On the Moors

---

We woke up this morning to another of the perks of staying a hotel: a hot traditional English breakfast. Now, I'll admit I didn't touch the fried tomato or mushroom (mostly for lack of time) but I have to say, fried toast with beans is brilliant. I rather like it. And for the record, Kellogg's Crunchy Nut cereal needs to be in America. Now. I am eating as much of it as I can get here, but I don't know what I'm going to do when I get back to the states.

Breakfast didn't get over until later than anticipated--we were supposed to leave for the second half of our Pennine Way journey at 8 am, but didn't actually leave until 8:40. We had to get to Haworth by 2:00 pm, and we still would have made it if we hadn't gotten lost! Our professor stopped to help someone readjust their things and ended up a way behind the rest of us. We made a major wrong turn and suddenly found ourselves on the opposite side of the forest from our trail. Thanks to two-way radios and some directions from a nice British guy in a truck we figured out what was up, but we had to back track about a mile to get back on the path.

All this meant we were seriously behind schedule and had to book it across the moors to in order to make it to our appointment with the lecturer. In spite of all our running and power-walking, we were still almost an hour late for our appointment--too late for the lecturer, who couldn't wait for us. Oh well--we still got to walk along the Bronte trail, seeing the Bronte falls and the moors where the sisters used to wander (and which feature prominently in Wuthering Heights). There was this interesting art installation in the moors, lots of stone books half-buried in the ground. Very interesting; some art installations can be obtrusive, but this one really added because it fit so well with what the Brontes would have liked: creepy and desolate.

Once in Haworth, we walked through the graveyard outside the Brontes' house. According to the signs, 45,000 people are buried there in about half an acre of ground. Gravestones are simply stacked one on top of another and put so close together, you can barely read them. The water system for the town runs under the graveyard, which majorly contributed to the prevalence of disease in the area and thus the early deaths of the Brontes. The old Bronte house, which is now a museum, faces the graveyard, which explains perhaps Emily's preoccupation with death. It was also interesting to note how every building in the sisters' lives was right on this square: across from the graveyard was the school where Charlotte taught and opposite, the church where their father was the minister. The Bronte museum was amazing--almost everything was authentic because there was a clear catalog of all the Brontes' possessions, since they were sold at auction when the last member of the family died. How sad that none of them lived to pass on their legacy. I wonder what would have happened had their writing been allowed to mature.

We spent the night at the Haworth Youth Hostel, which was amazing! It's an old mansion, complete with stained glass and cool staircases. We were sharing the place with a bunch of 6-7-year-olds on a school trip, so the atmosphere was a little different than usual--lots of noise. But I managed to find a quiet spot and get a ton of writing done. I filled 8-10 pages with the stuff I was thinking about during our 18 mile trek on the moors. No wonder the Brontes used to wander them a lot--you can think quiet a lot up there.

---

Comments

[Katherine]

Hey, I saw the books on the moor outside Haworth. Fun creepy stuff. And I had idea there were 45,000 people buried in that cemetery. WOW.