|
Pennine Way – Saturday 5/5/2012 – 12 miles |
We slept OK and awoke refreshed and ready for what should be an easy day’s walk ahead – especially compared to the last two. I managed to get a rinse and a shave without turning my face too orange in the rusty water but I was happy to wait another day for a shower! There was no shortage of heat though; Mel said she’d visited the facilities during the coldest part of the night and had almost been tempted to stay there!
A good strong phone signal in my tent (a relatively rare luxury) meant I was able to call Nic, my second daughter, and wish her happy birthday and have a bit of a natter before getting packed up and hitting the trail once more.
Alston Market Place
We strolled into the village and had a bit of a look round and I bought a second pair of Sealskinz socks from the outdoor gear shop on the market place. By the time we’d visited the Co-op and stocked up with food for the next couple of days and found spare corners in our rucksacks to stash it all time was getting on and we finally set off a bit later than intended.
We were soon out of the town and back in farmland. The first field we passed seemed to have dozens of lambs – about six per ewe, all dashing around in mobs, bouncing and chasing each other. We decided it must have been a crèche! It was a bright overcast morning with thin high cloud and although a bit chilly it was ideal for walking.
Easy walking with no big hills today!
The route was over easy farmland and after a couple of miles we crossed the border from Cumbria back into Northumberland, confirmed by two small brass plates for Isaacs Tea Trail on a footbridge over Gilderdale Burn.
There’s even a narrow gauge steam railway for entertainment
A little further along we found ourselves walking parallel to the South Tynedale Railway, a narrow gauge steam service laid on the disused trackbed of the original Newcastle and Carlisle Railway. A train chuffed past us as we crossed a field next to it and we stood grinning and waving back at the passengers like a couple of big kids, enjoying the moment so much I missed the best photograph!
This tiny village was the biggest settlement we encountered all day
Next up was the village of Slaggyford; not the prettiest of names but a very nice little collection of houses with a large open green with swings and a couple of benches that gave us somewhere decent to sit and eat our lunch.
A good day for stone bridge and viaduct enthusiasts! Rivers, roads and railway crossed each other many times
After that we followed the general route of the railway for another mile and a bit as far as Knarsdale where we finally parted company and continued up the Maiden Way on the course of a Roman road to Hartley Burn.
The undulating green ridge just below the horizon is Hadrian’s Wall
Around this point we suddenly realised that the rather jagged line of hills stretching across the horizon about five miles ahead just had to be Hadrian’s Wall, and a quick check on the map confirmed it. Quite exciting!
Well, we had to have some boggy ground somewhere. This was much spongier than it looks!
But here we left the Pennine Way altogether and followed a diversion of our own, north east to a Camping and Caravanning club site at Burnfoot Park Village, a couple of miles short of Haltwhistle. When planning our stops it had been a bit difficult around this stage as there don’t seem to be many campsites on the route and Alston to Greenhead would have been another very long day followed by a very short one to Once Brewed. We’d decided to split it more evenly by adding a few off route miles and take advantage of a decent quality site near a town so we could also easily find a pub in the evening.
The very lovely and peaceful River South Tyne
It more or less worked out as planned – the walk along the River South Tyne to the site was lovely, the site was of the expected high standard with nice loos and showers (hurrah!) and a decent pitch in a flower encrusted area by the site entrance called Squirrel Square!
Haltwhistle Camping and Caravanning Club site. Well worth going a couple of miles off route for the top class facilities
The only slight negative was that we somehow missed the pub that we’d read was twenty minutes down the road and ended up walking right into the centre of Haltwhistle before finding one, which added another five miles or so to the day’s total!
A nice, gentle if unintentional evening stroll into town
To be honest though without the packs it was just a pleasant stroll. It did mean we only just got served before they stopped doing food and we had to buy some Danish pastries from a shop on the way back to finish our meal but that was no real hardship! Walking back in the dark was particularly nice as it was very peaceful and the sky almost cleared to let the full moon light our way along the road.