I woke at about 0630, and was away by 0730. The top of my left foot was very sore each time I flexed my ankle, and the inside of my right foot, where the sole joins the side, felt suspicously as though a large blister was forming :-( On the bright side, though, the sun was already shining, and I was already leaving Ponden behind me :-)
I emerged from the reservoir and onto the Colne-Haworth road, and about 50 metres later I turned right over a wall stile and into a steeply sloping, thistly field, to begin my climb towards the moors. At that stage I was suddenly unable to work out whether I should be climbing up the field to the right, or descending through the thistles to the left and towards a stream. I climbed to the top, and then realised I should definitely have gone down to the left. I therefore made my way down again, but I then suffered another crisis of navigational confidence and began to think I'd been right in the first place. I climbed once again to the top of the field - more slowly, this time - took off my pack and sat down on a wall to enjoy the hummous, beetroot, cucumber and lettuce roll I'd purchased the previous morning in Hebden Bridge. When I scraped it out of the paper bag the roll looked as though it had been involved in a collision with a 10 ton truck, and the lettuce was positively slimy, but it certainly tasted fantastic :-) It occurred to me that the dregs of yesterday's coffee might still be ok, and indeed they were.
As I was licking the last traces of hummous off the paper bag I noticed another walker creeping towards me through the thistles, and it turned out to be Dave, who'd shared the field at Ponden the night before. It then turned out that I was actually sitting on a bit of a stile, at precisely the point where the invisible track passed out of the thistly field onto the next one. I packed up my flask and Dave and I walked on together.
The weather wasn't brilliant, but at least the rain seemed to be holding off, and I'd managed to stay out of my waterproofs for more than an hour at a stretch. I was still hungry, despite my squashed sandwich, and for a while conversation centred upon ideal breakfasts, and what we were both planning to eat when we got to the cafe we felt sure must be awaiting us in Ickornshaw. Dave wanted kippers, and I wanted some nice smoked haddock with a runny poached egg on top...
Ickornshaw eventually arrived, but we were crushed to learn that there was no shop there, let alone a cafe. The map showed Lothersdale a few kilometers further along, and a friendly local man confirmed that we'd be sure to find all sorts of shops and things there. We pressed on hard, and arrived at Lothersdale at 1.30pm. We stopped at the pub, and I volunteered to sprint round to the shop for supplies whilst Dave looked over the menu. Sadly, though, we were told by a woman emerging from the pub that there wasn't a shop in Lothersdale any more: it had apparently shut down several years earlier. Foiled in my attempt to purchase another cheese and onion pastie, I took off my boots and followed Dave into the pub to inspect the lunch menu. Large, hot meals aren't ideal at lunchtime on long walks, but something had to be eaten. Eventually I had red pepper and potato bake with chips, and a glass of some sort of beer or other.
Dave and I chatted with the landlord as we waited for our food, and he told us that the number of PW walkers had declined considerably this year. He thought the weather might have played a part, but he also said that there had been far fewer people doing the walk in recent years than in the past. As we were talking, and only just in time to meet the 2pm deadline for food, Stephen arrived. By 2.30pm the pub was closing, and the three of us walked on towards Thornton-in-Craven together.
We all stopped to take in the amazingly panoramic view from the top of Pinhaw Beacon,
and then pressed on down and eventually all the way to Thornton-in-Craven. The OS Guidbook recommends this as a stopping point, but at Stephen's suggestion we'd all decided to go a little further and stop at East Marton, where the Pennine Way Accommodation Guide promised a campsite at Sawley House.
Although the last bit of the walk was along the canal towpath, which was both beautiful and easy on the feet, I was by now absolutely trashed again, and when we eventually climbed the steps from the canal to the road, crossed the road bridge to East Marton and arrived at the pub, I had to slump at a table with my head on my arms while Dave and Stephen went inside to find out where the campsite was. A pint of cider combined with the information that the campsite was just down the road soon revived me, though, and about 40 minutes later all three of us were putting up our tents on a soft, inviting and midge free lawn in the garden at the back of Sawley House. That was followed by a shower, and then by a return to the pub for dinner.
I had smoked haddock with a poached egg and hollandaise sauce to start off with, so my breakfast fantasy came true in the end :-) After that I had fish and chips, and an hour or so later I made my way back down to the camp by the light of my headtorch, leaving Stephen and Dave chatting together and drinking another pint or so of something or other.
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