I woke up quite early - about 0630 - and knew I'd have to get up to go to the loo. This was becoming a very annoying habit... I'd noticed outside loos the night before, but I remembered the lovely drinks inside and thought what luxury it would be if the front door was already open, as I could take my Guide Book, make a drink and sit inside reading about the day ahead. I wasn't optimistic but I took the book just in case, and it turned out that Something was smiling on me - perhaps it was my Worm Karma - because the door was open :-)
Another luxurious consequence of camping at the YH was that I could make my flask in the kitchen, with a kettle :-) As I was doing that I chatted with the male half of the young Polish couple. He was cooking their joint breakfast: Smash potatoes with some sort of powdered sauce. Peculiar as it may sound, it looked yummy to me, as a large bowl of mashed potatoes with a tin of processed peas (or broad beans, or butter beans) and synthetic lamb and mint flavoured gravy is one of my favourite comfort foods... After that I chatted briefly with Gordon the Warden, and at about 8am I was on my way.
It was a stunningly beautiful morning:
bright sunshine was already warming the air, and everything around me was sparkling. Blackton Reservoir was absolutely gorgeous in the early sun. I remembered how much Hannah Hauxwell had said it meant to her, and understood.
Just after the reservoir the PW passes the farm that Hannah lived on, and her 3 fields. One of these is now known as "Hannah's Meadow", and is managed by Durham Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve. I wasn't there at the right time for lots of flowers, but in their proper seasons a host of rare and beautiful flowers, grasses and herbs grow there, attracting a variety of farmland birds including lapwings, redshanks, skylarks and meadow pipits, because the Hauxwell family didn't use any sort of artificial fertilisers, or re-seeding.
After the meadow the route climbed through farms and farmland, It was now a warm and lovely morning, and I sat down by a wall above Grassholme Farm for coffee and a flapjack.
After that, and as I was walking down a dewy meadow, I came across one of the most interesting things that I saw on the whole journey. I noticed something small sticking out of the ground, and bent down to take a closer look. It appeared to be some sort of insect emerging from its chrysallis, although the chrysallis itself looked more like a caddis fly case than anything else. The little creature was pale, with thin wings, and for a moment I wondered whether it was actually just skin shed by an insect that had already moved on, but when I touched it carefully with my finger it moved! I took several photo's using the Macro button on my camera, but to my enormous disappointment none of them have come out properly :-( If anyone reading this has any idea what this might have been then please drop me a line and tell me!
After that I pushed on through fields filled with contented looking cattle and sheep, all grazing companionably together, towards Middleton-in-Teesdale.
Middleton was a place that had sounded interesting when I'd planned my original itinerary, and I'd been intending to stay overnight before I messed up my schedule on Day 4 by stopping at Ponden rather than going on to Lothersdale. Now I was looking forward to the opportunity to stock up on essentials like cheese and onion pasties, camera film, zinc oxide tape to hold my Compeeds on and several other interesting bits and pieces. Chat in the YHA the night before had revealed that most people planned to take a break of about an hour, and so it was really quite exciting to draw near to the little town, particularly as there was also the prospect of a nice pint in the sun and a spot of lunch :-) Along the way I stopped to take a picture of one of the Pennine Way information posters appearing on the route from time to time.
I got to Middleton-on-Teesdale at about 12.30, which was just in time to send some things home before the Post Office closed for the afternoon. I'd been looking forward to sending home Volume 1 of the National Trail Guide for quite some time, and now I was also able to send home my out of date edition of Volume 2, as well as my little Collins Gem guide to Mushrooms and Toadstools, and the instruction booklet for my Garmin Geko 201. It's amazing just how encouraging it is to be able to dump a little excess weight from the rucksack, even if it's only a tiny fraction of the whole!
After that I bought my bits and pieces - I saw the Polish couple dashing up the hill, apparently in search of gas for their stove - and then asked around to see whether there was a pub open with tables in the sun. There wasn't, and I didn't want to sit in a dark, fusty room when the sun was so bright outside, so I went to one of the cafes to get something to eat instead. There were large cream cakes behind the counter, and I struggled a bit with my conscience, but in the end I decided to start with a tuna mayonnaise and cucumber sandwich and a pot of tea, and the sandwich turned out to be so yummy and filling that I didn't want anything else.
On the way out of town I stopped at a shop which was advertising real Dales ice cream, paid for a rum and raisin and asked the woman to pass it out to me once I'd got back into the rucksack. She did, and I set off for the river path feeling happy and replete :-)
From Middleton, the route followed the river all the way to Langdon Beck. The sun was still hot, and the walk was lovely.
This part of the walk is known for its beautiful and unusual flowers, but today the simple blue cornflowers were attracting enormous numbers of Peacock butterflies.
At some stage I crossed a little footbridge and climbed a stile into a small field, only to be confronted by a gang of small bullocks looking as though they were out for trouble. I took a picture...
...but that seemed to provoke them, and they immediately dashed towards me, causing me to jump back over the stile in only a fraction of the time that I would previously have believed possible, bearing in mind the size and shape of my rucksack. I took another picture, this time of the bullocks pinning me behind the stile...
... and settled down to wait for some braver person to arrive from behind me, in order to shove them out of the way.
The bullock on the right started pulling leaves down from overhanging trees, and I tried to bribe it by offering it luscious green twigs, but it simply ate them. Fortunately, about 10 minutes later another walker arrived unexpectedly from the other direction, and before I'd even seen him coming the bullocks suddenly wheeled around and dashed towards him. He managed to wave his arms and shout very convincingly - in terror, I should think - and after a brief pause the little bullocks all dashed away together to the other end of the field, where they stood in a knot, apparently sniggering at us. I congratulated the other walker on his bravery, and took my chance to jump into the field again and shoot across to the stile at the other side, some distance from the bullocks.
Not long after that I came across a swing suspended from the branch of a tree, overhanging the river, so I stopped to have a go :-) I'd forgotten how hard these things are on one's bum, or maybe I just didn't notice when I was a child.
A little after that I came to Wynch Bridge, a small suspension bridge re-built in 1830 after the original had collapsed, killing a man. There's a sign on it warning people that they use it at their own risk, and recommending that they do so just one at a time, a recommendation with which I was entirely happy to comply.
After that came the Teesdale National Nature Reserve, followed by an impressive waterfall at High Force. I stopped there for a while for another coffee and a snack, and then continued through the very attractive nature reserve in the direction of Langdon Beck. The route today was almost 14 miles, and, as happened towards the end of most days, there came a stage at which I began to feel very tired indeed, and it became an effort to continue putting one foot in front of the other. It does have to be done, though, if one is going to reach the destination, and eventually Saur Hill Bridge - the point at which those staying at Langdon Beck Youth Hostel would turn off the route - arrived. From there, the hostel is about half a kilometer away, and the Guide Book had mentioned a pub, so there had been plans laid at Baldersdale to get over to the pub for a drink, and possibly also for dinner. Yum!
The Youth Hostel eventually came into sight when I reached the brow of a small hill, and it looked a most attractive building from a distance. Almost all the buildings in that area are whitewashed, as the application of whitewash is apparently part of the tenants' lease agreement with the Raby estate, but the Youth Hostel stood out as a large, grey, stone building, with a small windmill standing at the rear. I got there not long before 6pm, and booked in. On booking in, the Warden confirmed that there was a pub but said it was closed on Monday nights... uh-oh... so I ordered dinner as well.
Despite its attractive appearance, Langdon Beck was actually the Youth Hostel that I enjoyed least along the way. My room was so small that I began to develop claustrophobia almost as soon as I stepped into it, which seemed very odd considering how very large the YH was, and how it was almost empty. The bathroom door jammed each time I tried to open it, and when I took a shower I had to dodge woodlice creeping around on the floor in the puddles. Goodness only knows how they felt about the situation...
After my shower I went down to check out the facilities. There was a washing room, but the machine was twice as expensive as those in the other YHs and the drying room didn't seem warm enough to dry my things overnight, so I decided to leave my kit for now. Dinner was quite nice - fish and chips, followed by chocolate pudding with custard - and I chatted with the 6 other PW walkers who were staying there overnight, and also with an older couple who were spending a few days in the area, watching the birds.
The young Polish couple had been planning to camp at a local farm, but the farmer had wanted £4.00 for nothing but a space in a field - no sort of facilities at all - and so they'd decided to sleep in the YH instead. Good for them, in my view. I noticed it was a recurring theme throughout the walk that poor sites consisting merely of a pitch on a field - sometimes at a farm, sometimes behind a pub - with poor or no facilities, sometimes inadequate drainage and frequently lots of midges, were more expensive than places on proper campsites with impressive facilities, so backpackers beware!
After dinner, the Warden offered to drive us to another pub for a fiver, but we decided to give it a miss and I went upstairs to get an early night. Again I was using my sleeping bag on the bed, and I didn't sleep very well due to a combination of being too hot and feeling claustrophobic because I was sleeping in a bunk bed. I suppose I could have taken the top bunk, as that was unoccupied, but at this advanced stage in my life I was afraid of falling out!
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