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The Pennine Way | |
| Introduction Edale Crowden Globe Farm Slack Top Ponden Thornton Malham Horton Hawes Tan Hill |
 A ghostly Kirkcarrion tumulus in the mist |
Bowes Middleton Langdon Beck Dufton Garrigill Alston Greenhead Twice Brewed Bellingham Bryness Uswayford |
Yesterday the weather had turned fine for the afternoon - sunny with high fluffy clouds. It couldn't last - today dawned overcast and misty. I threaded my way back through the roadworks to where the PW met the A66. Once across the road, it was back to more moorland on a thin track through the heather. Note that Ravock Castle is merely the pile of stones left of an old shepherds hut. The rather dull walk lead to the footbridge over Deepdale Beck where the path climbed alongside a stone wall and over some false crests to Race Yate Rigg. "Rigg" is the northern term for a ridge while I believe that "yate" is local dialect for "gate".
From the rigg, all landmarks were abandoned as the PW headed downhill along a straightish route to join a road leading past Clove Lodge Farm. The path was defined enough to follow easily, but the mist made me glad to have a compass. At the road the alternative route via Bowes (the "Bowes Loop") joins this route. The road dipped down to Blackton Bridge (between the Baldersdale and Blackton reservoirs), passing the turn-off to the Blackton (Balderdale) Youth Hostel. From the bridge an old cart-track climbs to an iron gate, past Birk Hat farm and up through fields and meadows to a minor road. The meadows should look great in spring and summer since they are managed according to traditional techniques and cut late allowing plenty of wildflowers to grow.
Over the road the PW took a marshy path up to the top of Hazelgarth Rigg (near a tumbled-down wall). I followed the solid stone wall to my right to reach the end of the field, crossed diagonally over the corner of the next field and ended up above Kelton Bottom. Past the farm buildings at Beck Head, the path became a single-file route over the remains of hay-meadows leading down to a minor road. The road lead around a corner and to a bridge across the upper reaches of the Grassholme Reservoir. I stopped at a carpark across the bridge for lunch and to watch some anglers.
A little way up from the bridge, the road came to Grassholme Farm where a clear path headed uphill across meadows to another road. The track across the road brought me to Wythes Hill Farm and past some holiday cottages back to rough pasture. The path lead through several small fields as it contoured along the side of Harter Fell before breaking out into pasture above Middleton-in-Teesdale. To my right I could see the pine trees on Kirkcarrion ( a Bronze Age tumulus) looming through the mist - well-deserving its reputation of being haunted. A little further down, I could see Middleton emerging through the mist and then joined a steep little track down to the road into the town.
I had just settled in to my room at the Talbot Hotel when I had a very pleasant surprise - the voice of my father just outside my door. My dad had come to Britain to visit some of his old haunts after 30 years in NZ. We had met in London where I showed him around for a couple of days while he got organised. Then we went our separate ways - me starting the PW while he went further north. I had given him a copy of my itinerary so that he could meet up with me if his schedule allowed. It turned out that he could actually spend a day with me on the PW.
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