I slept at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on Saturday night, and arrived in Edale at about 0900 ready to begin the walk. As I made my way from the station towards the Old Nag's Head pub I rounded a bend in the road and was unexpectedly faced with a collection of about 15 worms of all sizes just lying around on the road. I don't like to think of worms being squashed by traffic or trodden on by walkers, and so I had to stop and move them all to the undergrowth at the side. I hoped that this might bring me some good Worm Karma later on, as I was sure I'd be needing it soon enough...
Soon I passed a cafe up a little slope to my left, and decided to nip in for one last coffee before the epic journey began. It was already a sunny morning, and as I approached the cafe a bloke was just getting up from one of the tables outside and hoisting up a substantial rucksack. I took his table, and he moved on. 18 days later, we finished the walk within 30 minutes of each other :-)
One distinctly average veggie sausage barm and mug of tea later I made my way back down the slope towards the famous pub, and loitered around in the carpark for a while in the hope that someone might come along and offer to take my photograph at the start. No-one did, though, and so at about 10am I set off :-)
The weather stayed dry, with quite a lot of sun, and the scenery was already strikingly pretty. Below was the view just out of Edale.
Jacob's Ladder was as steep as it was predicted to be, but adrenaline and the new Bruce Hornsby album carried me quickly to the top. I stopped for a coffee at Edale Rocks...
... and a little later on was relieved that route finding is no longer the nightmare that it must once have been, now that large sections of the walk have been slabbed. It was hard on my feet, but that has to beat drowning in a sea of blanket bog and cotton grass!
By the time Torside Reservoir came into view it must already have been 5pm or so, and whilst I was relieved to see it I knew that there were still several miles to go before I arrived at Crowden campsite. It was 7pm by the time I got there, after a steep descent and then what began to feel like an endless journey along the reservoir.I was greeted on my arrival by a kind man offering a mug of tea. My initial uncertainty evaporated when it transpired that he'd walked the PW on a number of previous occasions, and that he was offering food, drink and general succour to the series of knackered new PW walkers as we arrived, in turn, at the campsite. My main concern for a number of hours had been to get the tent up before it began to rain, and I was now able to do that, despite a sustained and carefully orchestrated attack by some of the most aggressive midges I encountered on the whole trip. Having erected the tent I took a very welcome shower.
On the way back to the tent I stopped to chat again with the Kind Man (whose name I didn't discover). He introduced me to another walker, who had just arrived, and it turned out to be Dave, the bloke with whom I'd exchanged places at the table outside the cafe in Edale. There was also Darren, who'd arrived at the campsite the previous day. It turned out that Globe Farm in Standedge, for which we'd all been heading the following day, had changed hands and closed down, and so there was considerable anxious discussion about where we might manage to sleep. The possiblity of walking to Marsden was mooted, and we agreed to meet and discuss things further the following morning at 8am.
I then settled down in my sleeping bag to eat oatcakes and Cheshire cheese, and by 9.30pm I'd fallen asleep. Unfortunately I was then woken by someone who came to the tent, called "I'll see you in the morning, then" and when I didn't reply shone his torch 3 times through the roof into my face. Sigh :-) Sometime after midnight I managed to drift off to sleep again...
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