us a little target to aim for as we looked to break the back of this gut-busting walk. Alston was a mere 75 miles (and several chunky hills) away, so if we averaged 25 miles for three days in a row we’d catch the Leeds game. Simple enough. And given yesterday was a lighter effort, and we were both now feeling much more sprightly, we resolved to try and go beyond 25 miles today and give ourselves a head start on tomorrow.
Before I continue, let me tell you the story of British ultra runner Jasmin Paris who won this year’s annual spine race along the Pennine Way. At the start of each year during the depths of winter, a collection of male and female super athletes line up at Edale and race each other to Kirk Yetholm, some 268 miles away. Paris became the first ever female winner in 2019, knocking it over in 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds. That smashed the previous record (set by a man) by more than 12 hours. And to top it all off, she stopped at the aid stations along the way to express milk for her young baby. On virtually no sleep and at a time of year where only eight hours of light per day is on offer, Paris started hallucinating badly towards the end and kept imagining animals sneaking out from behind every rock she ran past. But she stayed strong and made history in the process setting a record that I can only imagine will stand the test of time, unless she gives it another nudge next year.
All of a sudden 75 miles in three days didn’t sound like too much of a challenge at all really.
Careful not to look at the elevation profile of what was ahead, we left Hawes with a certain spring in our step and headed in the direction of Great Shunner Fell, passing a Duke of Edinburgh group along the way. There was an added benefit to reaching Alston by Saturday afternoon – it would put us on track to finish in 12 days after all, which would give Al an extra day’s recovery before having to attend a wedding in Nottingham the following weekend. For the first time we allowed ourselves a chance to think about the finish, but were quick to dismiss the fantasy as quickly as it popped into our heads given the amount of ground we were still to cover. Great Shunner Fell is the highest mountain in the Yorkshire Dales at 716m. It’s not overly steep but climbing to the top takes about five miles of walking. We distracted ourselves as we often do with football trivia, and reeled in the summit around mid morning before clambering back down and over to Keld for a coffee and an early lunch.
It was a small cafe attached to a campsite and we snuck in the door in the nick of time. As the lovely but slightly frazzled owner was cooking up our brekky, a group of three campers approached looking for some sustenance of their own. But the door was broken all of a sudden, and refused to budge despite several minutes of jimmying. The poor lady was darting between the door and the kitchen, making sure our tucker didn’t burn, and had to tell the friendly group that their swift entrance to the café was second in line of priorities and that she would tend to them as soon as we were taken care of. As it turned out the brekky was grand, and with a few nifty tools from out the back she was finally able to admit her next customers.
Leaving Keld meant going down an outrageously steep little hill to cross the river, but soon enough we were climbing once more with our target the Tan Hill Inn which claims to be the highest pub in England. The walking was easy and I struck up a yarn with a couple of elderly chaps heading in the same direction. One was a Leeds fan funnily enough, so I explained our intricate little plan to him. The other used to work for a finance company in London, and has a 12-year-old grandson who lives in Tennessee, and who happens to be a mad Manchester City fan. He flew him over for a game last season, and would you believe it – City lost. They lost two matches in 38 last season. I’m sure he still loved it though.
We found a table outside the Tan Hill Inn and Al rang his Dad as I ducked inside to grab us a couple of non-alcoholic beverages (look at us being all sensible). The chap behind the bar wasn’t blessed with speed of service, in fact he would’ve made a common snail look like Jasmin Paris. But after about 15 minutes I finally managed to get my order in, and five minutes later he’d managed to pour out a couple of pints. We knocked them over, refilled our water bottles and steeled ourselves for what was to come.
Way off in the distance we could see an endless stream of colourful specks which we worked out were cars on the A66. We knew we had to cross the A66 later on this afternoon (roughly the halfway point of the Pennine Way) but it looked a long way away from where we were sat, and we’d read the descent from the Tan Hill Inn was one of the boggier stretches of the entire walk given it wasn’t flushed with the flagstones of so many other sections.
It was just a case of strapping the headphones in, turning on a podcast, putting the head down and trying not to be swallowed up by the mud. Al stormed ahead pretty early on and I slowly but surely tried navigating the deep grass. I sank in one about halfway up to my knee, and that was the worst of the damage. But the path wound on forever, and pretty soon I lost sight of the A66 as we lost elevation. After about an hour I caught up to Al and we decided we’d stop for afternoon tea once we crossed the A66 which was still miles away. So we slogged on, and then stumbled across God’s Bridge a delightful bit of stonework laid on by Mother Nature which formed a small span over what was unfortunately a fairly dry creek bed. The A66 was thundering up ahead and we decided we’d earned a break so we sat down and admired the natural handiwork over some caramel cookies and a few swigs of whisky, which we’d raided from Jimmy before saying goodbye the other day. It truly was a sensational spot, and we both remained in pretty good nick despite the miles we’d already walked. This was crunch time we figured, fairly late in the day but with a bit of energy left to give. We probably had about six or seven miles to go until we hit 25, and anything after that was a definite bonus.
There was one small issue regarding where we might sleep that night, but we decided to just figure that out when we were both too exhausted to push on any further. So we hauled ourselves up the hill to the big road, and walked underneath it passing the first sign indicating we’d reached the halfway point. From here we left the A66 behind, and headed onward over more boggy ground, up and down several farmer’s fields over a vast expanse of nothingness. There were a couple of reservoirs up ahead and we were starting to flag, so we figured pitching up next to one of those would be as good an option as any. The first such reservoir was entirely unsuitable so we pushed on until we spied a lush patch of fairly flat green grass beside a little farmhouse. Nothing ventured, nothing gained we thought so Al and I approached the front door and gave it a gentle knock. This turned out to be Clove Lodge.
Paul answered and told us that field wasn’t his, and so he was unable to let us camp there.
“We actually do offer some accommodation but we’re full up tonight.”
“Is there anywhere at all we can pitch up?” Al ventured, telling Paul we’d started out from Hawes that morning.
“One second,” Paul said running back upstairs for a couple of minutes.
On return, to our sheer delight, he said: ‘We’re actually renovating the bunkroom next door but it’s not due to be finished for another month so there are no beds in there yet. But if you like you can just sleep in there, there are cooking facilities and a working shower.
Jackpot! This was incredible news and after about five minutes of thank yous, Paul showed us to our home for the night. Turns out him and his wife are from East Yorkshire, and recently bought the place with the aim of doing it up as an accommodation spot on the Pennine Way. There isn’t too much on offer around these parts, so I suspect it will prove a sensible investment for the lovely couple. And to top it all off, with the nearest pub four miles away, Paul’s wife has decided to get a bar licence. That didn’t help us this evening but Paul, who had quickly become one of my all-time favourite people, ducked off for five minutes and returned with a couple of beers for Al and I saying: ‘Since we don’t have that licence yet I can’t sell you these, so they’re on the house.’
Resisting the urge to bearhug this super human, Al and I thanked him profusely once more and he told us to enjoy the night before heading back to his house. We had a room to ourselves, and set up our leaking sleeping mats on the floor upstairs. I knew I was in for a night of discomfort but I didn’t care at all – we had a roof, a kitchen and a shower and cooked up an absolute feast of pasta and corn and little chunks of sausage. I whipped out a bit of chocolate for dessert and then doused myself in the hot water of the shower before retiring for the evening. What a delightful spot. Paul told us during the Spine Race earlier in the year him and his wife spied a deluge of head torches for three straight nights as competitors ran past. The first they saw was none other than Jasmin Paris.