Advertisement
Published: August 29th 2019
Edit Blog Post
I’m fairly certain we have walked from County Durham into the county of Cumbria. Tomorrow we do walk to Alston and that is Cumbria (how come everyone says Cumbria not County Cumbria but no one says Durham and everyone uses Country Durham?) whilst tonight we are sort of half way. We are actually in Dufton.
And the excuse for the lack of blog yesterday. You’ll be surprised to know it has nothing to do with cider or pints of anything. We had walked 37 km so that’s a big day but that too had nothing to do with it. Our accommodation the Langdon Beck Hotel which was really good had very old electrics and Julie’s universal plug was a mystery to the system. The ipad is my camera but it also contains much information that I need to navigate around and much information re BnB places so I couldn’t risk it going flat.
Back to yesterday. The guidebook and map has been pretty good (apart from directions like like go diagonal!) but Google maps had the track simply petering out on the loop we were meant to take yesterday. As a consequence we decided to retrace our steps a
little, use a local track and rejoin the Pennine Way at God’s Bridge. It added less than 2 km but because the day was already a long one we had to push pretty hard. We walked the moors and dales and really had a good time. Heaps of grouse were nesting and they’re silly enough to take flight when only a meter or so from me. They often startle me and if they only froze they would be fine. But grouse are better than half naked Englishmen. We walked to Middleton in Teesdale which is inventitively named because it’s the middle town on the Tees River Dale. It’s meant to be a lovely spot but we had 14 km to go so no real time to see anything. Most of the remaining distance was along the river which was attractive and pretty easy walking. The last bit to our BnB was tougher but we got there. We walked for almost 10 hours and covered 37 km which was good going considering some of the moors and dales were as boggy as we have become accustomed to. The Langdon Beck Hotel is one of those old English pubs as distinct from
an Old English pub. It had the fire going, the same bedspreads my grandma had and as I mentioned plugs too old for us to use. It was however comfortable, friendly and they had monster size sticky date pudding with 2 huge scoops of ice cream. Yes it was a challenge it I had walked 37 km.
Today was shorter, well today’s distance was shorter but the terrain more difficult. We were warned that the moors here were as desolate and bleak as any in England and we were not disappointed. The wind blew a gale non stop all day and the featureless landscape gave little or no chance of any respite. Thankfully a couple of natural highlights, Cauldron Snout and High Cup Nick, saved the day. They are spectacular and our photos probably don’t do them justice. It was so windy though I think a few of our good shots were blown away. It was coats and beanie all day except when my beanie was actually blown off. It tried to rain each time we stopped we eat anything but really we were lucky as the rocks and paths were slippery enough already. Sections of the path were
just boulders which was fun but made progress slow. Up Cauldron Snout was just a climb and fun. In a country that I consider risk adverse it always surprises me that anyone is allowed a climb like that. Likewise with the walk/climb from High Cup Nick. The path is close to the edge and if something happened you would not be reading this.
Almost time for meal.
Tomorrow is a tough day. Just over 25 km but we reach maximum elevation and ascent 1000 m and descend just on 900 m. That’s almost TMB statistics. After that we really leave the Pennines and the North Pennines behind and the landscape flattens a bit.
It’s now beer o’clock.
Ciao for now.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.226s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0682s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb