Doing Things the Pennine Way

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Flute Playing 1

Untitled
Liz Muir
Flute Playing 1 Today was a really great day--this is the kind of walking I wanted to be doing in England, long distances over gently rolling hills. It was our first of two days walking what's known as the Peninne Way. Incidentally, the Pennine Way is a 268 mile long trail running through northern England. I never realized how popular walking is in England, but it's really a huge part of their culture, this walking bit, almost as big as gardening but not quite. There are tons of people who just go wandering over the sheep pastures all day for fun and exercise. It's an interesting experience. I'm not sure if I would do it for fun on a regular basis. Maybe if I lived in England . . . .

Anyway, so we set off down the Pennine Way. Several people in our group have acquired tin whistles at a shop before we left Malham. (Incidentally, the sign outside this shop wins the award for most usage mistakes in a piece under 50 words. 3-4 run-on sentences, missing apostrophes, and miscapitalization. For shame.) Chris Bennion (son of the professor) is actually quite good, can-play-anything-he's-heard kind of good. Our trek across the hills and dales was accompanied by various hymns, rock songs, folk tunes, and even the occasional "Here Comes the Bride."

The Pennine Way basically cuts across a lot of private property, so there was a lot of climbing up and down stiles over the fences. Also, most of the land is actively used for grazing, so we had a lot of close encounters with herd animals. Eventually you stop noticing if you're stepping in cow pies though, and my shoes are quite a sight. The lands that weren't used for grazing had this awesomely tall grass blown to one side by the wind. I wonder if that's what they mean when they say a moor looks "windswept." I've always wondered about that.

We stopped for lunch in a nice little town called Gargrave. We had lunch by a nice stream with a red tree and a river with cool stepping stones. Then it was off down the Pennine Way again. After getting lost only once (the path isn't always well marked), forging a path through some fields, and crossing a highway twice, we reached our ending destination, the Tempest Arms Hotel. It feels like paradise to be in a hotel after all those youth hostels. The beds are infinitely nicer, and there's complimentary Cadbury hot cocoa (ahh). The only downside is the lack of our own kitchen means that dinner consisted of hummus on pitas and various veggies. Ah well, they have free broadband internet, so I'm happy about that!

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Comments

[Ben Duton]

Interesting piece, but the comment about the sign is a little uneccessary considering it was written by an eight year old and considering the grammatical errors made by the author herself!