Jane Eyre Archives - Nadine Walks

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.

Previous Post: Day 13 on the Pennine Way

Next Post: Day 15 on the Pennine Way

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.

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

November 28, 2018

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

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

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

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

To that I now say… nonsense!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” I replied. “Are you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Previous Post: Day 4 on the Pennine Way

Next Post: Day 6 on the Pennine Way

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

November 15, 2018

Blister paaaaiiiiiinnnnn!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The table where the sisters wrote each evening!

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

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

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

Previous Post: Day 3 on the Pennine Way

Next Post: Day 5 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.