Journal:
Breakfast,
which was excellent, was at 8am and I chatted to the
B&B owner, Caroline, while eating. Their
farmhouse was a beautiful renovation of a house
dating back to mediaeval times, but Caroline said
that the winters were brutal and the remoteness was
sometimes difficult. They will be moving
nearer London in a few years time.
I got away at 8:45am,
later than I would have liked, given that I was
aiming for Dufton, which I guessed to be about 45km
away. There was nothing for a long time before
Dufton, so it was really a case of a short day or a
long day, and the long day would put me back on a
comfortable schedule. The first couple of
hours involved traversing farmland and low moors to
Middleton-in-Teesdale where I hoped to get some
supplies for the day and some maps. The quaint
old town had a small supermarket where I bought a
sandwich for later and some soft drink.
Unfortunately all of the shops that might have sold
maps were closed on Mondays. I also needed a
new book, having finished one last night, but the
bookshop was closed too.
From Middleton, the very
pleasant path followed the River Tees upstream
through picturesque farmland, in many places
carpeted with wildflowers. Many of the
farmhouses were painted white, something of a
tradition in the area. It was lovely walking,
though it started to rain steadily around noon.
There were a lot of high stiles to cross, and their
wet rocks had me treading very carefully. I
saw a few walkers, particularly around two excellent
waterfalls, Low Force and High Force (Force from the
Viking word Foss for waterfall), where the
tannin-stained water of the River Tees thundered
over jagged rocks.
Gradually I left the farms
behind and entered moorland, continuing to climb
following the River Tees upstream. The rain
was making the track very wet and boggy in parts,
but I tried to maintain a good pace.
Fortunately, my left heel which was sore yesterday,
seemed to have settled down. Apparently the
pen-knife surgery on the deep blister under the
callus was successful! As for much of
yesterday, my feet were wet from noon onwards.
I never saw anybody else all afternoon and had the
bleak moors to myself as I climbed through the rain,
but it wasn't so bad until my iPod stopped working
and I discovered that, somehow, water had got into
the plastic bag inside my Goretex jacket and drowned
both my radio and iPod. I was very annoyed.
I soldiered on along the Pennine Way, including
through some difficult slippery rocky sections which
slowed my pace considerably. An afternoon
highlight was the powerful multi-tiered waterfall at
Cauldron Snout where the River Tees plunged down
from a higher valley through a narrow gorge.
Very impressive. The path climbed up the side
of the waterfall on slick boulders that had me using
all hands to avoid a nasty fall, but I survived.
Soon afterwards, around
5pm, the rain stopped and there were even a couple
of glimpses of the sun, as I continued over a high
moorland. I took the chance to hold and carry
both my iPod and radio, exposed to the wind and
relative warmth and eventually the radio began
working again, but no joy on the iPod.
Around 6:30pm came the
highlight of the day when the path reached the high
end of High Cup, a perfectly formed U-shaped
glaciated valley that fell away beneath me. It
was breathtaking, made all the better by the clearer
skies. The path followed one edge of the
valley before gradually descending towards Dufton.
It was a race to see whether I could get to Dufton
before 8pm, the usual time for pubs to stop serving
food. In the end, I arrived at the pub exactly
on 8pm, but saw the Youth Hostel opposite, which was
larger than I expected (and therefore more likely to
serve food), so I quickly went in and enquired.
Although dinner was long over, the kind and cheerful
manager offered me some of what was left, and I
dumped my rucksack upstairs and came down to eat.
Andy, the Pennine Way hiker I had met a number of
times in the past three or four days, was also
there. I then checked in and ordered breakfast
and a packed lunch for tomorrow, given that there
are few resupply opportunities. Still no
mobile phone or wireless internet coverage.
Tomorrow will be a shorter
day and I'll aim to get to Alston mid-afternoon in
the hope of finding a B&B and mobile coverage.
There is a Youth Hostel so I may end up there.