I woke at 0530, and realised that I needed to get up for the loo. I turned over and tried to pretend it wasn't true, but it wasn't a dream. I find this irritating when it happens at home, but it's an irritation of an entirely different magnitude when it involves crawling out of a sleeping bag, dressing, donning wet sandals and a head torch, wetting oneself from head to bum against the wet flysheet whilst emerging from the tent, squishing one's blisters and making a dash for a dark, spider haunted toilet across a field or two of muddy grass. Still, the joy of settling back into the warm, dry sleeping bag for an hour's further sleep almost makes the discomfort of the early morning loo dash worthwhile, and so it was on this occasion :-)
I'd slept much better than I had the previous night, and by 0750 I was still lounging around in the sleeping bag, unwilling to crawl out and continue the walk. It eventually had to be done, though, and by about 0830 I was on my way. Dave had gone on ahead, and Stephen was still packing up his tent.
The first part of the walk involved a return to the canal towpath, where it was quiet and peaceful at that time of the day.
After that the route headed through fields towards Gargrave, where we had all hoped to find some sort of breakfast. I managed to make my first navigational error very early in the day, and it took me through a field full of psychotic ponies, all whinying and white eyed, pawing at the grass and charging up and down the hill. I escaped over a barbed wire fence into a field of lush grass, and found my way back to the path.
In due course Gargrave loomed up beneath me at the bottom of a hill. The sun came out and I grew careless, managing to take the wrong path again and ending up at the church. (Perhaps this was some sort of divine hint to pray for assistance with my map reading?) Gargrave is not an enormous place, though, although it seemed a teeming metropolis in comparison with most places I'd see in the course of the preceding 6 days, and I immediately spotted a most attractive looking cafe on the other side of the bridge. I went in and found Dave there, buried deep in some sort of all day breakfast and The Times.
I'd spotted fresh blood on a stile a little earlier, and realised that someone must have sustained an injury. It turned out that Dave had bashed his leg and knocked off some sort of carbuncle. His boot had filled up with blood, and he proudly showed me his wounds just as I was scanning through the menu. I immediately lost my appetite and decided to stick with coffee. The coffee was very good, though, and I wasn't really very hungry anyway...
Stephen arrived as I was still drinking, and before leaving we took photo's at the sign outside the shop: "Edale 70 miles: Kirk Yetholm 186 miles" :-)
Stephen returned to the breakfast menu, Dave set off for the chemist and I headed out to the Co-op, with high hopes of resupplying myself with cheese and onion pasties and painkillers.
My Co-op raid was most successful, and a packet of pistachios saw me back onto the path. At first navigation seemed straightforward enough, but some 45 minutes later I grew increasingly uncertain about my precise position, in a place where I really needed to be sure I hadn't gone wrong. I dug out the GPS for the first time on the trip, and it indeed confirmed that I'd been lost. With the aid of the GPS, though, I was now found, and the satisfaction involved in working out the quickest way to get back to the route made it all worthwhile :-)
The sun was now hot and the countryside was beautiful, particularly along the River Aire where I stopped for coffee and a flapjack in idyllic surroundings. A while after that I caught up with Dave who had stopped to talk to a man walking in the other direction. It turned out that he was doing a walk even longer than the Pennine Way (!), and as the three of us chatted together Stephen came along behind. We all hung around to chew the walking fat for a little while longer, and then set off at our individual paces once again.
I was keen to press on to Malham as quickly as possible. Stephen had been there before, and had told us that there was a very nice campsite. He'd also confirmed that there was a walking shop, and I had a small but urgent mental list of extra things I needed to get, if at all possible. In addition to that it was the night of the Olympic 10k metres, and I'd still heard no announcement about whether Paula Radcliffe had decided to run or not. I was hoping to find a pub with a television, and reckoned we'd need to get in early in order to get a decent seat.
I got to Malham at about 4pm, tired and footsore but relieved. The campsite is at the top of the village, and so I pressed on up the little hill as quickly as I could, intending to put up the tent and get back down to the shops without further delay. I looked around for someone to speak to about permission to pitch, but couldn't see a reception and so I found a place and put up the tent. I then looked again and found the farmhouse, where I went to pay for my pitch. It then turned out I was lucky to get in, because the following day was to be the Malham Show and the whole place was full. Just as I began to experience a frisson of anxiety about Stephen and Dave they arrived, and the proprietor confirmed that they'd always find space for backpackers. Phew!
I set off down to the walking shop and managed to get everything I'd needed: another pair of socks (had left a pair behind in Marsden by mistake), a head net to keep off the malignant midges when pitching/taking down the tent, a walking pole to test the depth of particularly difficult muddy puddles and a robust, waterproof bag to wrap around my tent, in order to replace the black plastic binliner in which I was then carrying it.Around 7pm we all headed down to the pub. It turned out that there were two pubs, but neither of them had televisions. However, a man at the bar mentioned that he was staying at the Youth Hostel next door, and that they had a television room in there. Hmmm... a plan began to take shape, and at the time appointed for the 10k I popped next door and slipped into the television room to watch the race. Shortly afterwards, my two companions also arrived.
After the race we returned to the pub, but I left soon afterwards for the campsite, tired again. My feet were still hurting, and a blister equivalent to that on the sole of my right foot was starting on my left. Still, my tent was warm and dry, and I found in bed that if I folded the Thermarest in half underneath me then it was less uncomfortable under my hips. I lay on the mattress listing to excited children laughing with their parents in adjacent tents, and waited for sleep.
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