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Day 15 on the Pennine Way: Byrness to Kirk Yetholm, 26-miles

May 21, 2019

My alarm went off at 4:30am the morning of my 15th and final day on the Pennine Way. Already the sun was starting its slow rise over the horizon and soft light was pouring through my window.

I was in the bunkhouse in Byrness and despite the early hour, despite the intimidation I felt over the challenge ahead, I couldn’t wait to get out of that place.

I woke up remembering the very poor reception I’d received the night before, but already the sting wasn’t as sharp. At this early hour I knew that I could pack my bag, drink a fast cup of coffee in the kitchen downstairs, and slip through the door and out of the village without anyone noticing. I could leave, and I would never have to return.

I remember learning this on the Camino Frances, and it’s one thing I really like about long-distance walking. Every day is a new day, and every day you move on to some place different. In regular life, a bad interaction or experience can linger: often, you need to drive down the same roads, go to the same building for work, encounter the same people, the same neighbors, sleep in the same bed. It can feel hard to get away from a bad day.

But on the Camino, or the Pennine Way, or any long-distance trail, you get to walk away and never look back! For better or worse, every day is different. From the terrain to the villages and towns, to the people and the locals. If you have a bad experience one day, at the very least you can be assured that it probably won’t be repeated the next day (unless you’re walking with blisters. Blisters follow you for far longer than you’d like).

So after washing my face and gulping down some coffee, I hoisted up my pack and started walking out of the village. It was just past 5am. I had never had an earlier start, nor had I ever carried a pack so heavy.

Both of these facts were due to the day I had ahead of me: 26-miles through a mostly wild and remote landscape in the border country of England and Scotland. There would be no water sources that day, no services or pubs or food trucks or towns or villages for just about the entire stretch. I’d be walking up and down, up and down for a total of 4800ft of elevation gain over the 26-miles. It was also due to be another hot and sunny day, and while I vastly preferred this kind of weather to rain, I knew that the heat would take its toll. And so because of this, I’d packed more water than I’d ever carried before, and I can’t even remember how much. 4 liters? Maybe? (Which is a little under 9 pounds).

It was July 4th- America’s Independence Day- but the date barely registered. Instead, I was grateful for the long hours of daylight that the summer days had been giving me, beginning with a sunrise around 4:30am. With a very long day of walking in store, I decided that I might as well start as soon as the sun came up.

I’d felt defeated the night before, but as soon as I started walking, I felt so much better. This was what it was all about: walking into the hills in the soft morning air, alone and free.

The climb out of Byrness was a doozy, and as soon as I started going up I could feel the weight of my pack pulling me back. But I just leaned forward and propelled myself up, stopping every once in awhile to look behind me. I was climbing above the tree-line, and soon I was above even a thin layer of clouds.

The morning light was golden, it lit against the blades of grass and shone through the white puffy flowers and etched out the trail so that I could see its snaking line, winding over the hills.

I was walking down one of these hills when I fell. It was the first time I’ve ever fallen on a walk, and luckily the fall was more funny than anything else. There was a subtle mound in the grass and as I was descending a small hill my foot hit the mound and threw off my center of gravity. Now, if I hadn’t been wearing a pack (or if I had a much lighter pack), I’m pretty sure I could have caught myself and straightened out. But my pack was just too heavy, and as soon as I was thrown off balance my pack did the rest of the work, and pulled me toward the ground. I felt like it was all happening in slow motion: I realized that I stood no chance against the pack and so I just sort of tipped over. I landed with my pack mostly underneath me and for a minute I just laid there, sprawled out in the grass, unable to get up easily because my pack was keeping me down. When I finally pulled myself up, I noticed two things. One: the end of my walking pole was now bent (I had tried to catch myself with it to no avail), and two: a group of sheep was staring at me in alarm.

“It’s okay, sheep!” I said, as I brushed the grass from my pants. “Nothing to see here! All good. Just a little tumble, no one’s hurt!”

My strategy for the walk was to break it up into chunks. I told myself I wasn’t allowed to think about the day as a whole, otherwise I worried that I might get too overwhelmed. Instead, I’d marked up the maps in my guidebook with notes and circles and arrows and I’d determined the spots where I could stop for a break.

My first destination of the day was the Lamb Hill Refuge Hut, about 8-miles into the walk. I didn’t note how long I had been walking but my guidebook estimates that those 8-miles take about 4 hours, and this is due to the constant up and down of the terrain. On and on I pushed, and those first 8-miles were difficult and glorious. I’m convinced that the quality of the light was different that morning: it was golden and glowing and it illuminated every blade of grass, every sheep, every rock, every wooden slab.

On and on and there, in the distance, the only thing for miles and miles was a little wooden hut. I waved my broken walking stick in the air and shouted, “The hut!!!!!”

No one could hear me, except maybe a sheep, because after those 8-miles I still hadn’t seen a soul. The hut was much further away than it appeared and there was a moment when I wondered if maybe it was some sort of mirage, because I kept walking and walking and it didn’t appear to get any closer but finally it did, and then I was there.

I threw off my pack and sniffed around. There wasn’t much inside: a flag and a some notes on the trail encased in plastic, a granola bar and a broom in the corner. The simple wooden shelter would be a relief in bad weather, and is used by some hikers as a camping spot. As for me, I kicked off my shoes, settled in on the wooden porch, and dug into some snacks.

When I left the shelter behind, I felt a bit like I was heading back out into the great unknown. I didn’t feel frightened or uncertain; the weather was fine and the path was marked clearly and I had good maps and despite the distance I felt like I would be able to make it to the end. But there was a wildness to that last day on the Pennine Way. To have that great, rolling, open landscape all to myself make me feel like I was alone in some far corner of the world. I loved it.

I walked and I walked: up Lamb Hill, down a sharp descent. Over stone slabs and wooden planks, down the narrow path worn into the soft grass. All around were the soft, rounded hills of the Cheviots, the highland range that marks the boundary between England and Scotland. Up Beefstand Hill, up Mozie Law, up to the trig point at Windy Gyle which was the halfway point of the day. I paused here for a photo, dropped my pack and stretched my back and stood sipping water for a few minutes, but then continued on.

Up to King’s Seat and then up, and up, and up, a long, drawn out ascent. It was somewhere around this point where I caught up to the four Australian women who had stayed in Byrness the night before. They had split this last stage into two days and were on their second and final day, having been dropped off somewhere a bit further back. When they saw me they stared in surprise. “What time did you start walking?” they asked. “How do you feel?”

I was tired, I could feel it all over my body, but I also felt like I had found a good rhythm. I chatted for a minute but continued on: on and on and when I got to the Auchope Cairn- a huge pile of rocks that sits just before the descent to the second refuge hut- I took a break. I’d been intending to stop at the hut but suddenly it felt so far away, down at the bottom of a very steep descent and I decided that some lunch and some time to prop up my feet was the best idea.

After the break, and after the second refuge hut, I still had 7-miles to go. I don’t remember as much about these last 7-miles, and I only have a few photos. Clouds had rolled in and I hunkered down and set my mind firmly to the task ahead. I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other, over and over, and in this way, somehow, I would make it to Kirk Yetholm.

The Schil was the last ascent of the day, a slow and steady mile and a half climb from the second refuge hut, and I remember my determination as I walked. “The Schil!” I said as I walked, “The Schil!”. The name felt dramatic, direct. I paused for just a moment at the base of the steepest part of the climb, and looked at what stood before me. “This is it,” I whispered, “this is the final push.”

I made it to the top, slow but steady, and then on legs that were beginning to feel wobbly I continued walking: cheering when I saw a sign for Kirk Yetholm, 4 1/2 miles. It was here that the route divides, giving walkers the option of either a higher or lower route. The higher route is more scenic but also more challenging, the lower route offers a much more straightforward and easy path to the finish.

For me it was an easy decision: I was taking the lower route all the way. The day had been full of beauty and adventure, and I was done. I plowed ahead, willing myself to continue putting one foot in front of the other, savoring the last of the hills and simultaneously hoping that civilization would soon come into view.

And before too long, it did: I passed through farms and saw trees and the dirt path spit me out onto a paved road and after one final, sharp climb, I arrived in Kirk Yetholm (also, at some point, I’d officially crossed into Scotland!).

I was exhausted. Exhausted, but also quietly triumphant. I walked around the tiny village twice before asking someone to help me find my lodgings: the Kirk Yetholm Friends of Nature House (a hostel with a lovely name).

I think the poor reception I’d received the evening before in Byrness still had me a bit shaken because I felt somewhat on guard when I entered Kirk Yetholm, but very quickly the village righted the score and helped me end the Pennine Way on such a high note. The man working at the hostel was so kind and thoughtful: he congratulated me on my walk, showed me to my room, and promised that he would help me navigate my travel options for the following day. While I didn’t meet anyone else who finished the Pennine Way that day (aside from the Australian women, I was the only other one), I did encounter groups of other walkers who were curious about my adventure (Kirk Yetholm, in addition to being the start/end point of the Pennine Way, also sits along St Cuthbert’s Way).

And then, after my shower, I walked over to the Border Hotel, which has become something of an unofficial end point of the walk. Inside, if you ask, you can sign a Pennine Way guestbook, receive a free half-pint of beer, and a certificate, too. All it took was for me to mention that I’d just finished the walk and the guy behind the bar smiled, brought out the guestbook, wrote the date on my certificate, and quickly poured me a beer (the free beer tradition was started by Alfred Wainwright, who wrote a famed guidebook for the walk after his 1966-67 experience. He promised to buy a pint for anyone who completed the entire trail, and this tradition has lived on today, though it was downgraded to a half-pint sometime in the last few years).

After my half-pint I ordered a full pint along with a good, hearty meal, then walked back to my hostel. The sun was setting, the sky blazing pink and orange and yellow and I stood outside for a minute, watching the colors, watching the clouds shift and expand. I breathed deeply, and thought about how I felt. I felt tired, but I also felt strong. I felt sad that my journey had ended but I felt so proud, too. And more than anything I felt a deep contentment: content that I’d spent the last 15 days walking for 268-miles through the moorland and dales and countryside of Northern England. I’d done it, and even though this wasn’t my first long-distance walk, there is always a profound sense of satisfaction and contentment that follows each one, and the Pennine Way was no different. The walk was done, and for now, I needed a rest. But long-distance walking has me hooked, and I knew it would only be a matter of time until I started planning the next journey.

Day 14 on the Pennine Way; Bellingham to Byrness, 15-miles

April 24, 2019

My 14th Day on the Pennine Way (and my penultimate day!) wasn’t much to write home about. For all intents and purposes, it was a fairly standard day. 15-miles, modest ascent (which is to say- not much), mostly easy walking through farms and moorland and down a long forestry track.

The night before I’d stocked up on food at the grocery store in Bellingham, so I had plenty of supplies for snacks and lunch. I also stopped at a bakery around the corner from my bunkhouse before leaving town, where I bought a blueberry muffin that I carefully wrapped and tucked into my pack for a mid-morning snack.

The walking might not have been difficult, but it was another day where I felt like I was dragging. I couldn’t explain it because the day before had been one of glorious and strong walking. Maybe it had been a few too many miles with a little too much elevation, but I had eaten a good dinner and gotten an even better night’s sleep, so I couldn’t really explain my sluggish feeling.

(Or, maybe, this is just long-distance walking. Some days are strong and some days are a struggle, and it’s simply the result of so many miles, day after day after day. Somewhere on this blog I’d written about a theory, how every strong day seemed to be followed by a weaker day. This seemed to happen a few times on the Pennine Way, so maybe there’s something to this?)

But, as usual, there was nothing to do but keep walking, and so I did. Then, in the middle of a great stretch of empty moorland, I felt desperate for a break. I looked around for a place to sit and didn’t see much, but finally went off the path a few steps where I’d spotted a small rock in a very tiny clearing. I dropped my pack and dug out the blueberry muffin, along with a cold bottle of coffee frappuccino from Starbucks (a nice treat from last night’s grocery run!).

The muffin and coffee didn’t erase my fatigue completely but they certainly helped, and with a little more energy I continued on. But then, shortly after the break, I managed to get myself off track. I’d reached a section of open land and was following a very faint, barely discernible path through the brush. After awhile, the path just disappeared (or maybe I’d stopped paying attention?). My guidebook’s map didn’t help and so I just headed up a small hill, hoping something would look right.

I walked and walked, ignoring the gut feeling that was telling me I was wandering further and further from the Pennine Way. I thought I was heading towards a road in the distance- which I thought I saw on my map- but it actually wasn’t a road or wasn’t the right one in any case- and so I had to admit defeat and turn back around and retrace my steps. When I made it back to the point where I’d gotten confused I of course saw a Pennine Way marker and so I got myself back on the path. I probably lost at least 30 minutes, maybe more, to my mistake, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as those additional 4-miles of mistakes I’d made on the very first day of walking.

More walking and then I saw a man approaching me from the opposite direction, decked out in hiking gear. Much further down the trail was another man, and even from my distance I could tell that he was moving slowly.

“Hello!” the first man greeted me, with a deep voice and a big smile.

We started talking, and I learned that he and his friend had just started the Pennine Way, but were walking north to south. “We started two days ago,” the north-south hiker told me. “It’s been glorious so far, but my friend has really bad blisters and I don’t know if he’ll be able to continue.”

He marveled that I was walking alone, that I was almost at the end of my journey, and that I’d be doing the Byrness to Kirk Yetholm stretch in one day. I tried to think of some advice I could give him, some helpful hint or important information but how can you reduce a walk like this into just the essentials? Besides, these men probably already knew the most essential thing: that it’s about the walking, nothing more and nothing less, and that you have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

When his friend caught up they both carried on, smiling and waving as I headed off into the moors. “Congratulations on the end of your journey!” they called after me.

I walked and I walked and about an hour later, I came across two more hikers, this time two young women, also coming from the opposite direction! They, too, had just started the Pennine Way two days before, and were thrilled and exhausted and daunted and excited. We had a very similar conversation to the one I’d had with the two men, but I added that I’d just met these other hikers, that they were very kind, and that they should keep an eye out for them in Bellingham.

And this time I sent them off with encouraging words. “Enjoy this hike,” I said to them. “Enjoy every moment, even the hard ones.”

I climbed a big hill, I walked through rough grass, I entered an area my guidebook called “new forestry” which is a nice way of describing a landscape that looked like the apocalypse hit. The land was dry and cracked, trees were razed and for a long, long stretch all I could see were dead branches and stumps and there was no movement, no sound, no wind and no shade from the sun. I was still dragging and needed to find a spot to have lunch, and for the past several hours I’d been dreaming about a green patch of grass in the shade but instead I was walking through dead earth. It was so hot, and I was tired.

I found a big tree stump and threw down my pack and took off my shoes and sat on the stump and ate my lunch but it was uncomfortable, and unpleasant.

And then, because it’s all there really is to do, I kept walking. Soon the path spit me out onto the forestry track, a long paved road that would lead me to Blakehopeburnhaugh. At first it was nice to walk on flat, even ground, but very quickly I started despising the road. There was no wind, the sun was beating down and baking my skin, the road was covered in small rocks so it made easy and quick walking difficult. The road was dusty and if I stopped for a moment- to adjust my pack or take a sip of water- big horse flies would land on my arms and legs and bite.

I was walking like this for about a mile when I heard a sound somewhere behind me. It was a deep, low rumbling, but it seemed to be growing louder. I stopped, turned around, and squinted down the path. At first I couldn’t seen anything but then I saw a swirl, a great swirling dirty cloud coming up from the road and I realized that the cloud was attached to a truck. It was a lumber lorry and it seemed to be barreling down the road, gaining speed as it approached, the cloud of dust growing bigger, and bigger. My guidebook had warned me about this. “If you’re lucky you won’t be covered in dust by a speeding timber lorry!”

Well, this wasn’t my day, and I wasn’t lucky. The shoulder of the road was narrow and it dropped steeply off into the woods and I looked ahead and behind and I couldn’t find a spot where I could tuck myself away. So I moved as far into the shoulder as I could, turned my back to the truck and braced myself for its arrival.

And because sometimes the only thing you can do is to try to find humor in an unhappy situation, I decided to take a photo as the truck sped past. “Maybe I’ll look at this later and laugh,” I thought to myself, and so here it is, the truck just visible in the background and the dust that is about to coat me, head to toe.

You’d better believe the horse flies were biting as I stopped to let the truck past too. And then, about 10 minutes later, another truck approached but at least this one was moving slower, and I got covered by marginally less dust the second time around.

I’m not sure how much longer it took me to get into Byrness, but once I was finally off the forestry track the walking became easier, the views were better, and I was relieved to finally be close to my lodgings.

But this wasn’t meant to be a good day. I’ve struggled with knowing how to write about this part of my journey, thinking I would just skip it all together, say that I arrived in Byrness, settled into my bunkhouse, ate a good meal, went to bed. I guess I don’t want to be too negative or critical, but this was part of my journey, and I had a bad experience with where I stayed in Byrness.

Aside from a campsite, there’s really only one place to stay in the tiny village that’s 26-miles before the end of the Pennine Way. The next 26-miles are mostly through an empty, wild landscape, and the only options for breaking up the day are to wild camp, or to stay in the Bed and Breakfast in Byrness for two nights and be shuttled back and forth.

I’d planned to stay in the B&B but when I was making reservations I discovered that the owners also operated a bunkhouse. “This will be perfect!” I’d thought. So I made my reservation and assumed that all would be fine. I was going to do the final 26-miles all in one go, so I wouldn’t need the assistance of a ride back and forth from my ending/starting point.

My guidebook also raved about this place, and I think that’s one reason that my experience stung so much. The guidebook didn’t mention the bunkhouse, but said, “They also allow walkers to camp for free if they eat a meal in their restaurant, campers have access to toilet and shower facilities… they also have a shop (4-10pm) selling a wide range of foods. (The lodging) is designed around walkers and campers and is highly recommended for anyone camping or hostelling along the Way; nothing is too much trouble for the owners.“

I arrived, had to wait for the bunkhouse to be opened, but eventually was greeted by one of the owners. He led me to my room and then I asked about having dinner that night and that’s when things took a turn. A look crossed his face and his smile disappeared. “You’re supposed to have brought food with you,” he said. “That’s why we have a kitchen here.”

“Oh, I thought I could have a meal in the restaurant.” And then I apologized, several times, telling him that I was really sorry to have misunderstood. He just kept shaking his head, mumbling something under his breath. Then he looked at me and said, “This is why we’re closing the bunkhouse. It’s only open for a few more weeks. Too many people arrive here without food and expect to eat in the restaurant.” He left, saying that he would ask his wife about the possibility of a meal.

I’m sure some of this was probably my fault, because it had happened before, when I had to wait several hours to be served at the Inn in Dufton. So maybe, given that I wasn’t staying at the B&B, I should have known that I couldn’t eat in the restaurant without a reservation. But because they were owned by the same people, because my guidebook raved about their hospitality, I hadn’t even given it a second thought.

I ended up getting to eat in the restaurant, but the rest of the evening was awful. I’m a sensitive person, and so when the husband and wife barely looked at me for the rest of the night, never smiled, only talked to me when necessary, but were so kind and accommodating to their B&B guests, it really stung. I wouldn’t have eaten in their restaurant unless I didn’t really, really need to. The last 26-mile stage of the Pennine Way is a very difficult one, it would be the single most difficult day of walking I’d ever done. I was already nervous for it, and I couldn’t imagine how I would survive on a dinner of snacks that I could cobble together from what I was carrying.

And when they heard that I was doing all 26-miles in one day, they acted like I was a foolish girl who didn’t know what she was doing. The husband relented a bit and brought me an empty water bottle, telling me I needed to carry way more water than I thought I needed to. Other than agreeing to make me dinner, it was the only kindness I received. But even that act indicated that he thought I was unprepared and would have trouble.

There were seven other people eating there that night, four women from Australia at one table, and me and three men at the other. I was holding back tears for most of the meal, I just shoveled food in my mouth and listened to the conversation but I felt uncomfortable here, too. The men weren’t too friendly and they seemed more interested in joking with the women from Australia than talking to me. I think one of them was bothered that I was walking the final 26-miles in one day, like I was trying to show off or something, or maybe it hurt his ego, I don’t know.

But it was also me. I’m usually a very friendly, happy person, but when I’m uncomfortable or my feelings are hurt, I shut down really fast, which I’m sure made it difficult for me to make an effort in conversation with the other hikers.

So I finished dinner and then there was another sting- the wife announced that she was opening her ‘shop’, and that we could buy supplies for the next day if we needed them. She’d already asked everyone if they wanted a packed lunch for the next day- she asked me too, but the big smile that she had for the others vanished when she talked to me, and so I told her no, I wouldn’t need lunch. But then she announced the shop that my guidebook had mentioned, and I walked over with two of the Australian women. In a cabinet underneath the stairs were six shelves lined with so much food: cookies and biscuits, candy and chips, canned beans and milk and packaged noodles and tuna fish. I looked at all the food- food that I so easily could have bought and taken over to the bunkhouse and cooked in the kitchen for my dinner- and I almost started crying. Why, if they were so put out in making me dinner that night, why couldn’t they have offered their little store, and suggested I cook myself a meal with those supplies instead?

I bought a pack of noodles because I was now paranoid that I would arrive in Kirk Yetholm and once again be shut out of dinner, but I would have loved to buy more- a Twix bar, a bag of chips, a little treat for my long, long last day on the Pennine Way- but on principle I wouldn’t take a packed lunch, I wouldn’t buy myself a treat. I was made to feel small and so I didn’t want to take anything from them that I didn’t have to. I paid for the packaged noodles and my dinner and went back to my empty bunkhouse.

I let a few tears fall, because this wasn’t how I wanted to end my Pennine Way, but I quickly brushed them away. This wasn’t the end. I was close to the end, but this wasn’t the end. This wasn’t how my journey needed to end, because I still had one final, big day.

And so I opened Jane Eyre and ate my last ginger biscuit and I remembered the quote I’d seen on the wall of the parsonage in Haworth. “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, that I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!” I closed the book and covered myself with a blanket and told myself that I was okay. I’d eaten well and I had a place to sleep and that was all that mattered. Tomorrow, I would walk 26-miles, from England into Scotland, and I would finish the Pennine Way. Nothing would stop me.

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Day 13 on the Pennine Way: Greenhead to Bellingham, 21.5 miles

April 19, 2019

(July 2018) I woke up in my bunk at the Greenhead Hostel feeling excited for day 13 on the Pennine Way. I’d be returning to Hadrian’s Wall! And I could start my morning with a hot breakfast and multiple cups of coffee!

After the morning fuel I headed out, back through the narrow pathway that had lead to Greenhead and onto both the Pennine Way and Hadrian’s Wall Path. The two routes overlap here, just for 7 miles, but these are 7 glorious miles and I was so happy to be walking them again.

When I walked Hadrian’s Wall Path back in the spring of 2017, I had mostly cloudy, windy days. I had walked east to west (into the wind, which maybe was a mistake), and spring had only just begun. The landscape was still feeling rough, and a bit wild.

But now I was here in the summer, walking west to east, and although my first steps of the day were under gray skies, after about 30 minutes the clouds rolled away and I was treated to more of that wonderful northern England sunshine.

It was so fun to be back at the Wall. I’d really loved my walk in 2017, walking through those long, gray, windy days along the ancient remains of what used to be a massive defensive barrier, imagining what the wall was like when it was built, who had walked the paths that I now walked on, what kind of fighting and battling must have taken place here.

This time, I mostly knew what to expect, and so I just enjoyed every second of those 7-miles. These miles follow the best preserved sections of the wall, from Walltown Crags to just before Housesteads Crags, taking in Great Chesters Fort, the trip point at Winshields Crag, my favorite milecastle (#39), and Sycamore Gap. I took so, so many photographs, I smiled constantly, I found an energy from deep within as I climbed up and down and up and down the steep small hills of the escarpment.

And the weather was perfect. It was perfect! This was the very best day yet, with clouds perfectly dotting the wide blue sky, a light wind that cooled the heat of the sun, the exactly right temperature for walking.

Here are a bunch of photos from the wall (and if you want to read a little more about that same section when I walked two years ago, here is that post). But keep reading after these photos, there were more adventures on the rest of the stage!

Approaching Sycamore Gap, Hadrian's Wall, Day 13 on the Pennine Way

The Robin Hood Tree! (Sycamore Gap)

I split up my time on the Wall at the Northumberland National Park Visitor’s Center, which is just a slight detour from the path, in Once Brewed. This would be a good place to split the stage if you have the time; there’s a youth hostel here, and an Inn (named Twice Brewed), as well as a campsite a little further down the road. It would make for only a 7-mile stage (Greenhead to Once Brewed), but it would allow plenty of time for exploration and site-seeing and you can take your merry time. I’ll touch on this in a later post, but if I could plan another walk on the Pennine Way, I think I’d give myself 17 or 18 days, rather than 15. And one of those extra days would be here.

The Northumberland National Park Visitor’s Center is shiny and new (and I think it must have been under construction/being built when I walked through in 2017), and it was a nice place for a quick break. There’s tons of information and exhibits on the wall, though I didn’t have much time to linger. I just used the bathroom, bought a couple postcards, stopped by the little shop for a Twix bar and a bag of chips (essential snacks along the way!), reapplied my sunscreen and then headed back out.

After another two miles I reached my turnoff to continue on the Pennine Way, and I have to say, it felt really good to turn left at the signpost and walk north, leaving the Wall behind me. It felt right. Walking along the Wall almost felt like I was on a vacation (even though, technically, walking the Pennine Way was my vacation). But how can I explain it? I’d been there before, I knew where I was going. Even though it was early enough in the morning that I was avoiding the crowds, I was still running into other day hikers and tourists. For those 7-miles, I’d stopped walking north, towards Scotland, and was instead on a bit of a detour and going out of my way to the east. I can’t be sure, but it seems like as soon as I turned left at the signpost, everything grew quiet. And calm. And peaceful. I’d left everyone else behind. I was back on my walk.

But almost immediately I- quite literally- stumbled onto some excitement. I was climbing over a wooden stile and coming down the other side of a stone fence when I nearly stepped on a little lamb. The poor thing was stuck in the gate next to the wall! It was butting its head frantically, shaking its whole body, but one of it’s horn had gotten wedged under one of the railings of the gate and he was trapped.

His mother was standing further off in the field, watching us. I climbed down from the stile, put my pack on the ground, and approached the little guy. As soon as I reached down he froze, terrified.

I was kind of terrified, too. Sheep are great and all, but only when they’re at a bit of a distance, grazing in a field or tottering away down the path. I’m not scared of sheep, but to be honest I’m not sure if I’ve ever touched a sheep before. Petting zoos weren’t really my thing, and if they ever were, I’m sure I was only looking, and not petting.

But I couldn’t leave the poor little lamb stuck in a gate, and the whole thing was probably comical if anyone else was watching because I’m sure it took me far longer to get the guy unstuck than it should have. But after some maneuvering and gentle pushing I got his head unstuck and like lightening he dashed away to his mother and then they ran off together.

After my valiant lamb rescue, I continued on, down a forestry track, briefly into a forest and then back out into the open land. My guidebook mentioned a small enclosure just off to the side of the path which would make for a nice rest spot (or wild camping spot). I saw it from a bit of a distance and when I approached, I found that it was- indeed- the perfect place to stop for lunch. I climbed over the low stone wall, found a flat spot on the ground, and settled in for a little picnic. Even though I was in the open country of Haughton Common, I felt secluded away, protected and safe.

Haughton Common, Day 13 on the Pennine Way

My perfect lunch spot!

A satisfying lunch and then more walking, on and on, the sky wide above me, the countryside stretching out before me. It was sometime during this afternoon section that I had one of my perfect walking moments. It’s a little hard to describe these, only that I know I usually have one or two on every long-distance walk I’ve ever done. The moments are made up of similar ingredients: usually there is nearly perfect weather, making for very comfortable walking. I feel strong and energized, full of food, my feet free of blisters, my legs free of any pain. I am all alone, with no one ahead and no one behind. Sometimes I am listening to music, sometimes I am listening to the wind.

This time, all I know is that I was walking along and this feeling was building and building- I think it was joy, or maybe utter happiness- and then it nearly overwhelmed me and I felt like I could fly. Or at least run, or dance, or spin, and so I did all three: there, alone in a wild field, spinning and dancing down the trail and smiling up to the sky. I feel so free in those moments, so certain that where I am is exactly where I’m meant to be. I feel like I want to do this- I want to walk and be free- forever.

The moments never last forever though, but I have to say that this time, the feeling of happiness followed me all the way to Bellingham. I had miles to go, but I can’t remember much of them, other than they felt easy and I felt strong.

But before Bellingham- maybe a few miles before?- I passed through a farm and saw a sign painted on an old green door, reading ‘Pit Stop’. “What’s this?” I asked myself, before venturing inside.

The little shed to the side of the main house was a walker’s oasis. It was a dark and a bit dingy inside, but obvious care had been taken to provide walkers with everything they might need. There was a fridge stocked with rows of cold drinks. There was a basket full of packaged biscuits, and jars of candy. There was a notebook registry, and a basket of medical supplies. There was a box full of things that walkers had left for others to use. There were couches and there was even a bathroom, with rolls of toilet paper! Toilet paper!

I only had a few more miles until Bellingham and I was still feeling strong, but I had already walked nearly 20 miles and I was starting to feel tired, so I gratefully sat for a few minutes with a cold drink. I left a few coins in a donation box and signed the registry, leaving a note for the friends I’d met that were somewhere behind me.

On my way out I met the owner of the farm and his wonderful black Labrador, chatted for a few minutes, then continued on. And because this was shaping up to be a wonderful day, the path continued to provide so much beauty and joy around nearly every corner.

Once in Bellingham, I found my lodgings- Demesne Farm Bunkhouse (I wrote about it for the Independent Hostels UK website!)- was shown up to my room (alone again, naturally!), showered and washed my clothing and then set back out into town, to buy supplies from the grocery store. Along with lunch and snacks for the next day, I bought stuff for dinner and took it back to the bunkhouse, and set up my little feast in the kitchen. Just as I was about to head up to my bunk room, I met several cyclists who were in the middle of the Reivers Coast to Coast Route. While they made tea, I answered their questions about the Pennine Way, and in turn, asked them about their own adventure.

Then my usual routine in my empty bunk room: a few ginger cookies, a few chapters of Jane Eyre, and then fast asleep under the heavy blankets with a cool breeze blowing through the open window.

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Day 12 on the Pennine Way: Alston to Greenhead, 16.5 miles

April 11, 2019

(July 2018) Day 12 on the Pennine Way took me from Alston to Greenhead, and overall the walking was straightforward and uncomplicated. It had been a few days since I could say that (field wanderings, a missed dinner, a drained cellphone, exhausted legs, hill/mountain climbing, no coffee), and so I was looking forward to this stage.

I think, however, I need to add a note about the weather. If you’ve been following along, you may have noticed that I’ve written- “It was another day of blue skies and sunshine”- in nearly every post. If I didn’t write it, the photos have shown you how great the weather was during my walk.

And, you guessed it, my 12th day was no different and the weather was perfect. So when I say that this stage was straightforward and uncomplicated, it’s especially easy for me to say that because of the weather. A fellow Pennine Way walker is posting photos from his trek over on Instagram; he walked in the fall and I think he walked at least half of his trek in the rain. He had 8 days in a row of soggy boots! He just posted some photos from the same stage I’m writing about today, saying that he walked through what is the wettest and boggiest section of the entire Pennine Way, at first trying to walk with plastic bags wrapped over his shoes, then forsaking the bags and just tramping through the mud and water and soaking his boots clean through.

I look at his photos and I remember what the same walk was like for me. I, too, walked through the fields that are known as being the ‘wettest section of the way’. What do I remember from this section? I only remember focusing on navigation and looking for signposts. Maybe I walked through a small puddle? Maybe one? But I doubt it.

The Pennine Way wasn’t an easy walk, it was the most difficult one I’ve done so far. Sometimes I wonder if I would have loved it as much as I did if I hadn’t had such nice weather. I remember how miserable so much of that first day was, my only day of rain: how difficult it was to navigate and keep to the trail, how cold my hands were, how wet my socks and shoes became. As I’ve been trying to churn out these posts, it’s meant that I’ve immersed myself in memories from my walk, and it’s so easy to long to be back on the trail, it makes me want to plan another walk in the UK. And I’m sure I will, but I also need to always remember that the beauty of my experience had a lot to do with the weather.

Okay, enough rambling, back to Day 12!

The weather was good, yes, but my last few days had been difficult and so I took an easy alternate path for the first 6 miles of the day and it was the best decision I could have made. The South Tyne Trail follows an old railroad track and runs roughly parallel to the Pennine Way. But where the Pennine Way climbs up and down little hills, traverses farms and is constantly taking you through a series of gates and stiles, the South Tyne Trail is totally flat and straight and stile free. Stile free! Plus, there’s no need to even worry about navigation or looking for the next marker or constantly checking maps to make sure you’re on the right track. It was free and easy walking, the kind where you can just let your mind wander and cruise along easily and happily.

And cruise along I did. I had sort of missed this kind of walking, and I was grateful for the break. Now, purists would probably shun the South Tyne Trail (or at least choose to stick to the Pennine Way) and once, there would have been a time where I would have made that choice. But in my 5 years of long-distance walking, I’ve learned a few things. And one of them is this: if there’s a much easier path that is running parallel to a more difficult (yet official) path, take the easy one. (I feel like there’s a life lesson in here somewhere…)

So I walked for about 6-miles on the South Tyne Trail, moving quickly and easily and happily. I took a slight detour to see about a snack or a cup of coffee at the Kirkstyle Inn (well-worth a visit, my guidebook told me) but I came up short and the Inn was closed (I think just for the day, so future Pennine Way walkers should try their luck). I didn’t mind too much- the morning had been easy and I was still full from my breakfast at the B&B in Alston, so I continued on.

I moved away from the South Tyne Trail and back onto the Pennine Way, immediately climbing out of the valley and walking through fields and fells, marsh grass growing high around me. I continued on through farmland, then reached Blenkinsopp Common, the fabled “wettest and boggiest” section of the Pennine Way. My guidebook also told me that navigation would be nearly impossible here, the path disappearing into the grass and heather, but just to look for the fenceline and follow it north. At first I couldn’t even see a fence but I eventually spotted it, far off in the distance. I headed towards it, picking my way through the moors, hoping I wouldn’t sink into a bog. My fears were unfounded; there were no bogs to be had, and the path was mostly dry.

I think the highlight of my afternoon was finding a Pennine Way marker in these fields: my guidebooks says, “Chufty badge for navigation if you find this” and when I did I let out a small cheer. I didn’t cross paths with another walker for the entire day, I was alone with my thoughts and my footsteps for miles and miles and so sometimes, finding a marker in an otherwise endless field of green feels rather exciting.

After another few hours I arrived in Greenhead, the Pennine Way having just overlapped with Hadrian’s Wall Path. I was excited about the next day’s walk- I’d get to walk about 7-miles along Hadrian’s Wall (some of the best part!), and ever since I walked the route in the spring of 2017, I’d been eager to go back.

In Greenhead I’d booked a bed at the hostel, which is in a converted Methodist chapel, and as usual I had the room all to myself. Just as I was thinking that my Pennine Way had turned into a very solo trip (despite having made several friends within the first few days), I ran into the Dutchman- Luke (or Luuk?)- at dinner! The Greenhead Hotel was just about the only place around for food, and there were a few other walkers there as well. Luke and I ate together and talked about our experiences along the way, and it felt really good to be able to share my experience with someone else. It felt like a long time since I’d said goodbye to David back in Horton-in-Ribblesdale, and while I’d had some nice encounters with locals, I hadn’t really met or talked to another walker like me. I’d resigned myself to a very solo and isolated walk until the end, so having that meal with Luke was an unexpected treat. We talked about the next day’s stage and he told me he was breaking what I would be doing in one day into two, so I knew that I wouldn’t see him again. But this is something I love so much about these long-distance walks: the chance to have a drink or a meal with a stranger who quickly turns into a friend, for the shared camaraderie, the understanding, the ease of it all.

Then back to my bunk in the hostel, under the covers, a chapter of Jane Eyre and then lights out, already dreaming about the next day’s walk along Hadrian’s Wall.

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Day 10 on the Pennine Way: Holwick to Dufton, 17-miles

March 31, 2019

(I had a little trouble with my website last week, so in case you missed my recap of Day 9 where I found myself lost in a field for an hour or two, here it is!)

I woke up around 5:00am in the camping barn in Holwick. I hadn’t set an alarm because the battery on my phone was low, really low. There was no electricity in the barn and so I’d powered down my phone the night before, hoping to save what little battery I had, in order to take a few photos the next day.

The bright sun woke me up, and despite the early hour, I decided to get out of bed and start the day. I moved slowly through the morning tasks: brushing my teeth, loading my pack, eating breakfast. My food situation was not ideal, but still okay- I’d eaten my bread the night before but still had a granola bar and banana for breakfast, and I hoped it would be enough to keep me going until my lunch of cheese and tortillas and an apple and another granola bar. I had a few other snacks as well, but the day’s route was isolated and wouldn’t pass by any pubs or restaurants or stores.

There was no good way to make coffee, but I tried anyway- dissolving a packet of instant coffee into some hot water, shaking it up and gulping it down. It was bad, but I think it got at least a little caffeine into my system, which I suppose is better than nothing?

I left early, before 6:00am, and I was glad to be moving on. The camping barn was adequate but after my misadventures of the night before, I was ready for a new day.

But within about 20 minutes of walking I realized that my body was tired. It was a particular kind of tired, and not the kind that I could shake after warming up my feet and my legs. It was a drained kind of tired, and later I would wonder if it had anything to do with not eating enough the night before. In normal life, a dinner of quinoa and bread wouldn’t be a lot but it would be enough. Maybe I wouldn’t be satisfied, maybe I would be tired the next day but it wouldn’t really affect me too much. But when hiking day after day, on an often strenuous route no less, my body was burning through the calories and needed the right kind of nutrition.

Or, who knows, maybe the Pennine Way had just tired me out, and I was having an off day. In any case, my weariness persisted the entire day. Just about every single step felt like a great effort and it was probably one of the most difficult days of walking I’ve had yet. This was also the sort of day where the mental challenge became almost as difficult as the physical challenge: I had to work hard to keep my mind focused, to not overwhelm myself thinking about all the miles I still had to walk, to not stress over the challenging sections ahead.

Because this day’s stage, from Holwick to Dufton, wasn’t going to be easy. It’s one of the more popular stages of the Pennine Way because it passes several great spots: three big waterfalls- Low Force, High Force, Cauldron Snout- then a long, slow ascent up to High Cup Nick, one of the most iconic images of the Way. And I had a great day for it, too, another day of blue skies and sunshine, but almost from the get-go I couldn’t enjoy it. As I walked, all I could think about was sitting down. I fantasized about a food truck appearing in the distance. I pictured a bed with fluffy blankets and lots of pillows.

I wasn’t enjoying the walking, and I also couldn’t whip out my phone every few minutes to take photos, because the battery was almost dead. Every time I reached a waterfall I’d pull out my phone, turn it on, take a photo and then turn it back off. And then I’d keep walking, moving slowly, my head down, counting steps, trying to distract myself from how tired I felt.

One of my worst parts of the entire Pennine Way came in the approach to Cauldron Snout. It was a flat section of the route that ran along the River Tees, but the path was through what felt like a small boulder field clinging to the side of the river bank. This section took me forever- I had to watch every footstep so carefully, picking and choosing where to take my next step, needing to climb up and over rocks, watching my balance. I nearly stepped on a dead sheep (this is probably way too much information, but it just felt like either a bad omen or else more proof that the day was not a good one), and when I finally reached the end of the boulders I had to scramble up a rocky wall alongside the raging waterfall of Cauldron Snout. I climbed up the rocks mostly on my hands and knees and when I reached the top I stopped for a long break, relieved that I’d made it. The scramble wasn’t dangerous or even too difficult (I thought the scrambling section up Pen-y-Ghent was harder), but I was bone-tired and scrambling makes me nervous even on a good day.

Walking through boulders towards Cauldron Snout, Pennine Way

Raging water of Cauldron Snout, Pennine Way

From here it was a lot more walking until I would reach High Cup Nick, a geological formation that’s kind of hard to describe. It’s a valley, a chasm, an enormous chunk scooped out of the earth and the Pennine Way takes you right up to the edge. To get there, I had to walk through moors, up Rasp Hill, through the long and open valley of Maize Beck. Along the way I met two old men, both shirtless, coming from the opposite direction. They stopped me to comment about the weather, and one of them, gesturing to the clear blue skies, said, “Ahh, but you’re so lucky!”

And despite how difficult the day’s walk had been, I had to agree. I was lucky to get to do this. I was lucky that the weather had been so beautiful, that- aside from my first day– navigation had been easy, lucky that the ground wasn’t boggy, lucky that my socks and shoes could stay dry. I was lucky that my mishaps so far had been small, lucky that it was only fatigue that I had to walk through, and not something much worse.

High Cup Nick was, indeed, beautiful, and the few photos I was able to take on my now nearly charge-less phone don’t do the landscape justice. If there is ever time for a wide-angle lens, it would be here. But it’s not about the photos, is it? It was about my ability to sit at the rim, peel off my shoes and socks, lean back on my pack and lift my face up to the sun. It was about a good chunk of cheese and a crisp apple, chocolate that hadn’t yet melted. There was a large school group off to my right, the kids must have been between 8 and 10 years old and I watched them, how they listened to their leaders talk about how the valley was formed, how they smiled and laughed, how they dutifully went off into the bushes for a bathroom break before continuing their trek.

High Cup Nick, Day 10 on the Pennine Way

A couple other hikers drifted in and out, but after the school group left I had the view mostly to myself. And then I carried on, and although my body was tired, the walking from here on out wasn’t too bad- just four more miles until I reached Dufton, all downhill.

Dufton is a small hamlet, not much more than a few streets, a restaurant, a corner shop and post office, a youth hostel (completely booked) and a camping caravan park. I walked through the village and before figuring out my campsite for the night, I made a stop at Post Box Pantry, the little corner shop. I walked inside, then had no idea what I wanted. Do you ever have those moments when you’re just so tired that you can’t make basic decisions? I looked at the food on the shelves, I looked at the small menu, and then I ordered a strawberry milkshake. But the milkshake wasn’t really a milkshake, not the kind with ice cream anyway, and I was handing a large glass of pink milk and so I took it outside to drink it on a bench in the sun.

There was a Dutchman sitting at the next table who was also walking the Pennine Way. “I couldn’t find a bed in this village,” he told me, “So I’m staying a few miles away and the owners of the B&B are picking me up.”

This had been my dilemma, too, when I’d been making reservations. There were no beds available at the only Inn or in the hostel, and so I’d settled on a campsite. But now hearing that being shuttled out of Dufton and back in had been an option, I realized that maybe I hadn’t needed to bring along a tent at all. But before I could sink further into these thoughts, the Dutchman introduced yet another stress.

“Look where we need to go tomorrow,” he pointed. “It’s going to be a really, really hard stage.”

Far off in the distance, way above the village and into the mountains was a round, white radar station. It was jut a pinprick on the horizon and tomorrow, I would have to walk up there, and then I would have to keep going. I couldn’t imagine having the energy.

I pushed those thoughts away, too, telling myself that I’d worry about that tomorrow. So I finished my strawberry milk, said goodbye to the Dutchman, hoisted up my heavy pack and headed off to my campsite. Once there, I found a sign that said I needed to call a number to check-in. My phone was dead (and I didn’t have an international calling plan or a local SIM card so I wouldn’t have been able to call if I tried!), but there was an address listed on the sign so I set back out.

I arrived at a house with a fenced in yard, so I let myself in though the gate but stopped short when I heard loud, angry grunting coming from a small enclosure. I waited, and then a huge black pig appeared, and can pigs ever be aggressive animals? Because this one did not seem happy to see me. And why in the world was I standing in someone’s yard, in a showdown with a pig? Things were getting stranger and stranger.

But I was in the right place and a man came out and took me back over to the campsite, showing me where I could set up my tent. It wasn’t the most ideal situation- I was on a patch of grass in the middle of a circle of camper vans, where people were parked on holiday. There were no other tents and for the life of me I can’t figure out where other Pennine Way walkers stay in this village. Maybe there weren’t other walkers that day, maybe they’d taken up all the rooms in the Inn.

I mentioned that I was planning to have dinner at the pub that evening, and once again, I got a concerned look and the manager asked if I’d made a reservation. “You might not be able to get dinner,” he told me, “you really need a reservation and at this point they’ll be all booked up. But go over anyway and ask at the bar. You might have to wait until every else is served, but if you ask nicely they might be able to make you something.”

My heart sank. I needed dinner that night, I couldn’t face the possibility of another difficult day on not enough calories. The corner shop had already closed so there wasn’t the possibility of buying food items there at this point (note to self: stock up when you have the chance!!), and so the restaurant was my only option. This is something that I wished my guidebook had pointed out. Maybe I was supposed to have known that I needed to make reservations at restaurants (and not at pubs?), but there was no mention of this in my guide and I assumed that as long as I showed up at the right hour, I would be able to order some food. But this was now the second night in a row where I was running into problems!

After I showered and washed my clothes and set up my tent, I went over to the restaurant. It was around 6:00pm, and I went to the bar and asked about the possibility of food. The response was along the same lines of what the owner of the caravan park had given me, and once again, the barmaid looked at me a little sternly, showing no sympathy. But I persisted, asking if there was any way she could ask the chef if he could fit one more meal in. She disappeared into the kitchen, the came back a few minutes later.

“You can sit at one of these tables,” she pointed to a section of the restaurant in front of the bar. “You might have to wait awhile but the chef said he’d make you something.”

Nearly two hours and a couple of beers later, a piping hot meal was placed down on my table. I ate every single scrap and then left a very generous tip that I hoped would make its way to the chef.

The sun was beginning to set as I arrived back at the caravan park, but the golden light was still pouring onto my tent and the inside was toasty, and warm. I snuggled deep into my sleeping bag, my belly finally full, listening as children and dogs ran together in wild glee, watching their shadows dance across the walls of my tent, watching as the light dimmed and faded to darkness.

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Day 9 on the Pennine Way; Tan Hill Inn to Holwick, 20+ miles

March 25, 2019

Day 9 on the Pennine Way started with another full English breakfast in the dining room of the Tan Hill Inn. Actually, it started with something better.

Have I mentioned my little trick when it comes to breakfasting on the Pennine Way? When I stayed in a bunkhouse or B&B that served breakfast, I’d make a note of the starting time and always arrived at least 5 minutes early. Often I was the first one there, and the tables were set and the cooks were in the kitchen. Within moments I’d have a hot cup of coffee and my breakfast ordered placed, the food being cooked up quickly. I could have a good but fast breakfast and be out the door before others had even tucked into their eggs.

But on this morning, in Tan Hill, I experienced a little coffee magic. The owner or manager of the Inn, who I’d seen milling around the night before, came over to my table.

“Good morning,” he smiled at me. “Coffee, or tea, or…, ” he paused. “Maybe a cappuccino?”

Now I’m not sure if I got the cappuccino offer was because I was early, or because he offers cappuccinos to everyone (I didn’t hear him offer one to anyone else, but I could have been mistaken), or who knows, maybe he was being extra friendly and trying to flirt by offering me good coffee (and if so, he was on the right track).

In any case, you better believe I ordered the cappuccino and the coffee was strong and milky and GOOD. I think I said this in my last post but I’ll repeat it one more time here- if you’re planning a walk on the Pennine Way and are interested in staying in the Tan Hill Inn (Britain’s highest pub and all-around cool and isolated place), consider booking a bed in one of the bunk rooms. I lucked out and had the room to myself, but even if you have to share it’s a good deal. The beds are basic but comfortable, you get a towel (a towel!) and use of a bathroom with a shower and a tub. Breakfast is included in the price and if you’re lucky and smile at the cute owner, you might just get yourself a cappuccino too.

But back to business, I had walking to do. I finished breakfast, laced up my shoes, and headed back out into the wide open countryside.

As usual, it was another blue sky day with full sunshine. The walk out of Tan Hill through Sleightholme Moor can be boggy (and probably IS boggy 99% of the time), but aside from a couple slightly wet sections, the walking was dry and not too difficult. In foggy conditions I imagine it would be really difficult to follow the path; even on a clear day, it was hard to keep track of the faint trace of a path through the tall grass. My guidebook recommended keeping an eye out for the white posts that dotted the landscape, and this is how I followed the path out of Tan Hill: scanning the open field for a marker somewhere far in the distance and when I found it, I’d head there, then start scanning for another.

The walking went on and on, and I remember it being mostly pleasant and not too strenuous. After a few hours I reached a milestone: I was halfway through the Pennine Way! Just a little past the halfway point I stopped by a small hut; there aren’t a lot of these on the route, but when the weather is bad I can imagine that being able to stop and rest and get out of the rain would be most welcome. I only stayed for a few minutes, taking time to read some of the notes left on the walls. The one pictured below caught my eye; what an incredible way to honor a 50th birthday! And those words- “Enjoy the freedom”- echoed in my head as I continued to walk and walk down the trail. The freedom to walk under trees and through meadows and along the reservoirs, the freedom to kick off my shoes or drink deeply from my bottle of water, the freedom to walk as fast or as slow as I wanted or needed.

7 more miles to go, and on tired but content legs I walked into the very charming village of Middleton-in-Teesdale. I wouldn’t be staying here; my reservation was in a bunkhouse another 3-miles down the path, but I stopped in the village to look around and buy some snacks for the next day.

I was feeling happy. It had been an all-around good day on the Pennine Way. The sun was shining and I was smiling and even though I was tired, I felt good as I walked away from the village and onwards to my bunkhouse.

Everything was going fine as I continued to congratulate myself on a walk well done when, all at once, things took a turn.

My reservation was for Low Way Farm Camping Barn, and my guidebook’s very basic, hand-drawn map showed the location of the barn to be in the middle of a field. There was a faint, dotted line on the map, veering off from the Pennine Way and straight towards the camping barn and so I assumed I would be looking for some sort of path. I walked up, I walked down, I walked back and I walked forth, over the same stiles and stone steps and through the same gates several times. I could see a few buildings in the field, so I headed towards one, making my own path through the tall and rough grass.

I arrived at the first stone building, circled around it a few times, peered in windows and shook on the locked doors. There was no one around and there didn’t seem to be much going on in the building, either, but I thought that perhaps this could be my camping barn. I wasn’t sure. I scratched my head, considered the expanse of green field, and continued walking. Back to the the path of the Pennine Way, up and down and back and forth, through the fields again to try another building, with no luck.

So then I set off further into the fields, attempting to reach a road that was running parallel to the Pennine Way. I went up and over hills, to climb over fences I had to navigate around barbed wire, I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going but I could hear an occasional car drive by so I knew I was close to the road.

And once I arrived at the road, I easily found the pub where I planned to have dinner later that night. It’s not that I’d been lost at any point, it’s just that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where my camping barn was! I headed towards the pub to ask for help but before I could get inside, a white van pulled up beside me, the window rolling down.

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice called out. “You’re not Nadine, are you?”

This was the owner of the camping barn, and she’d come to find me. I suspect that a farmer must have seen me wandering cluelessly around the fields and sent out the SOS on my behalf. Who knows. I was just grateful to have a key in my hand and easy directions to my accommodations. I followed a gravel path and arrived at one of the stone buildings I’d been convinced couldn’t have been the camping barn. From outside the building I could look across the field and see exactly where I’d been traipsing up and down, hopelessly confused. I think my wanderings cost me nearly 2 additional hours of walking- you should have seen the things that came out of my shoes! The owner of the barn had warned me that the pub might stop serving food around 7:30, so I showered as fast as I could and then raced back out again: up the gravel path, over the hill, down the road where I arrived, breathlessly, at the pub.

I checked the time on my phone. 7:18pm. “Perfect,” I breathed to myself. I went inside, up to the bar, and was promptly informed that the kitchen had stopped serving food.

I’m not sure what I said, though I probably asked if they were sure that no food was being served. I didn’t want to beg but I certainly pleaded, explaining that I was walking the Pennine Way and that it had been a very long day. The woman behind the bar didn’t seem to care, she just shrugged and said I could order a beer.

I sat at a table, watched as another couple were served heaping plates of hot and delicious-looking food, drank my beer quickly and then headed back out: down the road, onto the gravel path, over the little hill, past the sheep in the field, into my camping barn.

How many miles did I end up walking that day? A lot. Over 20. I was alone in the camping barn, and feeling very alone in general that night. I opened my pack of emergency quinoa, tore off a hunk of bread that was supposed to be breakfast the next morning, and sat glumly on a bench, eating my simple dinner.

I had enough food, I’d found where I needed to be, I had a bed to sleep in and my body was tired but feeling fine. All of this was true, all of it was important, but I still felt kind of defeated.

But the light in the fields was golden, and little sheep wandered up to my door, sometimes peering inside. I still had a couple ginger cookies left and so I ate them and read more of Jane Eyre, I read in the dimming light until I could no longer see the words on the page.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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Day Two on the Pennine Way: Torside to Standedge, 12 miles

August 17, 2018

My second day on the Pennine Way, compared to the first, was glorious. And oh man, did I need it!

The sun was shining brightly and the report at breakfast was that the weather should be clear for the next week, at least. And breakfast, for the record, was also glorious: my first full English of the trip. A bowl of cereal, two sausage links, scrambled eggs, a thick slice of ham, tomatoes and mushrooms and baked beans and toast and juice and coffee. It was delicious and also too much but I ate as much as I could and then ordered a packed lunch to carry with me.

Sitting at the next table was Margaret, also from California, and she told me how she had also gotten lost the day before, by walking along Kinder River. “Those footprints you saw were probably mine!” she said. It never occurred to me that I might have been following someone who had also gotten lost.

Margaret was staying two nights in The Old House B&B, and taking advantage of their transport service, so she had already walked the second day and would be driven to a point about 15 miles further on. She told me and David about a shortcut around one of the reservoirs, and our B&B host confirmed it, and I was careful to make a note in my guidebook. We were directed to the best way to get back to the path from the B&B, and so I hoisted my pack and set off across the neighboring field.

Within just five minutes, I was walking back to the B&B to ask for clarification. I’d been wandering around the field rather aimlessly and feeling kind of silly and honestly, I think I had lost a little confidence the day before, when I’d made several big navigational mistakes. My B&B host once again pointed me in the right direction, and finally I was on my way.

The day’s walk was just beautiful. There were some challenging sections, mostly in the first four miles which climbed and climbed up to Black Hill, but even that part wasn’t so bad. The sky was clear blue with huge fluffy clouds and for awhile there were sheep at every turn. I hadn’t yet grown used to the sheep (spoiler: I would pass hundreds and hundreds of sheep nearly every day of the walk), and it was so amusing to approach and see how close I could get before they would spook and run a few feet away.

And as I climbed up towards Laddow Rocks I was totally alone, and the views stretched out behind me, wide and vast. My legs, despite the strain of the day before, felt good, and I was happy and energized and excited for what was ahead.

One of the most beautiful moments of the day (and maybe of the entire trip) was when I turned off the road towards Wessenden Head Reservoir. There was a great slope of green hill that stretched down from the top of the path, and sitting at the top of the hill was an older woman on a wooden kitchen chair. Darting and racing all around the field in front of her were at least a dozen dogs, maybe more. They were all shapes and sizes and colors, and there were two women amongst them, who seemed to be their handlers. I still haven’t figure out what, exactly, they were doing or where they were from: one of the women would occasionally throw a ball and the dogs were run after it, or sometimes when one might begin to stray too far the other woman would call him back. I watched the dogs for a few minutes and then the woman in the chair began to talk to me. She told me that she had very recently found out that she had cancer, and by some coincidence she had discovered these women with the dogs on Facebook, and they invited her out to this hillside.

She sat there, with a blanket wrapped tightly around her legs, the sun on her face and a dozen dogs racing at her feet. “I think this must be some version of heaven,” she said.

A little further down the path- after I ate my sandwich on a rock in the sunshine- I attempted the shortcut that our B&B hosts and Margaret had told me about. I studied my map, I made a left at the end of a reservoir, I followed the path and I had no idea what went wrong! I reached what I thought was the end of the path and I couldn’t figure out a way to go forward, so I gave up and retraced my steps (it was around this point that I began wondering just how many miles I was adding on to this whole Pennine Way thing). Just when I got back to where I had attempted the shortcut, I ran into Nigel and Judy, the friendly couple who had shared a taxi with me on the way to Edale.

Shortcut on the Pennine Way, Wessenden Reservoir

Shortcut gone wrong!

We ended up walking together or close to each other for the last few miles of the day, and despite my failure with the first shortcut, we ended up taking another when a very friendly local man explained the best way to get to our lodgings in Standedge. This time- finally- I figured out the right path.

My lodging for the night was a campsite around the back of The Carriage House in Standedge. I’d brought my tent and some camping supplies with me because there were a couple nights along the way where I couldn’t find a bed in a B&B or a hostel or bunkhouse. I also figured that if my plans needed to change or I ran into any trouble, having a tent with me would allow for some extra insurance.

But camping is still a relatively new thing for me; I’ve been car camping only a couple of times, and really, the only thing that gave me any sort of confidence to attempt camping along the Pennine Way was the three nights I spent in my tent on Cumberland Island several years before.

Before I left for my trip, I meant to practice setting up my tent- and I did, just one time. But when I unfurled everything from my pack on the grassy lawn of The Carriage House, the material looked alien and the color coded tabs indecipherable. I flipped the tent and the footprint and the rain cover around a few times and weaved the poles together and clipped things here and there and, eventually, I had something that looked like a standing tent. I realized that I could have used one more stake, and I wasn’t sure if I’d used the stakes that I did have in the correct way; with the first strong gust of wind, I worried that the tent was going to be flapping around too much.

I stood back, with my hands on my hips, and surveyed my work. Good enough. I walked around the side of The Carriage House to find the shower blocks so I could clean up, and then I went inside for a glass of wine. Later, I met up with David and we ate dinner together, and then around 9pm I somewhat reluctantly went outside to see about sleeping in the tent. Once the sun went down the temperatures dropped and I put on every layer of clothing I had in my pack and tucked myself deep in my sleeping bag. But I was cold, and stayed cold all through the night- tossing and turning and trying my hardest to sleep. I think I finally got comfortable around 5am once the sun started to rise and the tent began to warm back up. A little late for a good night’s sleep, but it was enough. Mostly, I was relieved that my first night of camping was over, and I let my tent out in the sun so the dew could dry while I went inside and had another full English breakfast.

Ready for Day 3!!

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Day One of the Pennine Way: Edale to Torside, 15 miles (that somehow turned into 20)

August 13, 2018

I woke up at 4:30am, and then again at 5:30am. The sun was shining bright in the sky and it felt impossible to fall back to sleep. I was alone in my bunk room and the air was cool outside the open window, and when I looked out I could see clouds in the distance.

I put on my hiking outfit and rolled up my sleeping bag and began to remember how to arrange my backpack. I was moving slowly. Breakfast was a coffee sachet and a banana and a granola bar, and by 7:00 I was dressed and packed and ready to start my long walk.

The Pennine Way starts in the small village of Edale, a 45-minute drive east from Manchester, and the track immediately heads into farmland and open countryside. As I was halfway up the first (very) small hill I began to breathe heavily and it felt as though I was being pulled backwards, as though there were two hands on my backpack gently tugging, and tugging. My pack was heavy, heavier than anything I’d walked with ever before. Only 15 minutes into the walk, I began to worry that because of the weight I was carrying (a weight that included camping supplies), this walk might be a bit of a challenge.

And the first real challenge of the day was Jacob’s Ladder, a series of steep steps that climb and climb and climb, dropping you off at Edale Rocks. Step by step, inch by inch, I made it to the top and as soon as I did I felt my first raindrop. And then more, and more, so I took off my pack and pulled out my raincoat and then kept walking. The rain, at first, didn’t seem so bad, but within minutes I was walking through thick clouds, rain pelting me from every angle, the wind blowing fiercely so that no part of me was left dry. My hiking pants quickly became wet and cold against my legs and I was only an hour into the day’s walk. I found the best cover I could, and I huddled under the overhang of a rock and took off my pants and changed into my long underwear and rain pants, much like I did that time when I walked Hadrian’s Wall. “Already prancing around the Pennine Way in my underwear”, I thought.

My guidebook says this about the first day: “The Pennine Way throws you straight in at the deep end. If the weather is poor, it may also test your navigation and equipment as you skirt around the notorious Kinder Scout and ascend the remote summit of Bleaklow.”

Ahh, truer words were never spoken! The Pennine Way certainly did test my navigation skills (or lack thereof) on that first day; as I crossed Kinder Scout and made my way across what felt like the ridge of a mountain (though honestly I had no idea because I couldn’t see a thing), I focused so carefully on the faint path at my feet. The trail wound in and out of large rocks and sometimes it was really difficult to tell where I needed to go. Visibility was also extremely poor, but for awhile I managed to follow the path.

Here might be a good time to say something about the signage on the Pennine Way: well, there could be more of it. There were many, many times along the trail where it seemed as though the path divided and there was no clear indication of which way to go. I quickly learned that I needed to follow my guidebook closely, and by doing so I always figured out the way. But on that first day, when it started raining, I hadn’t wanted to take off my pack and dig through and get everything wet looking for my guide, so I foolishly thought I could just follow the path without much trouble.

Well, the first trouble came at Kinder Downfall. I was suppose to cross over the river which is mostly dry unless there’s been really heavy rain, and it involved a rather sharp left turn. It had been a long time since I’d checked my guidebook and I was oblivious to the fact that I needed to cross a river or make a left, and I assumed that a signpost would indicate where I needed to go. The other complicating factor was that I just couldn’t see a thing. There should have been sweeping views, and a rocky cliff face, and I should have been able to see a path on the other side of the river bed. Instead, all I could see was the trace of a path at my feet, and I just continued to follow it straight on.

Straight and straight and straight, along a mostly dry river bed. For a long time I didn’t even question whether I was still on the Pennine Way or not; I was on a path, there were footprints in the mud which meant that others had come before me, and there were even a few cairns- those large pile of rocks which, to me, mean that I’m on the right path.

How long did I walk? A mile? Two? Eventually, the path faded into obscurity, and suddenly there were half a dozen different directions I could walk in. I tried a few of them, I tried to see a way forward, I turned around and around looking for something, for someone, but there was nothing.

So I turned around, because it was all I could do. I knew that if I retraced my steps I would eventually get back to what I knew was the Pennine Way, and so I walked back, for one mile or maybe even two, and I found a cairn that I knew was on the path and I took out my guidebook and luckily there was a break in the rain and I sat and I thought and I thought. I noticed that I needed to cross the river, but with visibility still being so poor, I couldn’t quite figure out where I was supposed to go.

And then, emerging from the fog and the mist, was a man wearing a black raincoat. I could see him in the distance, slowly moving closer, and I sat and waited until he was nearly upon me and then I said, “Are you on the Pennine Way?”

His name was David, from LA by way of Liverpool, and he took out his own guide and we studied the maps and together figured out where we needed to turn. By even more great luck there were two men coming from the other direction and they were able to point out the path to us. I chatted to David for a few minutes and then I continue on ahead of him, grateful and happy that I was finally back on the way.

And then, before long, I made my second mistake of the day. This one was just plan stupidity and lack of focus; I was tired and wet and worried that the path was much more difficult to navigate than I’d expected, and I turned too soon and headed down a very steep, very large hill, so confident that I was going the right way until suddenly it was clear that I wasn’t. I turned around, I looked up and up at what I would have to climb. This was actually one of the hardest moments of my entire walk- that feeling of knowing you’ve already walked so long and so far, of feeling wet and cold, of knowing you still have so far to go, and then looking at this really steep hill and knowing that you need to retrace some very difficult steps.

One by one, I did it. I got back to the top and ate half my sandwich and changed my socks and then kept walking. The rain started again, and then didn’t stop for the next two or three hours. Wet and cold, wet and cold, I rummaged through my pack until I found my buff and I wrapped my numbed fingers in it like a muff, as best as I could.

The last few miles of the day followed Clough’s Edge, a high and narrow path through ferns, before a very steep descent down to Torside. The entire time I was so worried that I was on the wrong path, because it felt like it had been hours since I’d seen a sign for the Pennine Way. Maybe it had been hours. My legs were so tired and the path was so steep that I had to watch my footing carefully. Finally, finally, just as the skies began to clear, I reached the bottom of the descent and saw a sign and knew that I was close to my destination. The sun burst from behind the clouds, warming my face for the first time all day. I was exhausted, but I had made it.

I had a room at The Old House B&B reserved for the night, and I was grateful for it. A clean towel and a bar of soap were laid out on the bed, the shower was hot, and there were supplies for making tea in the kitchen. There are no dinner options at the B&B or anywhere nearby, but the hosts of The Old House offer to drive guests to The Peels Arms a few miles away. I went with David- my trail angel from earlier in the day- and we spent our evening talking about rain and gear and our feet and where we were going the next day.

I told him how I was wearing hiking shoes, and not boots, and that I wasn’t concerned about falling or twisting an ankle. “I don’t have the slimmest ankles in the world,” I told him. “Not good for high heels, but great for walking and hiking.”

David held up his beer glass. “To sturdy ankles!”

So this was day one: long and difficult and wet and at times defeating. But in the end, I could feel the sunshine on my face and I had the company of a fellow hiker over a warm meal in a cosy pub, along with a room of my own and a clean towel. This was all the fortification I would need; when I woke up the next morning, I was ready for whatever the day would bring.

Next Post: Day 2 on the Pennine Way

The Pennine Way: the adventure begins

July 31, 2018

Here I am, finally getting around to writing about my walk on the Pennine Way. I finished the 268-mile trail about four weeks ago (!!), and I have so much to say, so I figured I should probably get started.

I didn’t really think I’d blog while on the walk, and mostly because I didn’t have a computer or iPad or keyboard with me. But even if I had, I think it still would have been challenging. My days of walking were long, and usually rather exhausting. Many of my evenings were solo, but it was all I could do to go find dinner, return to my bunkhouse/hostel/tent, read a few chapters of my book and then go to bed… usually by 9:30 (if not earlier). So these reports are, sadly, not coming to you in real time (spoiler: I finished the walk! I made it out alive!!).

So, let’s begin. My first thought is this, and I probably say it with every trip: travel amazes me. It throws you into these new situations and suddenly you are having coffee with someone you met on your flight, or are now friends with the bus driver, or are sharing a cab with a couple you’d met only minutes before. This kind of sums up my first day of travel, as I left the US for England: I had all of these really wonderful, friendly, helpful connections with the people around me. I lucked out on my flight; I had the aisle seat, a man from Goa, India, had the window seat, and no one was in the middle (otherwise it was a pretty full flight). The man (whose name I now forget) made a few comments throughout the flight, but we mostly kept to ourselves. But when we landed in Dublin and had a two-hour layover, he suggested we go find some coffee together, and I agreed. Just like that I had a new friend, and we spent the time talking about travel. He was intrigued by my long walks and I answered lots of questions, and it was the perfect thing to help with my transition from regular life into my summer adventures.

Next step: getting to London and catching a train to Edale. I’d made the train reservation months before but for some reason I didn’t give myself much time to get from the airport to my train, especially not with all of the errands I needed to do: ship a box of extra luggage up to Scotland, purchase a SIM card for my phone, find a grocery store to stock up on food for the first few days of the walk. The only thing I managed to do was ship my extra luggage, and I made it just in time for my train. One of these years I’ll remember what it’s like to not sleep on the flight and to arrive in Europe with jet lag, and maybe I’ll actually give myself an extra day of adjustment before I start a long walk. (One can hope).

This is a good place to note that, in the flurry of shipping some of my things ahead to Scotland, a few items got a bit mixed up. I had my backpack and smaller day pack and packing cubes and gallon-sized ziplock bags spread out in the corner of a small post office, trying to very quickly load my pack with my hiking stuff. I was sweating from the heat and anxious about catching my train, and for the most part I got things where they needed to be, with a few exceptions: all of my pens went in the box to Scotland (this would prove to be very annoying over the next few days, not having a pen). So did my bag of Sour Patch Kids (my hiking candy!!). On the other hand, in my hiking pack was a navy blue men’s sweater, that I was returning to a friend later in my travels once I got to my writer’s retreat. That’s a bit of a story in itself, but I realized that I’d forgotten to remove the sweater once it was already too late, so it meant that I’d need to carry it across England.

In the end, I made my train and arrived in Sheffield, where I had to get off and make a connection to go the rest of the way to Edale. But when I looked at the displayed timetable I didn’t see my train posted. It turns out there was a strike (happening on that particular Tuesday, along with Thursday and Saturday), so my train wasn’t running. Ahh, my first challenge! I was directed to a bus station and a couple of very friendly workers helped me figure out the two buses I would need to take that would hopefully get me to Edale. The first one, the #272 from Sheffield to Castleton was fine, but when I arrived in Castleton there were no other buses in sight.

My bus driver, who was waiting around until he could leave for his next run, suggested I look up time tables on my phone. I explained that my phone didn’t have any data (the first time on this trip that a SIM card would have come in handy!!), and after a few minutes he came over with his phone and tried to help me find my bus. We looked and looked and finally he said, “I’ve been driving buses for 30 years, and if I can’t figure this out then I think you’re out of luck.”

There were two people waiting nearby, they had backpacks and were reading signs and scrolling through their phones. They’d been on the first bus with me and I thought I overheard one of them mention the Pennine Way, so I walked over and asked if they were trying to get to Edale.

“We are!” exclaimed the man, whose name was Nigel. “We’re going to walk the Pennine Way.” He was with his wife, Judy, and the three of us talked about the walk and then how we were going to get to Edale. Eventually, Nigel found a cab company that was willing to drive out and pick us up, and before long (and after I ran into a small shop and bought a sandwich and a large bottle of water for the next day), we were on our way.

I was tired when I finally arrived in Edale but I had the adrenaline that travel and a new adventure always seem to provide. Our taxi driver was very concerned about the fact that I needed to walk an additional 10 minutes down a small path to get to my bunkhouse; she suggested that she could drive me there but I insisted on walking. After all, soon enough I’d be starting a much longer walk.

I’d made a reservation for the Stables Bunkhouse at Ollerbrook Farms, and I had the place to myself (something I would soon discover to be a trend on the Pennine Way… I think bunkhouses are the way to go!). My room had a window that looked onto a field of cows and the hillside beyond, and the kitchen had a fridge where I could keep my breakfast and lunch cold for the next day. I grabbed dinner in a nearby pub and ate to the sounds of a World Cup game on TV (Russian vs Egypt), then made my way back to the bunkhouse and was in bed by 9pm.

Despite the challenges, I thought this first day was a really good way to kick off my adventure. Things hadn’t gone quite according to plan, but it all worked out okay, especially with the help of others. I thought that maybe it was all a bit of an omen- would my walk have more challenges ahead? (For sure). Would I meet kind people, would I rely on them for help? (Yes, and yes). Would I have to sometimes readjust, and come up with a Plan B? (Oh yeah).

And these are all reasons that I travel. Real life has some challenges, but for the most part I know what to expect. I have my routines, I have my people. Sometimes, it’s just really good to shake things up, to go some place new, to throw yourself into the unknown. To go off, and have an adventure.

And this one had just begun.

Next Post: Day 1 on the Pennine Way

That it Might Last Forever

July 15, 2018

How do I begin to write about my walk on the Pennine Way? I’m at my writer’s retreat in France now; I finished my walk 11 days ago. I’m here to work on other projects, but I know I also want (and need) to write about this walk.

I can’t stop thinking about it.

Each walk I do is so different, my experience with it is so different. As I walked the Pennine Way I thought- I don’t need to do this again. It’s beautiful and wonderful but it’s also hard and that hill seemed endless and one time on the Pennine Way is enough.

But yet, I sit here in a small village in France and I wonder who’s out there, hiking the Pennine Way right as this very moment. I think of them with their packs and their walking sticks and I’m envious. I wonder if they have the beautiful weather that I had. If the bogs are still mostly dry. If the heather has turned purple.

I jotted down some words, some memories this morning, and I think this is as good a place as any to begin. I’ll blog more- surely- about this walk in the weeks and months to come, but for now, here is what the Pennine Way was to me:

It was openness, it was the moors. It was the Brontës. It was walking in the soft morning through the bracken. It was reading chapters of Jane Eyre and eating thin ginger biscuits in empty bunkhouses.

It was a cappuccino from the good looking owner of the highest pub in Britain. It was a Greek meal and a glass of good wine on a terrace with a girl from Norfolk. And fish and chips in a pub with a man from LA by way of Liverpool and talking about Meatloaf and toasting to sturdy ankles (mine).

It was the full English breakfast.

Half pints turned into pints, and restaurants that stopped serving food in the early evening and cold quinoa from a bag and a loaf of bread.

Rescuing a lamb stuck in a fence, retreating from a field of bulls and being helped over a high stone wall by a man running a race.

It was entire days of walking alone, it was struggling over the stiles and figuring out the locks on gates. Taking the shortcuts. Missing the shortcuts. Conversations about life and death, and how an endless field with racing dogs and a seat in the sun was probably some version of heaven.

It was hills and mountains with names like Bleaklow and Cross Fell and Kinder Scout and Great Shunner Fell and Pen-y-Ghent and The Schil.

It was not thinking I had the strength to get over these hills, and counting to ten with each step, and repeating this over and over until I reached a top I thought might never come.

It was 268-miles minus the 20 I skipped with a train ride, plus (possibly) an additional 20 I added with wrong turns and mistaken detours.

It was learning not to follow what I thought was a path along Kinder River.

A pack that started heavy and grew heavier, and learning how to shoulder that weight. Four blisters and aching feet, sunburn on the tips of my ears and a fall into the soft grass that startled all of the sheep.

Walking through a heat wave and discussing the weather with everyone I met.

Nights in a tent wrapped in a borrowed sweater, wind that pushed me sideways, air and a sky that made me feel alive. Dry and prickly heather weeks away from its bloom, puffy white flowers growing from the bogs, a deer bounding along train tracks, and the constant scattering of hundreds of sheep.

Tarns and burns and crags and fells and becks. The moors and the mountains. My stride, sometimes slow, sometimes fluid, as I moved through this landscape.

A small tub of Wensleydale ice cream on a bench in the shade. An apple on a rock in the sun. A muffin and a cold coffee drink in the middle of the heather when I thought I couldn’t walk any further. So many rounds of Babybel cheese and flour tortillas.