Nadine Walks - stories of trekking and travel

Day 8 on the Pennine Way; Hardraw to Tan Hill Inn, 14.5 miles

January 26, 2019

When setting out to do a long-distance walk, there are going to be all kinds of days. Days when the rain obscures the beautiful views (like this, and this); days when you feel sick, or tired, or unenergized; days when you forget your passport and have to take a taxi all the way back to where you started.

But then there are the days when everything just seems to work out. The cafés and pubs are open, and they appear just when you need them. You pass an honesty box with ice cream in the middle of a warm afternoon. The skies are blue. Your legs are strong. The day ends with a pint of beer at a bench in the sunshine.

And this kind of perfect day is what I had on my eighth day of walking the Pennine Way. Blisters? What blisters? I left my lodgings at the Green Dragon Inn to another clear, crisp morning, the sun slanting through the trees and the tombstones in the little cemetery.

Almost immediately after leaving the village I began the long and steady climb up to Great Shunner Fell, an ascent of 2349 feet over 4.5 miles.

I’d been dreading this climb. So far, I’d found the Pennine Way to be really challenging, due to a combination of a heavy pack, blistered feet, and difficult days. So I expected the climb up to Great Shunner Fell to be more of the same, but what a surprise to find that I moved steadily, almost easily! The four miles passed without too much effort, and suddenly I was at the rocky shelter at the summit.

I sat for a few minutes, had a snack, and silently congratulated myself for a solid walk. But I didn’t need to stop long because I was feeling good, so I continued down an easy path to Thwaite, where I arrived just in time for the café to open. I assumed that since the café was 7 miles into the walk that I would be here in time for lunch, but I was making good time and it was too early to eat. So I ordered a mocha- a large, delicious, chocolate-y coffee drink- and sipped it slowly while resting my feet.

Before leaving the café I ordered a sandwich to take along with me, and then I was off again, a steep climb up Kisdon Hill, past sheep and little stone huts and waving fields of bright green ferns. I walked on a narrow dirt trail, winding past farms, up and up until the path flattened out and my views stretched over the valley below.

I remember feeling so good as I walked, so happy. For the first time, my mind ran free: I didn’t have to think about the pain in my feet, or worry about losing the path, or focus on how tired I was or how heavy my pack felt.

Finally, the walking felt good, and easy. I’d adjusted to the weight I was carrying on my back, my legs were strong. The sun was shining and the path stretched out before me and I didn’t have a care in the world.

Soon enough the path led down to Keld, where I found more people than at nearly any other point on the Pennine Way. Keld is where the Pennine Way overlaps/intersects with the popular Coast to Coast trail (one for the future, perhaps?), and it’s a popular stopping point. I would be walking another four miles to Tan Hill Inn, but I couldn’t resist a stop here. I found a bathroom, a little shop selling small tubs of ice cream, and a tucked away “Well-being garden” (isn’t that a charming name?) where I sat on a bench, ate my sandwich, then my ice cream, and looked down over the village.

The rest of the walk to Tan Hill Inn was a bit of a slog, and I was beginning to feel the strain in my legs, but I just kept going (what else is there to do?) and before long a building appeared, far in the distance.

The Tan Hill Inn is known for being the highest pub in Britain, and the building sits totally alone and isolated in the vast moorland of the Yorkshire Dales. I could see it from at least a mile away, just a speck in a wild and lonely landscape. The building dates back to the 17th century, and in the 18th century was used as an inn for the miners. Supposedly there used to be smaller miner cottages scattered around the inn, but they were all torn down in the early 20th century. Now the inn is all that’s left, and it’s become a destination for walkers, bikers, tourists and, according to the website, “bohemian like-minded individuals”. There’s an open fire that’s been burning for over 100-years, and scores of ghost stories as well, but I didn’t know any of this when I walked up.

I just saw the picnic tables in the sun, lots of people milling around, drinking beer, laughing and telling stories. Inside the pub there were several cosy dining rooms, and after checking in at the bar, I was led up to my bunk room. (In addition to two bunk rooms, there are also nicer Inn rooms as well as campsites out back).

I’d reserved a bed in one of the two bunk rooms, and as usual, had the place entirely to myself. There was a towel on my bed and breakfast would be provided the next morning- I was beginning to think that I’d cracked the secret of the accommodation on the Pennine Way! Bunkhouses: less expensive than b&bs and more comfortable than camping, and if the timing is right, you’ll have the rooms to yourself!

I didn’t encounter any ghosts that night- none that I knew of, anyway. Instead I settled in for a relaxing evening: a beer in the setting sun, a warm meal in the pub, a cool breeze from the open window next to my bunk bed, where I tucked myself under the blankets, nibbled on a ginger cookie, and opened to a new chapter of Jane Eyre.

A day of walking doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.

Day 7 on the Pennine Way; Horton-in-Ribblesdale to Hawdraw, 15-miles

January 23, 2019

Time for another Pennine Way post! Yes indeed, these recaps are rolling out slowly; every time I sit down to write I think, “This is the time I’m going to write as many posts as I can and just get through the re-telling of my Pennine Way journey!” I tell myself that I will combine days, that I’ll just give highlights, I’ve even thought about using very few words and lots of photos.

And maybe I will, eventually, recap the days in an efficient way. But for now, each time I sit down to write, I look through my photos and read the notes I took (if I have any), and I become immersed in memories. And then as I write, I realize that I am trying to find the story of that particular day.

So what, then, will be the story of my Day 7 on the Pennine Way, a 15-ish mile stretch from Horton-in-Ribblesdale to Hawdraw?

This wasn’t an eventful day, in fact, it was fairly straightforward. I woke in my empty bunkhouse at the Golden Lion Hotel, splashed water on my face, threw on my hiking clothes and stuffed my items into my pack. It was early- just before 6am- but the night before, David (my fellow Pennine Way walker who’d helped me find the right path on Day 1) had inquired about an early breakfast and the owner of the hotel agreed to leave out basic items so that we could eat whenever we wanted.

When I arrived in the dining room David and his nephew were already there, and before I could even sit down, the nephew had jumped up and run into the kitchen to bring me a cup of coffee. We ate cereal and toast and fruit, paged through out guidebooks, talked about the days ahead.

David was returning to Malham to walk what he had skipped over the day before, and I would be continuing from Horton. After breakfast and a final rearranging of things in our packs, we said goodbye. Part of me was sad that I was leaving another friend, and to not know if I would see him again; the other part could feel that familiar thrill of the great unknown, that unparalleled freedom of heading into it alone.

Just before I left I asked David about a walking pole that I’d seen propped up against a corner outside of my bunkhouse. “This isn’t yours, is it?” I asked. He assured me it wasn’t and encouraged me to take it. “If it’s been here since yesterday, I’m sure it’s owner isn’t coming back.”

It was perfect. Just a single walking pole, but exactly what I needed. When I go on these long walks, I typically look for wooden sticks as I’m hiking, and I’ve always found something. But I’d already been walking for 6 days and since the Pennine Way hadn’t passed through too many wooded areas, I hadn’t found anything suitable.

So I headed out, alone, armed with a full pack and a walking pole. The path promptly headed out of the valley and into the hills, through a walled lane up to Jackdaw Hill and on to Cam End. The first mile was the steadiest climb, but afterwards the path flattened out a bit and the walking wasn’t difficult.

Walled lane leading away from Horton-in-Ribblesdale, Pennine Way

My blister situation was also improving. There was still a tiny bit of pain but nothing like it had been just two days before, when I’d had to take a train and skip a portion of the walk. Today, I was finally starting to feel good.

I walked on, and on. What is the story of the day? Maybe it’s just this: the walking. I was mostly alone, only passing two people coming from the opposite direction, who had started the Pennine Way in Kirk Yetholm and were walking south. They warned me about the lack of water at the northern end of the hike, but told me that the scenery was stunning.

I walked and walked, sometimes listening to music, sometimes listening to the wind blow through the valley below, something listening to the soft baaing of the sheep in the fields beside me.

Winding path and stone wall, Pennine Way

I was carrying a packed lunch that I’d ordered the night before, and eventually I found a flat rock lodged into a hillside with a sweeping view below and I settled down here: my pack at my side, my socks and shoes peeled off, my feet resting in grass, the warm sun on my back. I ate my sandwich and chips and apple and tucked the Twix bar away for later, and then laid down across the rock with my head against my pack. The weather was that perfect in between: not too hot, not too cold, and a soft wind blew against my face.

“This is why I walk,” I thought to myself. That intimidating first day full of rain and wrong turns and numb fingers and aching feet felt very far away. Laying here on this warm and sunny rock, I felt so content, so strong, so sure of myself.

View of valley, Pennine Way — My lunch rock

The path continued, I continued. Gradually the route wound down into the valley and towards Hawes, an old English town that holds a weekly market. As luck would have it, I was passing through on the day of the market! I wasn’t staying in Hawes- I would be continuing another mile and a half to Hawdraw- but I stopped anyway to take care of some errands.

I didn’t regret my idyllic lunch on the hillside, and I was arriving in Hawes a little too late for lunchtime anyway, but the smell of the fish and chips shops was tantalizing. I contented myself instead with walking up and down the street and listening to the bustle, weaving in and out of villagers and tourists, carefully not to bump into anyone or anything with my large pack.

There was a grocery where I stopped to pick up a few supplies, most importantly a new tube of sunscreen (of all the things that I didn’t think I would be needing to restock on! But with the sun shining strongly every day and the coming forecast showing more of the same, I was worried about running out). While waiting in line, a man who must have been in his 70’s started talking to me, and asked if I was walking the Pennine Way.

“I walked when I was in my 20’s,” he told me, a small smile on his face. “That was a long time ago.”

I asked if he could remember what his favorite part of the walk was, and he told me it was Swaledale, an area I would be walking through the next day.

“Enjoy it,” he said, “Enjoy every moment.”

Single file path through meadow, Pennine Way

Before I left town I stopped for an ice cream cone, and ate it on a bench in the shade. The remaining walk to Hawdraw was easy and short. I was staying in the bunkhouse of the Green Dragon Inn, but I was beginning to learn that no two bunkhouses are the same. This particular one was connected to the Inn and the pub, down a series of hallways and up a staircase and I worried that I would never be able to find my way back out. And the bunkhouse was more like the floor of an old hotel, or motel, or a dormitory. There was a long hallway lined with doors that led into separate rooms, presumably all holding bunkbeds. In keeping with the trend of the trip, I was totally alone up there: alone in my room and alone on the floor. There was a tiny kitchen that was cramped and not exactly clean, but I gladly put some cheese and fruit into the fridge. My room was clean and the bunk bed was comfortable, and the shower had hot water so there wasn’t much more I could have asked for.

Dinner was in the pub downstairs (after a few false starts, I eventually found my way back); I drank a beer and ate a huge meal in what was probably my favorite pub of the trip (the building dates back to the 13th century!). There were no other Pennine Way walkers- none that I could see in any case- and the patrons of the pubs seemed to be either locals or tourists just passing through.

But I didn’t mind the quiet evening, and after dinner I went back to my room to read a little (you guessed it!) Jane Eyre.

I was nearly halfway through my walk, and I was just beginning to feel like I was ‘getting it’. Getting into the rhythm of the walking, the rhythm of the way. I was starting to learn what to expect, I was settling into it all, feeling comfortable, feeling rooted.

Beginning to feel like part of something.

The Best Travel Moments of 2018

December 31, 2018

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, I thought it would be fun to write a little round-up of favorite travel moments from 2018. As regular readers are well aware, I’m still in the thick of posting about my Pennine Way adventure from June/July, and as a result, haven’t mentioned much (if anything!) of other travels.

So this post will give you a little taste of some of the other things I’ve been up to, as well as give me a chance to dive deep back into those memories.

I really loved the travel experiences I had in 2018; for the majority of the year I’m home and working, and my days are very routined. But for a few months in the summer and a few weeks scattered here and there throughout the year, I’m able to plan trips and small adventures, and this year had a good balance. Some new places, a return to some familiar places. Time walking, time writing, time exploring. Time with family and friends, time alone.

In chronological order, here are five travel highlights of my year:

A sunrise wedding in the Buttermilks, CA

In early January (almost a full year ago now!), I traveled with some friends to see two other friends get married in the mountains near Bishop, CA. The couple are both avid rock climbers and they chose to have a sunrise ceremony underneath a boulder in the Buttermilks. I’ve never been to that part of California or ever been in a such a landscape, and it was incredible. Soft golden light and long shadows and sandy paths and massive, smooth boulders and a beautiful wedding.

There were so many other, little parts of this trip that I adored: staying up until 4am with a friend who drove in to hangout for a night/morning, driving past Lake Tahoe and stopping for photos and to marvel at the huge pinecones, taking a call from my mechanic moments after I climbed out of a natural hot spring (my car broke down the morning of my flight out to CA, of course), my friend and I being rather overdressed for the wedding reception (“But the invitation said sequins! And cocktail attire!”), winning about $40 at the slots in Reno and Vegas (the only time I’ve ever played a slot machine; I’ll take it!).

Pilgrimage to Ben Orr’s gravesite, Geauga County, OH

In mid-April, I drove out to Cleveland to visit my sister and to attend the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. It’s the second time I’ve been to an Induction Ceremony and both experiences have been fabulous, and leave me remembering just why I love music. I wasn’t a huge fan of any of the inductees, though The Cars, The Moody Blues and The Dire Straights were all bands whose music I’d connected to at some point in my life.

And without a doubt, The Cars were the highlight of the show. My sister and I listened to some of their music in the days leading up to the show, and I read about the band, hoping to learn a little before we saw them perform. “Ben Orr died sometime in the early 2000’s,” my sister told me. Along with Ric Ocasek, Orr sang vocals on many of the band’s hit songs, including “Drive”, my favorite.

One thing led to another, and on the day following the Induction Ceremony, my sister and I found ourselves driving out to the cemetery where Orr is buried. When we learned that it was only about an hour away from Cleveland, it seemed like a no-brainer. We listened to The Cars’ music on the drive and then stood in the rain in the small cemetery, and studied the mementos and notes left by other fans in front of Orr’s gravesite.

I can’t claim to be a true fan, of either Ben Orr or The Cars, but this is what I love about travel. It gives you the opportunity to experience new things and it opens your mind to possibilities, it lets you make connections and it takes you down roads you might never have known existed at all.

I let the lyrics of “Drive” run through mind, and remembered the times that song played out in my own life, who I was in those moments and who I was in that moment, standing in a cemetery in the rain.

“Thanks for the music, Ben.”

Walking with Jane through the moors of Northern England

There was a lot I loved about the Pennine Way, but I think the best part might have been my decision to buy a copy of Jane Eyre when I stopped in Haworth. I’ve written about that part already, but I should say here that I never regretted the extra weight of that book in my pack. Every night I would read a chapter or two, tucked in my sleep sac, often in a bunk bed in a large and empty room. Sometimes I sipped a mug of tea and I nearly always had a package of ginger biscuits and there was something so satisfying and comforting about reading that book as I walked through the countrysides and moorlands and hills and mountains of the Pennine Way. I was alone for so much of my walk, but I never felt lonely. Jane became, in a way, a companion to me, I could almost imagine myself as one of the characters in a Brontë novel. And if not a character in a novel, then a very real woman walking through landscapes in the footsteps of women who have walked those landscapes long before.

Top Withens, Wuthering Heights, Pennine Way

Cheering for the cyclists in the Tour de France

What an unexpected highlight of my time at my writer’s retreat in southern France! This was the 4th time I’d been to La Muse, and I pretty much knew what to expect. I knew my room and favorite shelves for my food in the kitchen, and I even had learned how to shop for a week’s worth of groceries and where everything was located in the massive Carrefour store. I knew the walking trails and the hills and some of the villagers and most of the village dogs, and I even knew some of the other residents.

I already had my routines, the patterns of my days, and I didn’t think that this visit would bring many- or any- new experiences.

But then one day a few of us ran into the mayor of Labastide, and he told us that one of the stages of the Tour de France would be passing very close to the village.

I did some research; I pulled out my computer and a large map of the area and plotted how we could get there; a few days later the mayor took me and a couple others in his car to scout out our walking path. (This tiny road trip was another highlight; Régis, the mayor, is in his 80’s and barely speaks a word of English. He is kind, regal. Tall, with bright blue eyes and long fingers. He drove us all over the mountains that afternoon, taking us up to the Pic de Nore, the highest point in the Montagne Noire, and then to the lake, where he bought us beers and we sat around a table and drank in the summer sunshine).

On Tour de France day, six of us walked from La Muse to the nearest road of that day’s stage. The trip was about 7km and the weather couldn’t have been better: blue skies and temperatures in the mid-70’s. We brought lots of water and snacks and found a spot on the grass to camp out for the afternoon. We all felt kind of giddy, none of us could believe that we would get to experience part of the Tour de France.

About an hour before the riders cycled past, we got to experience something called ‘the caravan’: dozens of vehicles drove by, many outfitted with characters or people in costumes or colorful banners and signs, and each one had several people tossing out swag. Biscuits and gummy candies and small packets of laundry detergent and shopping bags and hats and magnets and juice boxes. We were thrilled, but then again, the experience was thrilling. There was nothing contained or regulated about the caravan: the vehicles sped past, there were no barriers and sometimes it felt as though there were only inches between the spectators lining the sides of the road and the vans or trucks speeding by. The people with the swag didn’t toss the items gently into the air, but rather, they hurled these things down at the ground as hard as they could. There would be a manic scrambling for these items, children and grandmothers got into the action, everyone fighting for their prize.

Maybe the caravan knows what it’s doing, because by the time the Tour de France cyclists came through, we were cheering and yelling like everyone else, like we’d always done this. The cyclists were gone within minutes- we were standing on a downhill section- but it didn’t matter. We clapped and cheered and walked home with great smiles on our faces.

Heading to the Tour de France, Labastide 2018

An unexpected performance in a chapel on Le Chemin du Puy

After my writer’s retreat I had three free days, and since I was in an area of France not far from where I’d stopped walking the Chemin du Puy the year before, I decided to walk a few more days of the pilgrimage route. I left La Muse on a Tuesday morning, took a train ride to Cahors, and was on the Chemin by noon. If I can ever finish writing about the Pennine Way, I’d love to tell you about my three days on Le Puy; after 20 minutes of walking that first day I thought I might have to quit- my pack might have been 50 pounds (seriously) and I was walking through a heat wave and I was seriously questioning the decision to do this tiny part of a pilgrimage. But, as it is with nearly any Camino, I was so happy I’d gone. I still can’t believe how much life I fit into those three days, and it was incredible that I could drop into the middle of a pilgrimage route, be there for only moments, but still experience some of the magic of the Camino.

One of these moments of magic was on the second day of walking. I’d stopped for a break at a picnic table outside of a small chapel, and was just finishing some plums that I’d bought from a man at the side of the road a few kilometers earlier, when I saw a car drive up. A middle-aged woman jumped out of the car and walked briskly into the chapel. I didn’t give her much thought until a few minutes later, when I heard a clear, bright voice singing Ave Maria.

I walked into the chapel, slowly, and took a seat in one of the pews in the back. The woman was standing in the altar, her arms stretched out, her hands gripping the edges of a large stone slab. She finished Ave Maria and began another song, and when she finished this second one, she stood still for a moment, and then turned around and walked away quickly.

I heard her car door slam shut and an engine start and she was gone before I could even think about what I’d just heard.

It happened so fast, it was almost as if I’d never heard it at all.

A Fox in the Alps

After the Chemin, I spent the last few days of my summer trip in Italy, with a friend I’d met on my first Camino. He was working in Sappada, a small town in the Dolomites, and I spent several wonderful days doing nothing but hiking and writing and eating pasta and drinking a lot of espresso.

One evening we took a walk after dinner; darkness had fallen and the streets were quiet. “There’s a fox here,” my friend said. “Sometimes one of the neighbors comes out to feed it.”

“Hmm,” I replied, a little absentmindedly. I was only half-listening, my attention diverted to the dark, looming mountains surrounding us, the warm lights in the windows of the cottages, the cool evening air.

But then I saw a shadow in the field to my left, and a moment later, a small fox trotted into the street in front of us. My friend and I froze as the fox walked straight towards us, and I swear that he looked into my eyes as he approached. When he was just before us he stopped, and turned his head to the side. It was then that I noticed a woman on the side of the road, holding out a large piece of meat. The fox walked over to her, slowly took the meat in its mouth, and then darted away, back into the black shadows of the field.

I still don’t know how our timing could have been that perfect, and sometimes it feels to me as though we were meant to see the fox. Or, that it had wanted to see us. Maybe it was the mountains, the air, the feeling of a journey at its end, the unrealness of an encounter with a wild creature, a brush with magic.

*****************

These are just a few of the things I got to do, the people I was with, and the places I saw in 2018. I think about the year ahead, how some things are planned but so much isn’t yet. Sitting here now, I can’t begin to imagine the kinds of experiences that 2019 will bring.

I hope you all have had restful, peaceful and joyous ends to this year. And that the coming year will bring new opportunities, new hopes, new dreams, new walks, new relationships, new happiness.

All my best, and I’ll be back with more soon.

Day 6 on the Pennine Way: Malham to Horton-in-Ribblesdale, 16-miles

December 19, 2018

My sixth day of walking on the Pennine Way started with a solid breakfast in the YHA hostel. Toast and eggs and sausage and lots of coffee. I ate with Margaret, the northern Californian woman I’d met four days before (at this point it felt like weeks before!), the one who had told me that she also went very off route on that first day of walking.

Margaret was planning to walk to Horton that day, and we looked at our maps and guidebooks together.

“This is going to be a really long day,” she said, pointing a finger at the elevation profile.

There would be two rather tough climbs- one to Fountain Fells, the other up Pen-y-Ghent- as well as a series of 421 steps up to Malham Cove, a challenge we’d encounter first thing in the morning

I slurped down a last sip of coffee and tied the laces of my shoes, and, after picking up the packed lunch I ordered the night before, was the first one out of the hostel. I’d gotten to breakfast as soon as they started serving food (here’s a pro tip for walkers who want to leave as early as possible but also take advantage of your lodging’s breakfast: arrive at breakfast about 10 minutes early, and often someone will come out and bring you coffee or tea, and get you started on toast. I’d found that breakfast could be a rather long, drawn-out affair if you let it, and sometimes that’s nice, but on long days I often wanted to get going as soon as possible).

It was another gorgeous morning. I walked away from the quaint village and almost immediately headed towards Malham Cove, a fantastic limestone amphitheater (and now home to peregrine falcons!). The light was soft and golden, the grass seemed to shine a beautiful green, white fluffy sheep wandered slowly through the fields and I was the only one around. What a feeling of peace! And for the first time, I noticed that my feet didn’t feel quite as bad. There was still a little pain from one of my blisters, but this was a noticeable change from the past several days. The realization put a grin on my face. Despite the difficulty of the day ahead, I might actually enjoy the walking!

And then came the stairs. 421 of them. The stairs were endless! This is when my counting trick began (and really, it’s not a trick at all, just something I started doing on the Pennine Way to help me continue to move forward). I’d count my steps, 1-10, and as soon as I got to 10 I’d start back over at 1. The idea was that I couldn’t stop to rest or to catch my breath until I got to ’10’, but often when I arrived at ’10’ I decided to keep going for another 10. I certainly stopped- multiple times- as I climbed all of those stairs, but something about the marching repetition of the numbers pushed me forward. It became almost like a game.

Before too long I was at the top, at the top of a field of limestone, large rocks that were smoothed and polished and shining in the sun. I hopped around the rocks for a bit, admired the views, and then looked around for the path. Where in the world was I supposed to go? When walking through fields, or the moors, the path is rather obvious. Sometimes it’s just barely visible, but if you stare at the ground long enough, you can usually find a path. But up here in the limestone any trace of a path was gone. There weren’t any signs, or arrows, and my guidebook was hopeless.

Well, the guidebook referred to a path that was the wrong one, and indicated that I was to turn right at the top of the steps, but of course I somehow managed to think the wrong path was the right one and I climbed halfway up a rather steep hill before realizing that I must be going the wrong way.

But, have no fear, I eventually figured things out, and breathed a small sigh of relief when I found a signpost. The path led through a narrow valley and I felt like I was the only person on earth (well, me and the sheep), and then there were another 150 stairs to climb to get out of the valley (of course there were), and then I arrived at a sign that pointed back to Malham, which was 1.5 miles away.

All of that effort for a mile and a half! I adjusted my pack, settling it more firmly against my back, and continued on.

The rest of the day followed a similar pattern to those first few hours of my day: climbing, counting to ten with each step, expansive views, sheep and green fields and sunshine, more climbing, more counting steps, more beautiful views.

The last climb of the day was up Pen-y-Ghent, and as I stood at the base of the mountain, looking up at the little peak that I would have to pull myself over, I felt tired. It had been a really good day but, in hindsight, I think I was still getting my walking legs under me. I felt like I could keep walking on a flat path for miles and miles, but the 600 feet I would have to climb that was looming over me? That was a different story.

I took a deep breath, and started. Before long I passed a man coming down in the opposite direction. He stopped and we chatted for a moment, and he reassured me that the climb wasn’t nearly as hard as it looked. “You’ll be up at the top in no time!” he said, and with a wave, he was off.

I used the old 1-10 counting trick to keep me moving up the mountain, and I stopped several times to take a video (it appears that most of the videos I took on the Pennine Way were when I was struggling. Hmm, maybe I needed something to distract myself with? A way to laugh at myself a little bit?).

The man was right- the climb wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed, all except for the bit of scrambling at the top. I’m not a big fan of needing to use my hands and arms to pull myself up over rocks when I’m hiking, though the scrambling at the top of Pen-y-Ghent was minimal and really not too difficult. I think the hardest part was the fact that I had a heavy pack strapped to my back, threatening, at times, to pull me backwards.

But I made it! I was dripping with sweat and my face was beet red and as soon as I found a place to sit I threw down my pack and took off my shoes and peeled off my socks and gulped down as much water as I could (bonus points! Drinking water makes your pack lighter!). I sat on the summit for awhile, watching as people arrived at the top and took photos at the trig point. Everyone sprawled out on the grass, people and sheep mingled together in the bright sunlight. I didn’t recognize anyone up here; most, if not all, were day hikers, and were here to climb Pen-y-Ghent, rather than walk the whole Pennine Way.

The rest of the way, to Horton-in-Ribblesdale, was all downhill, and it was mostly enjoyable walking, though under a very hot sun. I arrived in town tired but rather triumphant. Aside from the unexpected challenges of Day One, this was the most physically challenging day yet, and I’d done it! I headed straight for the “famed” Pen-y-Ghent café, a place that my guidebook describes in great and glorious detail. In addition to drinks and snacks, the café doubles as a tourist information center and sells camping gear and maps and generally provides a great service to Pennine Way walkers. There are volumes upon volumes of “guestbooks” that Pennine Way walkers have been signing for years, and I was excited to add my name to the register. Unfortunately, the café was closed when I arrived! I’d made it in time- well before the 5:30 posted closing time- but it appeared that it had been closed all day.

I peered through the dark windows for a minute, and then continued down the road to my lodging for the night, the bunk room of the Golden Lion Hotel. I checked in at the pub of the hotel and was given a tour of the bunkhouse, which I would have all to myself. There were triple bunks but by now the novelty has faded a bit, and instead of climbing uncertainly to the very top, I unrolled my sleeping bag on one of the bottom bunks.

After I took a shower and rinsed out my clothes from the day, I headed out of the bunkhouse to see about getting a drink in the pub. But as soon as I walked out the door of the bunkhouse I ran straight into David, my friend from the first day of the walk! We stared at each other and started to laugh. “What are you doing here?” I asked, a great smile on my face.

David was staying in the hotel that night, along with his nephew, who had driven out to meet him for the evening. The three of us gathered in the pub for a drink and stayed through a long and lingering dinner, talking about the last few days. David had several adventures since I’d last seen him- wild camping at the base of Stoodley Pike, wandering off route for miles around one of the reservoirs- and he was behind schedule.

“I haven’t walked this last section yet,” he said, referring to the day’s walk I’d just done. “But since I had plans to meet my nephew here, I took a cab and tomorrow morning I’m going to get dropped off back at Malham, and continue from there.”

I told him all about Pen-y-Ghent, and advised that he take more water than he thought he would need for the day’s walk. We talked and talked, and it felt so good to have a friend who could understand the journey that I was on, because he was on a very similar journey of his own. His nephew asked lots of questions and we ordered another round of beer. Just as we were winding down, who shows up in the pub but Margaret! We ushered her over to our table and she sat down with shaky legs. I glanced at the clock on the wall- it was after 8:30pm. “Margaret,” we asked, “Have you just arrived?”

She looked at us with wide eyes. “That walk took longer, much, much longer, than I thought it would.” David bought her a drink and we told more stories and for what I suspected might be the last time, I sat around a table in a pub with my little Pennine Way family. They were people I’d only known for a few days, but who had nearly instantly become friends, comrades of sorts. I truly love undertaking these walks alone, and continuing to walk alone. The sense of isolation and solitude and freedom give me such an expansive, open feeling; I feel a deep sense of myself, my truest self, when I am out alone on the moors, or on a hillside, or scrambling up a mountain.

I love being alone, but there’s also something about this: a tableful of people who cheer for me and support me and understand what it means to be on this particular journey. I know that their footsteps are ahead of me or just behind me, and that knowledge brings me such comfort. Charlie was out there somewhere, and so were Nigel and Judy. That night I would say goodbye to David and Margaret and I wouldn’t see either of them again, but it was okay. We were all part of the same walk.

Up in my room I crawled into my bunk and read a few chapters of Jane Eyre and ate ginger biscuits, wiping the crumbs from the mattress. The bunkroom was empty, but I didn’t feel alone. I doubted that I would ever feel truly alone on this journey.

Previous Post: Day 5 on the Pennine Way

Stepping into fear, my own little pledge drive

December 7, 2018

I hope you’ll all bear with me just a little longer while I talk more about this Patreon thing that I set up, as I use this space to continue to drum up support.

I realized that I owe it to myself to do this, to move into the discomfort of asking for help and support, rather than shy away from it.

Shying away feels like the easy thing to do. It is the easy thing to do.

If you missed my last post, or haven’t been over to my accounts on Instagram or Facebook, then here’s the nutshell recap: I set up a page at Patreon.com, a site where people can pledge a certain amount to the creators that they support. It’s my way of asking for a little help and a lot of support as I move through this long and often difficult process of trying to write and publish a book. There are more specific details on my Patreon page, including how I could expect to use any money earned from the site, what my goals are, more about the reasons I decided to do this.

I launched the page earlier this week, with a post here and over on Instagram and Facebook and I waited, curious to see what- if anything- might happen.

The result was interesting. There was really nice engagement and encouragement from these posts, and I can feel that there are a lot of people behind me in taking another step towards these dreams of mine. And that feels really amazing. Though this Patreon effort IS about extra financial support- it would be a lie to say that it’s not about the money- what runs underneath it has always been the most important thing to me. That I have my people out there, cheering me on.

But because this is about the money, I looked anxiously to see if anyone would be willing to be a patron. And the results here give me really mixed feelings, and it’s so hard to articulate this. Maybe because it’s about money, and that’s a difficult subject to talk about and be really honest about? I’m not sure. But it’s also about expectation vs hope, that tricky balance of asking for help but also not expecting it, and in needing to see the effort all the way through.

I currently have four patrons (one of whom is my mother. Hi Mom!!). I can’t say that I expected anything from this little venture, and to be really honest, the fact that there are three people out there who are not related to me or even a friend to me “in real life” who have willingly and enthusiastically pledged to help me out with my art… it’s so incredible.

My first reaction was to want to pull back and say, “Wait! No! I’ve changed my mind, I can’t accept any money, this feels strange and different and I’m not sure that I’m 100% comfortable with it and maybe I should just wait until there is a real book I can put in your hands to ask for any money.” Part of me still feels this way.

But part of this whole process is about fear. It’s about facing something that’s uncomfortable and scary and taking a step towards it. And then, when it continues to feel scary, my reaction is to want to stop and say, “Yes, this is good enough, it’s more than good enough, I can stop now.”

I wasn’t going to say much more about this Patreon, other than to keep the button on my blog and mention it briefly, from time to time.

But maybe what I need to do, instead of back away and go back to being quiet and keeping small, is to just step into this space of discomfort and come back here and keep talking about it.

Maybe four patrons is all it’s going to be. I didn’t expect more or less, but I’d hoped that, maybe, there could be a few more. And maybe there can be?

There’s the $1.00/month level on my page and I think it’s a really interesting concept. $1.00 a month isn’t much and might seem like only a drop in the bucket. And, well, yes, if just one person comes over from this post and pledges at that level, it’s not going to make a huge difference (but man, I have to tell you, I’m going to appreciate it). But I just have to wonder- what if 25 people in my audience make that pledge? What if 25 of the people who support me make that pledge? An additional $25.00 a month becomes something altogether very different.

So if this were a pledge drive (which, in a way, I suppose it is), and I were on TV or the radio and urging listeners to call in, that I wanted to hear the phones ring and see the numbers rise, then this is my drive, my call. I wonder if I can get 25 pledges at the $1.00/month level. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.

Nothing has started to feel more comfortable as I’ve continued writing this post. I think, again, about expectation vs hope and the difference between them and how I’m trying to come from a place of hope. I’m back here again, trying to not back down and let it go, but instead to keep this up. To really launch this idea, rather than mention it and then pretend it never happened.

I will happily continue to blog and take photos and work on my book, and so happily share all of this with you, regardless of the money raised on Patreon. My readers and followers and friends and family- all of my supporters- I take so much from the encouragement and support you give. I always have, and I truly hope that I always will. If you’ve liked my blog and liked hearing these stories, and if you’re in the position to be able to make a small pledge on Patreon, that would be amazing. But regardless of what does or does not happen over there, I’ll continue to be over here, wrestling out the stories from my walk that happened over 5 months ago. (Yikes, I really behind on this one!!).

So thanks again for being here, in whatever way that you are, and I hope to keep writing for many more years to come. To sign off, I’ll leave you with the photo that kicks off my little Patreon video, as well as one of my very favorite photos from all of my Camino’s. There is such joy and happiness here.

If Not Now, When? Part Two

December 4, 2018

Earlier today, when I was on a hike, the phrase “If not now, when?” went through my head.

I’d been thinking about how and when to take the next steps in life, and about barriers and fears and uncertainties. And then I remembered that the phrase “If not now, when?” was something I wrote on this blog, in one of my first posts. Actually, that was the title of the post, and I wrote it on January 14, 2014, nearly 5 years ago. I’d been learning all about the Camino de Santiago and thinking that I might want to walk across Spain, but I hadn’t fully decided that I’d do it. Or, maybe I had, I just needed to push myself through the questions and into decision.

And a big part of making that decision was asking myself, “If not now, when?”

I’m thinking about this again because I’m feeling ready to take another step. Lately, over these past nearly 5 years, my walking/writing adventures have followed a similar pattern. I plan some big trip in the summer, spend at least part of that trip walking a great distance, and then spend a lot of the following months writing about it. Though the rest of the year, I work on writing my book (about that first trip on the Camino Frances), and I research other walks and start thinking about the next journey.

It’s been a great pattern, and it fits nicely into the rest of my life. My work counseling teenagers gives me two months off in the summer, so it hasn’t been hard to take a long trip every year. I’m careful with my money and sacrifice certain things so that I can afford to travel (the top sacrifice might be fixing the air conditioning in my car, eek).

And the writing fits in, too. Sometimes I blog while I’m on my trips, lately I’ve been blogging about these trips in the fall and winter. I work on my book during the week, in a small pocket of time that I guard as my ‘writing time’, often in the early evening twilight hours. I published an e-book last year, and also started sharing photos from my walks on an Instagram account, but otherwise I just keep plugging away at the blog and my book and it all still feels very quiet, and slow, and nice.

But I’ve always wanted something a little more. I keep saying that my book might only ever be for me, but if I’m being really honest, I would love to publish it and work hard to connect it to its audience (many of whom are you, you who are reading this blog). I still have work to do, but I’m getting closer to needing to figure out next steps: to have some friends start reading pieces of it, to search for an editor, to work on a book proposal.

And when I think about moving this book from just this thing that I’ve been slowly working on at my kitchen table… to a real thing that others might see… it both terrifies me and thrills me.

It also ignites my dreams. Because writing a book has been a dream of mine for a long time, and when I think that I’m actually doing it, that it just might happen, it seems like all of my other dreams flood in and I can’t ignore them.

I want to travel all over the world and walk in places other than Europe. I want to try to climb Kilimanjaro and trek the Annapurna Circuit and lately I’ve been reading about the Shikoku Pilgrimage in Japan. And there’s this little trek in Guatemala that I researched a few years ago, and the Lycian Way in Turkey, and the list goes on and on.

I want to walk and walk and write about it all. I want to take beautiful photographs and sometimes I wonder if I can create a book where I can put it all together: the walks and the stories and the photographs. Or, if there are more of these longer stories in me, if the story of the Camino de Santiago is just the first one, the first one in the series of my walking years.

I’ve realized a few things in these last few years, because these ideas and dreams aren’t exactly new. I wanted to quit my job and go off and walk around the world and write my stories ever since that first Camino in 2014. But I also knew that it would take a lot to get to a place where I could do this for a year or two, and that maybe I’d never be able to get myself to that place.

So I’ve worked hard to accept where I am and what I’m doing with my life, and all of the beautiful little pieces of it. There are still so many things that I love about the way my life is arranged: the work with my students and my little apartment and my clunky car without AC, and the summers of European travel and long walks and my writer’s community at La Muse, and the writing at the kitchen table in the twilight.

My way is to move slowly. It’s just my nature and that’s something else that I’ve learned to accept and embrace. I’ve learned how to be patient with myself, patient with my dreams and my motivations and my desires. So I’m still here, still moving slowly towards my dreams, but trying to take steps when I can. Begin with that first, single step. And then take another, and another.

I’m not sure where, exactly, these small steps are leading, but right now I feel like I have to take another. I mentioned, in a post a few weeks ago, that I was considering setting up a Patreon account, and asking for your sponsorship and patronage. I’ve hesitated, I’ve thought and thought about it, I’ve read a lot and looked at other accounts- at other writers and bloggers to see what they were doing- and I’ve sat with this idea for little while.

The idea behind Patreon is that it’s a way for artists to get paid for things they’re already creating. Fans, or followers, or patrons (I love saying patrons! I reminds me of all the art history classes I used to take) pay a few dollars every month for the work you’re creating. It’s a way to show support for the art you love, and it helps artists to continue to create their work. In some cases, it enables artists to do and share even more.

I’ve set up a page and you can go there and check it out; I explain more about my work and how and why I’m using Patreon. I’ve even made a little video so if nothing else, you should go watch it! (It’s only a minute long and one of the few videos I’ve ever put together, so don’t expect much!).

The idea of putting out a call for support makes me really nervous. It’s not even a product that I’m putting a price tag on, not here anyway. It’s something looser, it’s like a call for encouragement. It’s a dollar a month or three dollars a month but it’s something more than that too. I’m starting to recognize that all of this work that I’m putting in IS worth something. It always was, but over the years it’s become part of my art; my writing here on the blog is intentional and the stories of these walks- while always true- are also shaped and formed. My photographs are, too. I work to create something beautiful to share with whatever audience I happen to have. It’s something I value highly, it’s something I’ve set out to do with my life.

So I’m going to keep blogging and taking photographs and sharing them in the ways I always have, regardless of what happens with this Patreon. I’m going to keep going on long walks, too. But I’m curious to see what might happen with a Patreon, if it could help support some of these ventures, if it might lead to other opportunities or possibilities. And the thought of that is really exciting.

And really, if not now, when? It’s been tempting to continue to think that I need more time, that I need more practice and skill and that what I create should be kept small, and easy, and quiet.

It might be that way for a little while longer, but I can feel things stirring. I want to see what I can make, where I can go.

Thanks for being here, or on Instagram, or wherever you happen to be. It continues to be such a pleasure to have this small audience. I’ll be back to the regular program soon- I’m determined to keep these Pennine Way recaps coming! Its been fun to dig back into the walk and relive those glorious summer days, so stay tuned.

Men in the hills and bulls in the field; Day 5 on the Pennine Way, Haworth to Malham (with a train ride… 6 or 7 miles of walking)

November 28, 2018

Day 5 was the day that I skipped part of the Pennine Way.

When people ask about my summer travels or I talk about walks that I’ve done, I always say that I walked the Pennine Way. I don’t say that I skipped part of it or that I didn’t walk the whole thing; I say that I walked it, that I walked it all.

Some may disagree with me and I suppose at one time- during my first Camino on the Frances- I was a bit of a purist. If I was going to do a walk, I wanted to start at the start and end at the end and walk every step of it in between. It wasn’t that I considered it “cheating” if I didn’t walk all of it, but I think my thought was that I would do everything in my power to walk every step.

And, now that I think about it, I maintained that view through my next two Caminos: the Norte and the San Salvador. In fact, on the Camino de San Salvador, I walked when I was very sick and absolutely should have just hopped on a train and skipped the last 30km of the walk. Maybe it was because the route was a shorter distance, maybe it was because I wanted to arrive at my destination on foot, or maybe it was just that sort of purist view that if you’re going to walk a long-distance walk, you should try your best to walk the whole thing.

To that I now say… nonsense!

If I’m able to, if I have the time and my body is in good shape, I still love starting at the start, ending at the end, and walking every step in between. But sickness on the San Salvador taught me my lesson, and now I have (almost) no hesitations about skipping a section of a long walk if it’s in my best interest. I don’t want to skip a section if it’s hard, I don’t want to skip a section if I’m bored, and I even hesitate to skip a section if there’s bad weather (unless it makes the walking dangerous), but if I’m sick or hurting or if I’m falling short on time, I’ll hop on a bus or train or hail a taxi and skip those miles.

I put this into practice during my second sojourn on the Norte and even at the end of last summer’s Le Puy adventure, and you know, nothing bad happened. No one shook their finger at me because I didn’t walk all the stages in my guidebook, and honestly I didn’t feel any differently. A little disappointed, maybe, that I couldn’t quite fit in all that I had set out to do, but at the end of the journey I felt accomplished, and proud, and very, very much like a pilgrim.

So after four days on the Pennine Way, with four blisters on my feet and a 26-mile day looming ahead of me, I thought and I thought and then finally the answer was just so clear and obvious, like a great voice booming overhead: “Nadine,” the voice said. “Take the bloody train.”

I was in Haworth, after all, and there was a train station just down the hill from where I was staying.

So after a truly splendid full English breakfast, I hoisted up my heavy pack and walked down to the station and the whole experience was just the best. A little luxury on a pilgrimage or a long trek is something I could get used to! (Though, to be fair, some people camp and cook their dinners on stoves every night during their walks; with my beds and my glasses of wine/pints of beer, some may consider my walking adventures quite luxurious!).

In any case, I bought a ticket on a steam engine train that took me from Haworth to Keighley- who knew I’d get to ride on a steam engine??

From Keighley I took another train to Gargrave, which was where I picked up the Pennine Way, skipping over about 20-miles of walking that I’d originally planned to do.

Did I miss the walking? A little bit. But honestly, the blisters were such a bother that it was really nice to sit back on the train and watch the countryside whiz past. Gargrave is a quaint town that sits across from the River Aire; I got off the train and headed straight to the wonderful Dalesman Café, where I ordered a packed sandwich and bag of chips to stash in my pack for a little later in the afternoon. Because I only had 6-miles to walk and it was still late in the morning, I sat for awhile on the banks of the river with my feet stretched out in the sun, giving my blisters as much time to heal as I possibly could.

Eventually, I put my shoes back on and started walking and the blisters still hurt, but maybe not quite as much as the day before. Soon enough I was out of Gargrave and into the rolling countryside and fields of Eshton Moor. It was fairly easy walking and I mostly had the open fields all to myself, not another soul around for miles except for the cows and the sheep. Not another soul until I heard a sound behind me, and turned to see a young man walking briskly- nearly running- on the path behind me. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and carried a small day pack and the muscles of his legs reminded me a bit of a racehorse.

“Hi,” he called to me as he approached. “Are you walking the Pennine Way?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Are you?”

“Yeah, sort of,” he laughed. “I’m doing the Spine Race actually, crazy fool that I am.”

I’d heard about the Spine Race sometime in the days before; to quote the website, it’s a “non-stop, 7-day, 168 hour race from Edale to Kirk Yetholm.” Edale to Kirk Yetholm is the entirety of the Pennine Way, and to try to complete the trail in 7 days is, indeed, rather foolish. And a bit insane.

“When did you start?” I asked, as the man moved past me.

“Yesterday morning!” He was ahead of me now, and turning his head back he smiled. “Good luck with your walk, it’s a lot harder with a bigger pack like yours.”

I marveled at what he was attempting to do, and watched as he began to jog lightly through the grass. I thought about how he must have walked through the night, pausing only to sleep for an hour, maybe two. And then I thought about my own night and morning: a room of my own in a cozy B&B, a breakfast of eggs and toast and bacon and tomatoes and beans, and then a pleasant train ride on a steam engine. A sandwich in my pack, waiting to be eaten under the shade of a tree, perhaps along a babbling creek with my bare feet in the grass.

We all walk our own walk, I thought, smiling to myself.

But about 10 minutes later I’d caught up to him. I’d just approached a closed wooden gate when I saw the man on the other side of the field, backing slowly away from a large group of young cows who were advancing on him.

I carefully reached up and unlocked the gate, the swung it back towards me so the man could come back into my field. We shut the gate, the cows (or, possibly, bulls, according to the Spine Race Man) crowding against the wooden fence.

“I got worried when they start to advance on me,” he said.

We stared at the bulls, they stared back at us, pushing and shoving against each other so they could all get closer. They seemed friendly enough, but now that they were blocking the gate I couldn’t see how we would even be able to enter the field at all.

“Let’s hop over the wall here,” the Spine Race Man said, “it looks like this other field runs parallel to the path, and we can cross over again once we get away from the bulls.”

The man hopped the wall easily enough, but it was another story for me. I had to take off my pack and shove it over the wall to Spine Race Man, who was waiting to catch it. I attempted to effortlessly climb over the wall but who are we kidding? Once on top of the wall I needed the man’s help to get down onto the other side, and he was gracious enough to wait and help me, and even picked up my pack and helped me get it back on.

I figured he would take off- him being in a race and all- but he walked with me down through the field until we found a safe spot to climb back over the wall and get back onto the Pennine Way, well away from the bulls.

“Good luck with the rest of your way,” he said, and then he was off, running this time, off through the fields and away into the hills and after awhile I wondered if he was just a figment of my imagination, a man in a race over the mountains who helped me scale a wall and escape a herd of bulls.

The rest of my walk was beautiful and fairly easy. But then another funny thing happened, when I was about a mile away from Malham, my destination for the night. Walking towards me and coming from the opposite direction were three people, as they drew closer I saw a younger couple and a older woman. We all smiled at each other and I was about to move past them when the younger girl said, “Excuse me, but you aren’t Nadine, are you?”

I blinked. I was about 75-miles into a long walk through England and currently in the middle of a nondescript grassy field, and here was a group of people who were all looking at me and smiling and knowing exactly who I was.

I nodded, a bit hesitantly, and the girl beamed at me. “I’m Charlie’s sister!” she exclaimed. “This is our mother,” she pointed to the woman at her side. “We were just with Charlie last night and she and Dad went ahead to do the next stage, we’re going to take a car and meet up with them later.”

I laughed then, so happy to have run into these strangers who could give me news of Charlie, my friend from the day I walked into Hebden Bridge. I had last seen Charlie just two days before but already it felt like an entirety, as though I had been walking alone for a really long time.

Her family encouraged me, saying that Malham wasn’t much further and that the walking would be easy, and with big smiles and waves we said goodbye and I continued on. I thought about Charlie as I walked, how she was just a day ahead of me. The thought warmed me, as though I had some invisible guide on my journey, someone who was walking just miles ahead: checking the path, making sure the route was okay, leaving her trace by her footprints in the mud.

I arrived in Malham by mid-afternoon, and first walked in a circle through the tiny, charming village. There were several pubs and restaurants, a couple B&Bs, a small general store and an ice cream stand, all surrounding the River Aire. Families and hikers were seated at the outdoor tables and spread across the grass and with the bright sunlight filtering through the trees, I couldn’t think of a much more idyllic spot.

My hostel (Malham YHA Hostel) was just at the corner of town, and I stopped inside to deposit my bag and change my shoes and then went back into town to kill time until I could check into my dorm room. I added myself to the beautiful tableau before me: armed with an ice cream cone and Jane Eyre, I found a bench in the sun and whiled away a peaceful hour, reading and writing and people watching.

Later, over a hearty dinner in the pub, I thought about how I had given myself all the things I’d needed that day; how I had moved slowly and skipped those miles and met the Spine Race Man and Charlie’s family, how my feet were finally starting to feel better and how, after 5 days of walking, I was starting to feel like I was on the Pennine Way, really on it. I was settled and more sure of myself, I’d picked up a set of maps and an extra stake for my tent and several more blister patches (just in case!) and I had a belly full of food and a heavy copy of Jane Eyre and a forecast that showed nothing but sunshine.

I was ready for the rest of the way. Ready, and excited.

Blisters and Jane Eyre; Day 4 on the Pennine Way, Hebden Bridge to Haworth, 15(ish) miles

November 15, 2018

Blister paaaaiiiiiinnnnn!

I’m promise this is (sort of) the last post where I’ll talk about my blisters. Maybe I’ll mention them in the next post. But I’m not sure how else to lead off a post from this fourth day of walking on the Pennine Way, from Hebden Bridge to Haworth, without making it pretty much all about my blisters.

Because this day was all about my blisters. Blisters, and Jane Eyre. But Jane comes later.

I’d woken up early- after a decent night’s sleep in my private room at Hebden Bridge Hostel- and after packing my things I went downstairs to take advantage of the complimentary breakfast. I’d bought some yogurt the day before, and along with a hot cup of coffee and a big bowl of cereal that the hostel provided, I felt ready for my day ahead.

What I remember most about leaving the hostel is that, on my walk back along the canal and heading out of town, I had to stop and adjust the bandages on my toes. I wasn’t even 20 minutes into the day’s walk and I had my pack opened before me, my little medicine bag open, my socks and shoes off. Once the blisters were re-wrapped I was again on my way, but my steps were still painful. It wasn’t impossible to walk- not at all- but the pain was ever-present.

But worse than the pain was my worry over the carefully planned itinerary I’d set for myself. I was going to walk the Pennine Way in 15-days, and this is a slightly ambitious plan but one that I thought I could manage. (In hindsight, if I were doing this over I’d give myself a minimum of 17-days, but I’ll save that post for another time). One of the issues with my itinerary was that I’d planned a 26-mile day for myself towards the beginning of the walk, the entire reason being that I’d wanted to detour to Haworth. The details here aren’t important, but basically, the detour meant that I’d have to cover a whopping 26-miles the next day if I wanted to keep on track and finish the walk in the time that I’d allotted.

On a good day- weather wise and with feet and legs in good working condition- 26-miles on the 5th day of a long walk would be difficult, but possible. But as I walked out of Hebden Bridge that morning, my four little blisters crying up to me with every step, I couldn’t imagine how I’d be able to accomplish what I’d set out to do.

And stopping in Haworth was a priority. Haworth is the home of the Brontës, that great literary family of the nineteenth century, and while I haven’t read all of the works from Charlotte and Emily and Anne, I adore the story of Jane Eyre. I’d also heard about the family’s home- the parsonage- and once, years before, I’d seen an old photograph, a grainy black and white image of a solid old home set against a wild and stormy sky, surrounded by open, empty fields. “I’d like to go there one day,” I said to myself.

When I was researching the Pennine Way and discovered that Haworth was just a few miles detour from the main path, I knew I’d have to work this into my plans.

But since the 26-miles wouldn’t be until the next day, I decided to push that detail out of my mind and focus on what was around me. And despite the blister pain, and despite how the path began to rise rather steeply as I made my way off the canal and through the hamlet of Mytholm, I loved the path. There was something really beautiful about the morning, about the dark and quiet little cemetery tucked into the side of the hill, about the way the path narrowed and curved around tiny waterfalls and stone cottages, steps tucked into the dirt, how flowers seemed to spill out onto the path- a burst of red and pink and white.

Once I climbed well away from the canal and passed through a series of farms (and an orchard!), I entered Heptonstall Moor, the first true moorland of the walk. Ahh, now this was what I had been waiting for. There is just something about an open landscape, about the wide skies and the fields that stretch to the horizon, and the feeling of vastness and freedom. It’s my very favorite kind of walking. I’d discovered this back when I walked the Camino Frances and really loved the Meseta, and on the Norte with all those sweeping coastal views, and the Aubrac Plateau on the Chemin du Puy. But it was crossing through moorland on the West Highland Way that had me researching other walks through the UK. “I want more of this moorland,” I’d said to myself.

And here it was. A winding, faint path through the heather, stone slabs appearing occasionally to prevent wet, muddy feet and to help guide the way. I stopped in a grassy spot by a creek for a snack- a banana, a handful of dried apricots, a few rounds of Babybel cheese- and then continued walking through the moorland, on service roads and past reservoirs, on grass and dirt and more stone slabs.

Eventually the path wound up to Top Withens, the farm that was supposedly the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (this is greatly debated and totally unproven, but accuracy aside, Top Withens has become associated with Wuthering Heights and is quite the tourist destination). I’d been alone all morning long, passing the occasional hiker, but now that I’d arrived at Top Withens it seemed as though everyone else had, too.

I walked around the remains of the old farmhouse and then found a quiet spot on the hill behind the building and ate another snack. The skies were overcast that day, and I started to get cold there on the hillside, with the wind whipping around and I could imagine that Emily Brontë had walked here once, or maybe a dozen times, among the weathered stone and gnarled tree branches and dreamt up her dark tale of Catherine and Heathcliff.

The path detours just after Top Withens, with the Pennine Way carrying straight on and the detour to Haworth descending down to the right. I had about 3 1/2 miles to go, and most of the way was pleasant, but the last bit of walking on the road had my blisters roaring again. But I could see the town of Haworth in the distance and it was early afternoon when I arrived, giving me plenty of time to check into my B&B and then head back into the town for some site-seeing.

I was staying in the Apothecary Tea House which was right in the center of the town, in a quaint square filled with shops and restaurants. Haworth has a youth hostel and when I was planning my itinerary I think the hostel still had open beds, but it was located a mile and a half up a long hill on the way out of town, and I decided that I was going to splurge on a B&B.

And I’m so glad that I did! The staff were among the kindest of any that I’d met on my walk; the owner greeted me when I arrived and when he found out I was from Philadelphia, referenced every song and movie he could think of (and then told me more at breakfast the next morning). I was taken up to my room and even though I had only been walking for 4 days, the room felt like an oasis. A big soft mattress and extra blankets, a sink in the corner of the room with a fluffy hand towel (and a full bathroom that I had sole use of, with toiletries and more fluffy towels), a large window that overlooked the town, a hot water kettle and a tin full of tea. I took off my shoes and socks and made a mug of tea and stretched out on the bed before I did anything else.

After my shower I headed back out, but before touring the Brontë parsonage I made a stop at the tourism office. I’d made a decision when I’d been up in my room drinking my tea. When checking in, the owner of the B&B asked what time I’d like to have breakfast the next morning. “What’s the earliest time you begin serving?” I asked.

“8:00am,” he said. “It’s a little later than usual because it’s a Sunday morning.”

I told him that 8:00 would be fine and then I set about coming up with a Plan B for the next day. I knew I’d never be able to walk the full 26-miles if I started at 8:00am, especially if my blisters were slowing me down. Haworth had a train station, so I figured that there must be a way to skip a portion of the path.

In continuing with the trend of ‘Haworth as the friendliest village just off the Pennine Way’, the women at the tourism office spent a good 20 minutes with me in order to figure out a plan. They gave me multiple maps and timetables and made phone calls and wrote down train numbers and assured me that not walking 26-miles was absolutely, positively, the right thing to do.

Initially, I thought that I might just be able to skip about 10 miles of the path, and still give myself a decent day’s walk, but after looking at options and considering the state of my feet, I settled on a plan that would cut out nearly 20 miles of my planned walk. I’d still have about 6 to do, but it would practically be a rest day, and maybe it would even give my feet a decent shot of healing.

Armed with a plan and the friendliness of the village of Haworth, I bought a ticket into the Brontë parsonage and of course everyone there was friendly and helpful too. The man who greeted visitors as they entered the house followed me around the rooms for a bit; I’d come during a quiet pocket of time, and as I walked from the drawing room to the kitchen to the dining room, he pointed out small details and told me interesting facts.

The table where the sisters wrote each evening!

This kind of site-seeing isn’t something I normally do during my long walks, but this time it felt just right. I wanted to learn more of the Brontë sisters, to see where they lived and wrote; I was, quite literally, walking in their footsteps through this part of the Pennine Way, and I wanted to immerse myself into their world. On my out of the parsonage I stopped in the gift shop and bought a 488-page copy of Jane Eyre. My pack was already heavy- was I crazy to add this very unnecessary weight?

I’ve never carried a book on any of my walks but now I don’t think I’ll walk without one. It adds extra weight, sure, but I can’t explain how wonderful it was to read a few chapters of this book every night in my empty bunkhouses, eating ginger cookies and drinking tea and night after night and then even into the day, Jane became my companion. I was walking alone but I was also walking with this great character. “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!”

I read the first few chapters that night, in my cozy room in the center of Haworth, a mug of hot tea and a bag of chocolate candies and if I’d had any dreams that night, I think they were probably full of the wild and windy moors.

Previous Post: Day 3 on the Pennine Way

Day 3 on the Pennine Way: Standedge to Hebden Bridge, 19-ish miles

November 11, 2018

We left off on our Pennine Way adventure with packing up my tent on the morning of Day 3. I was in Standedge and would be heading to Hebden Bridge, a distance of approximately, well, I’m not sure exactly how many miles. My notes said the day should be 14.5 miles, but the actual mileage ended up around 19, so somewhere, I’d miscalculated. Either that, or I’d walked more than I was supposed to (spoiler: I walked more than I was supposed to).

Nevertheless, the day wasn’t set to be particularly challenging; there was much less ascent and the sun was shining brightly. But there was a new element, one that had appeared late around lunchtime the day before. I’d started to feel it as I walked along the reservoirs and at first I thought maybe my sock was just a bit bunched up, or perhaps there was a pebble in my shoe. I tried to shuffle and shake my foot around but after awhile there was no mistaking it: I had a blister developing on the bottom of my right foot.

And as I started walking away from Standedge I could feel the discomfort immediately. For the first few hours of the walk, as I walked along Millstone Edge and then up the path to White Hill, I could mostly ignore the irritation, but as I continued to walk, things grew worse. I noticed a rubbing on my left foot as well, both on the bottom of my foot and on one of my toes, and when I finally stopped to take off my socks and assess the situation, there were a total of three little blisters on my feet. (A fourth would also develop sometime either this day or the next, ayy!).

What caused this? Careful readers might remember that I had purchased a different hiking shoe model before this walk (my beloved Keen Voyageurs had changed!), and a new shoe before a long walk/hike can be quite the gamble. But I had done plenty of training in them before I’d left for England, and they were as comfortable as the old Keen model. So, ultimately, I don’t blame the shoes. I suspect it was that first 20-mile day through the rain, walking in very wet shoes and socks (I still think a non-waterproof hiking shoe is the best option for summer walking, at least for me, but if it rains hard, it does mean wet feet).

In any case, there was nothing to be done now. The blisters were here.

It was when I stopped to look at my feet that I ran into Charlie. She was a 25-year old girl from Norfolk that I’d briefly met that morning, as we each packed up our campsite. She had walked the first two stages of the Pennine Way in one (long and crazy) day, and was currently recalculating her plans.

“I only have 12 days to do the walk and I thought I could do it, but now I’m not so sure,” she said. “My body is exhausted and this is only my second day.”

We continued on together for another hour or two until we reached The White House, a perfectly situated pub next to the trail, and we arrived just in time for lunch. (Tip: there really aren’t too many opportunities to stop for lunch in a pub on the Pennine Way. So when you come across something and the timing is right, take advantage!). Nigel and Judy (my Pennine Way angels that had helped me get to Edale) were seated at a table in the corner, and just as Charlie and I were finishing our lunch, David (my trail angel who helped me find the path on that first, rainy day) came through the door.

I was barely three days into the Pennine Way, and the biggest surprise was the community that I was finding along the trail. I’d known that the Pennine Way- or any hiking in the UK- wasn’t like the Camino, and my experiences on the West Highland Way and Hadrian’s Wall were pretty solo. People were friendly, but I certainly hadn’t made any friends. But so far, this route was different, and it reminded me a little of the Camino: how in just a few days, you regard the people you’d met as something like family. Walk into a pub, and everyone shouts your name in greeting.

Charlie and I continued on, and walked together all the way into Hebden Bridge. The day continued to be sunny and warm, and we talked about everything as we walked: our impressions of the Pennine Way, our lives at home, our families, differences between grocery shopping in the US and the UK, the pain in our feet, the places we wanted to travel to. I suspect that we inadvertently added a few miles onto the day’s walk sometime after lunch at The White House. Actually, now that I’m looking at my guidebook, I suspect that we veered off the Pennine Way to walk the circumference of White Holme Reservoir. In hindsight this makes sense, because this section seemed endless. Charlie and I were walking at a pretty quick pace, and yet, we seemed to be getting nowhere.

During all these afternoon miles, we could see good ol’ Stoodley Pike in the distance, a needle-shaped monument that was supposed to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon (but, after he escaped from Elba, the celebration was a moot point). When we finally arrived at the monument, we threw our packs on the ground and climbed the winding stairs up to a small observation deck, where we could look out into the countryside.

The landscape of the Pennine Way was changing. Where we had once been walking through peat moors, we’d now be heading into a more pastoral countryside, with green fields and limestone.

The walk into Hebden Bridge also seemed to take forever. Hebden Bridge is a bit of a detour from the path of the Pennine Way, but I think it’s a worthwhile one: the walk into the village is along a flower-lined canal with houseboats floating lazily in the water and music drifting from nearby gardens. Hebden Bridge itself is an artistic town full of independent shops, great cafés and restaurants, with a lively arts and music scene.

Charlie and I passed straight through town and up a large hill to get to our hostel (I wrote a post for Independent Hostels UK about this hostel!), and later, went back into town for dinner.

I was happy to have company for the night. I’d expected to be mostly alone during my trek on the Pennine Way, and to have found another young, solo female walker was unexpected and fun. We ate a huge spread of food at a Greek restaurant and later, back at the hostel, we made mugs of tea and split a bag of Maltese candies and spread out our maps and planned the next few days of our walk. Charlie would be walking a shorter day in order to meet up with her mother and sister, and had decided to later skip over a few days of the trail so she could finish by her end date. I suspected that I wouldn’t be seeing her again, so that night we gave each other a big hug and exchanged contact info. “Now you have a friend in England,” she said.

I crawled into bed, happy and sore, the blisters on my feet throbbing, the sights of the day running through my head. 3 days down, 12 more to go!

Previous Post: Day 2 on the Pennine Way

Next Post: Day 4 on the Pennine Way

Still walking, still writing

November 6, 2018

Could this be the longest time since the start of this blog that I’ve gone without posting??

Maybe. My last post was in August, where I was walking through the sunshine on my second day on the Pennine Way. I walked from June 20th-July 4th and in the last four months I’ve only managed to write about two days of the walk… yikes!

So with all of this silence it might be a fair question I’m about to ask: is anyone still out there?

Oh, I sure hope so. The blog may be a little silent but I haven’t gone anywhere. In fact, lately, I’ve felt pretty locked into my writing, it just hasn’t been here. I’ve had ideas for the blog, and a dozen posts are half written (well, all in my head), and I want to write a few more guides, and more e-books too, and… there’s so much!

But right now, my energy is somewhere else, it’s with my book. I’ve mentioned it before, and maybe you remember: I’ve been working on a memoir that tells the story of my first long walk on the Camino de Santiago. There’s still so much work to be done but I think that- just maybe- it is starting to come together. And that’s been so exciting! Really, really exciting!

I’ve missed this blog though, I’ve missed writing about my walking adventures and even just the general thoughts on life. And I miss all of you, too, the small interactions we have here… or maybe even just knowing that my words are going out to some unknown place, read by some unknown people. And that the act of publishing something here, anything here, is important.

I’m back for now, with this little post that is mostly to say hi, and to share some of the beautiful fall scenes around my neighborhood and local park (this has been one of the most beautiful fall seasons in recent memory!).

I also wanted to give a few updates, just about things I’ve been meaning to share or things I’m thinking about, so here we go:

1. Anyone here on Instagram and not following my page, Nadine Walks? Well, come on over! I’m still consistently posting a photo just about every day from my walks, and right now I’m in the middle of photos from the Pennine Way. Sometimes I write a longish caption that captures some little detail or story from the day, it’s kind of like mini-blogging (which means that I’m missing writing about my walks here! I need to get back into it!!).

View this post on Instagram

Back to the Pennine Way! Day 10, Holwick to Dufton. I’d powered down my phone the night before because I had no way to charge it and was running really low on battery. I woke up early, with the sun, rolled out of my bunk and attempted to drink some instant coffee mixed with lukewarm water (not recommended). I turned on my phone to check the time and snap my usual ‘start the day selfie’ and then turned it off again and started walking. From the first mile, I could tell that I was dragging. Was it the very mediocre dinner I’d had the night before? The nearly marathon distance I’d walked? I suppose the reason didn’t matter, because there was only one solution: just walk. However you can, just pull yourself down the trail. #pennineway #ukhikingofficial #ukhiking #hikingadventures #walking #solofemaletravel #walk1000miles

A post shared by Nadine (@nadine_walks) on Nov 6, 2018 at 6:08am PST

2. I’ve been home from my summer travels for over two months, and so far all I’ve mentioned here on the blog is that I walked for 15 days on the Pennine Way. But did you know that in August, after my four weeks at my writer’s retreat, I hopped back on Le Puy to walk for three days through France?? It was a whirlwind baby-Camino but I loved it. It was all I could fit in but it was worth it. Camino time, even just a bit of it, warms my soul. I’ll write about that sometime, too.

3. Speaking of the Camino, last month I read Beth Jusino’s recently published book, Walking to the End of the World. I’d been following Beth’s blog and her adventures on the Camino for some time, and was delighted to be able to read about her journey more fully in her book. The unique spin of this particular Camino story is that she (and her husband) walk not just the 500-miles of the Camino Frances, but they start in Le Puy and all told, walk 1,000 miles! Since I’ve walked a little over half of the Le Puy route myself, it was such a joy to hear more about that part of her Camino experience.

4. I’m thinking about starting up a Patreon page, and this feels both scary and exciting. Here’s a link to a great little video explaining what Patreon is; basically, it’s a way for an audience to help support the artists they follow. It’s hard for me to ask for help, so this is a big step for me, but I think it’s an important one. So far, I haven’t been earning any money from the work that I’m creating, and that’s been more than okay. I’ll keep writing and taking photographs, regardless of money or audience. But as I think about where I want to take my writing, I realize that I need to look into different ways that I can support myself. Maybe this Patreon thing won’t translate to much, maybe it will be a couple bucks a month that can cover coffee costs on my walks (or, even more realistically, the fees it takes to run this blog), but I think I’m going to try it. More on this soon.

Okay, time to go. It’s a very gray, rainy fall day over in my neck of the woods; we are just past peak foliage and some leaves are still clinging to the trees, stubbornly refusing to come down despite the rain and the wind of the last few days. Hanging on for just a little longer, as if to say, “Winter may be coming, but not quite yet.” If the rain would ever stop maybe I could run outside for a quick, late afternoon walk. If only. But instead, I think it could be nice to light a candle in the darkening of the room, pour a glass of good red wine, and hunker down to work on my book.

Thanks for still being here, and I’ll write again soon.

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