Today the weather was miserable. It was our first real taste of the Pennine way and what the weather is usually like. The only good thing was that once we were wet, we couldn’t get any wetter.
Today we walked 30km with 800m of climbing.
We left Hebden bridge at 8:30am this morning and headed uphill. Once we got to the top we walked along the moors for a while. This was then when we got our first hint of rain, we kept going without our rain jackets thinking it would blow over. After a while it was still raining so we stopped to put our coats on, once we did it had stopped raining, just our luck.
About 2km in to the walk we came across Mary’s farm shop that was mentioned in the our guide. We stopped to buy pasty’s for later and to buy some more snacks.
It then started to really lash it down, so we stopped again to put on our waterproof trousers and gators, the gators are helpful as it means water doesn’t get in to our boots.
It didn’t stop raining until we arrived in Ickornshaw at 4:30pm. We are staying in a very basic cabin as it is the only accommodation we could find when we booked the route 3 months ago. We went to a pub for dinner where Will played online bridge and I did my maths homework.
The evening entertainment also included a dairy of the Pennine way walk that we borrowed from a friend in Barnes who walked the Pennine way in 1972. We had fun trying to figure out what’s changed and what hasn’t.
Best wishes,
Ned and Will Battersby
