[ Me] [Music] [ Guitar Stuff] [My Tunes] [Backpacking] [ Running] [Nice Places] [Software] [Front] The Pennine Way - August/September 2004 Day 13 - Friday 3rd September Dufton to Alston (20 miles) The alarm went off at 5.15am, and I snuggled down for an extra 15 minutes in bed and then got up. The first thing I checked was whether my backache had properly gone, and it seemed that it had: what a relief! I topped up the Neurofen, though, in the hope of keeping it at bay. I knew I had no time to waste if I was to be all packed and ready for breakfast at 6.30am (it'll be clear from this that I'm not the fastest person out of the house in the morning...), so I started to get my things together as quickly as possible. I was in a little difficulty because my clothes, in their waterproof bag, are generally the second thing to go into my pack, immediately after my sleeping bag. Most of them were still downstairs, though, as they'd been washed the night before, and I wasn't sure just how early it might be appropriate to go down and ask about them. I got my other things together and laid them out ready for packing, and at about 6.10am I popped down and asked about my clothes. I was told they were almost ready, and 5 minutes later they arrived upstairs, warm, soft, lovely and dry :-) It didn't take long to pack the rucksack after that, and that left only my flask to fill and my blisters to see to before I went down for my breakfast. The blister on the inside of my left heel was so much better that I decided to leave it uncovered, and that left only the equivalent blister on my right foot. I covered it carefully with a Compeed, and taped down the edges neatly with the excellent Boots Zinc Oxide tape. By then it was 6.35am, and I decided I'd better leave the flask for now. I went downstairs and sat down to lovely fresh orange and Weetabix, followed shortly afterwards by the promised 2 free range eggs on toast. They too were lovely, and I finished off with tea and a piece of toast and marmalade. My bill for BandB, including the washing and drying of all my clothes and a very small single room supplement, was only £30.00, and I'd highly recommend Brow Farm to anyone else who might be passing through Dufton, particularly anyone planning to walk as far as Alston the following day. I was back in my room and filling the flask by 6.55am, and at a couple of minutes after 7am I stepped out of the door and made my way for the third time down towards the green. I passed the campsite and realised I'd better look at the map to make sure where I was meant to be going - for some reason I'd simply assumed that the path continued past the village green and out through the other end of the village - and at that stage I realised I'd walked right past it a couple of hundred metres from where I'd been staying. Sigh... I turned back again and found the track along the side of a Methodist Church (one of many that I passed along the way). The route there was really beautiful - a clean, freshly paved path along the side of a stream - and I read in the guide book that it was an old miners' path which had been reinstated after years of neglect. I passed a magnificent toadstool in the grass... ...and eventually emerged from the cover of the path onto the open hillside. I started the pull up the side of the hill, and seemed to be going well until I realised that I'd failed to bear left before Swindale Beck and accidentally followed the wrong track around to the east. By now I was becoming more practised at recovering from my navigational errors, and I realised that I should be able to follow a wall down for a third of a kilometer and pick up the path again just before the beck. However, I became distracted by the beautiful and interesting fungi... ...and flowers on the ground along the way... ...particularly a wild pansy, which is the only one I've ever seen - and so I found myself down at the junction of the wall with the beck and no obvious way to get across, as the wall was topped by very secure looking barbed wire in every direction. When I looked across the wall I could see what was almost certainly the path continuing on the lower slopes of the fell opposite, but I couldn't see any way to get there. This would normally have been simply irritating, but bearing in mind the journey that lay ahead of me, and the efforts I'd made to get out there early, with plenty of time, it was enormously frustrating, and I began to pace up and down the wall looking for a place where I could attempt to throw my rucksack over, before it suddenly occurred to me that I must have missed a stile as I walked down the hill, staring at the interesting things on the ground. I walked back up the hill, and after a very short distance I saw the stile and climbed across. Soon after that I was beginning the climb that would take me all the way up to Cross Fell by lunchtime. On first leaving the farm the weather had been clear and bright, and as I'd progressed along the stream and past a couple of farms on the way towards the open fellside it had shown signs of developing into a sunny day. However, a light mist had settled as I'd approached the lower part of the fell, and the mist thickened steadily as I continued my climb towards Knock Fell. It wasn't raining, but heavy mist and low cloud make for very damp conditions, and when a bit of a wind began to develop as I climbed higher I reluctantly stopped and decided to put on my waterproof overtrousers. It's not that they're uncomfortable, but there's a huge psychological difference - in my mind, at any rate - between a shorts day and a waterproof overtrousers day. Still, as soon as I had them on I felt warmer, and in view of the long walk ahead it made sense to be as comfortable as possible. I took a few pictures as I continued on my way up the hill, but the conditions were so misty that none of them have come out even half decently. I stopped for a few minutes and tried to get a picture of Knock Old Man - a square obelisk just before the summit of Knock Fell - but there was so little light that the camera refused to take any picture at all, no matter what setting I turned it to. (That's another reason why I'm planning a new camera for my next trip...) I admired the little stone markers, looking almost like small gravestones, which point out the way to the walkers in this area, but my attempt to get a picture was unsuccessful. The path changes direction on the top of Knock Fell, and if it hadn't been for my compass I'm quite sure that I'd never have been able to find the right way down: it was virtually impossible to see anything at all. Since I'm generally such an incompetent navigator, I was pretty pleased with myself for finding the way over ok :-) On the top of Great Dun Fell is an enormous structure that looks like a giant golfball: apparently it's some sort of radar intallation for aviation. The National Trail Guide points out that at least no-one will ever get lost trying to get to the top of Great Dun Fell unless they're caught in white-out conditions, but I didn't actually see the golfball at all until I was quite a long way further on and looking back from the top of Cross Fell... By the time I was at the top of Great Dun Fell the mist had cleared just a little, but the wind had got up to what must certainly have been some sort of gale force. It was so strong that I was actually able to lean forward into it without falling over, which is pretty amazing considering the size of the rucksack on my back! As I continued towards Little Dun Fell the wind became even stronger, and it became a real struggle for me to make my way up the hill with the pack. The wind was absolutely howling in my ears, and the whole situation seemed so utterly crazy - particularly after the gentle start to the day only a few hours earlier down in Dufton - that I was enormously exhilarated, and rang a friend in the hope that he could hear the wind screaming down the receiver on his mobile phone :-) Not long after that I came across a little summit shelter, and stopped for some brief respite from the wind. As I grew level with the shelter the wind stopped immediately, and I fell onto my left side. I'd not hurt myself, though, so I crawled into the shelter and sat back to calm my nerves a little. It was exciting up there in the wind with low visibility, but just a little frightening too! A minute later two blokes came nipping up the track. The looked over a little uncertainly, but when I asked if they were coming in they did. I squirmed round to the back, and they sat down. The wind was still screeching loudly overhead, and so it wasn't easy to speak. Still, we made the standard enquies about whether we were all doing the Pennine Way - they were - and soon afterwards we all decided we'd better move on, as it was absolutely freezing. The blokes were clearly moving fast and so they were fairly scantily dressed, and one of them looked frozen to me. He said he was ok, though, and we moved out. I had to take care on emerging from the shelter of the stones not to be pushed over again by the force of the wind, because the ground was covered in large rocks and my pack was very heavy. I didn't want to fall awkwardly, and hurt myself. I tried to keep low, though, and soon managed to move over the bouldery ground onto a more grassy part of the path, and from there the climb up to Cross Fell was pretty straightforward. All of a sudden, and in the way it sometimes happens in the Lakes on a very misty day, a wind blew in and the mist just blew right over. I thought at first that it was just a brief respite, but it wasn't: that was the end of the mist for the rest of the day. I turned back and finally saw the famous golfball on the top of Great Dun Fell. The two blokes now passed me, and I followed them quite closely for a while, but I eventually stopped in a hollow for what I've heard described elsewhere as a "comfort break" :-) That was followed by a bit of a pull up a stone-slabbed path, and because I tend to walk with my eyes to the ground I noticed a really interesting little directional aid that someone had carved into a slab! Not long after that I approached the cruciform summit shelter on the top of Cross Fell, and found the two blokes from earlier on already sitting there and taking a rest. I sat down and got out my coffee, and a cheese and onion pastie, and we chatted for a while. It turned out that they were doing the whole route in only 10 days (!), and so this 20 mile day that the rest of us had been agonising over was actually one of their shortest. They did say it was one of the hardest, what with the ascent to Cross Fell and all, but looking back I'm forced to the conclusion that they were just trying to make me feel a little better :-) I'd been wondering whether I was way behind the others or some distance in front, as other than these two blokes I'd seen no-one all day and by now it was 1210, but the blokes told me they'd passed several other people earlier on, and it seemed clear from their descriptions that it included Stephen and at least one of the couples. I was relieved to discover that I wasn't lagging behind. The blokes got off about 15 minutes later, and I sat around for another 10 minutes or so, enjoying the rest. I knew there was a long way to go, though, and I wasn't prepared to take a longer break until I reached Garrigill, which would be about 15 miles into the day, some 5 miles before the end, and so I got my bits together and set off once again. I didn't realise it at the time, but clear conditions are apparently very rare on the top of Cross Fell. The views were panoramic, but because I was resting, and my mind was already turning to the balance of the day's walk still lying ahead of me, I didn't take a proper look. I'm rather sorry now, but perhaps I'll get back up that way some day. The National Trail Guide quotes a magazine article, published in 1747, as having described Cross Fell in the following terms: "...generally 10 months buried in snow and 11 in clouds", and states that until relatively recent times it was known as "Fiend's Fell". After the descent from the former Fiend's Fell - which was boggy and required a number of frustrating U turns in order to avoid wet feet - the path continued along an old and well established track which apparently links Garrigill with Kirkland. It's easy to follow, and so I'd been looking forward to being able to get my head down and make some fast progress, but for at least the first mile or so it was strewn with little rocks, making it not only hard on the feet but also the sort of place where a careless or unlucky walker could easily twist or break an ankle. As I passed Greg's Hut I saw signs of what must have been a landslide - it looked just as though someone had been out with a giant rotivator - and I found it quite difficult to get across without sinking over the top of my boots into the soft, upturned earth and giant divots. I pressed on afterwards, though, and a couple of hours later sat down for a rest at the side of the path, where I took a picture of my muddy, booted feet. As you can see from the picture, the day had brightened considerably by now, but it still seemed simpler to continue in my waterproof trousers just in case there should be any sudden change. The stony path continued for mile after mile, and a couple of miles into it I had the peculiar and - in my experience - unique sensation that something was lifting the weight from my pack. I realise it sounds a little bizarre, but it really felt as though my pack was almost entirely weightless. I couldn't feel it dragging on my shoulders, and nor could I feel it pressing on the small of my back, or weighing on my hips. I tried to remember precisely what the weight of my pack normally felt like (other than actual discomfort) so that I could try to work out what sensation was missing, but other than the absence of weight it all felt normal. It may be that for some unaccountable reason the pack suddenly began to function as it had been designed to work, but, whatever the reason, I wasn't experiencing the weight. The feeling continued for a couple of miles, and although I tried to recreate it on later occasions during the walk it didn't ever return. If someone was helping me, thank you very much :-) After what felt almost like an eternity, Garrigill finally came into view around a bend in the road. I'd spent about 45 minutes almost immediately before that stumbling furiously about on a tussocky, heather covered hill, having followed the suggestion made in the National Trail Guide to turn right at a gate, just after finally descending from the moor, and cut down to meet the path a little further on. The path through the field disappeared, though, and left me stranded in the sort of place where it's necessary to walk in ultra slow motion in order to avoid a broken limb at every step :-( Hint: if you're ever here, and using the National Trail Guide, just stick to the main route... I was so pissed off by the time I finally regained the path that I actually screamed out loud in frustration, which is something I've often fantasized about but have never actually done before. It was quite a cathartic experience! I'd recommend it :-) Garigill did eventually arrive, and it was a beautiful sight. Less than 10 minutes later - at about 4.10pm - I arrived at the village green, where I shed my rucksack, propped it against a table and entered the Post Office in search of refreshment. The pub was closed, but at this stage in the day I didn't want to split hairs... The woman in the Post Office was warm and welcoming, and she gave me a large pot of coffee for only £1. I bought a newspaper to go with it, and retired to the sunny little table outside to settle into luxury and read it. Stephen was the next one in, and he too was in time to get a drink from the Post Office. After that came one of the couples, and as I began to get my things together Gordon - the wild camper - arrived. The Post Office had closed by now, but the couple were staying in Garrigill at the pub, so it didn't matter very much to them. It was almost 5.30 by the time I finally set off, but I was more relaxed now and knew that (barring disaster) I would actually make it to Alston. I decided to get my head down and push on, as by now I was looking forward to getting changed and getting out for dinner. Stephen, Dave and I had attempted to book camping or a room at the Alston Youth Hostel the night before, but a telephone answering machine had informed us that it was closed until Saturday. We'd therefore decided to head for the campsite which was shown on the map as being in the middle of town, and as I left Garrigill Stephen and I agreed to meet there later. The countryside was just beautiful as I left: soft, rolling green fields scattered with stone walls and trees, extending way into the distance... ...and not far out of Garrigill I encountered a deer - the only one that I saw along the entire route. It watched me for a while before bounding gracefully away along the path and over a wall to the side. Who knows whether at this moment it's typing up a website, and writing: "just before Garrigill I encountered a human being. It watched me for a while but they all look the same to me, and so I grew bored, and ran on..." ;-) It was 7pm by the time I arrived in Alston, and I was so tired by that stage that I managed to make a particularly stupid mistake. I pressed on around the bottom of the town and walked about 2 thirds of a K towards the campsite, before it suddenly occurred to me that I should have been there before now. I took out the map again, and when I looked I realised I'd walked to the position on the map where the camping sign appeared, failing to notice that the arrow indicating its precise location was pointing to the other side of the river. No recovery detour was possible from that point, and so I had to go all the way back. By the time I got back my enthusiasm for finding the campsite and erecting the tent was fast fading. I'd passed the Youth Hostel just a little out of town, and - contrary to the message on its answerphone - it hadn't looked closed to me. It occurred to me that there was a very good chance that the others would see it open and stop there, and so after the quickest of glances round the lower reaches of Alston confirmed that there was no campsite lurking amongst the shops I got out my Accommodation Guide and rang round for a BandB. I accidentally rang a cottage in Garrigill - my head had almost entirely ceased to function by that stage - but I was very lucky. The extremely friendly woman I spoke to made a number of recommendations, and soon after that I was ***collected in a car!*** from the middle of town and driven out to the Greycroft BandB. It's less than a mile from town, but it was further than I was able to walk. At Greycroft I received the warmest of welcomes from Mr and Mrs Dent. They gave me a large double room with a bath, and when they saw how exhausted I was they offered to drive me back into town so that I could get dinner. They were probably very surprised to see a woman of my age arriving alone, sunburned and muddy and intending to walk the whole of the Pennine Way, but they did everything they could to make me feel welcome and comfortable as soon as I arrived. One quick bath later I was in the car on the way back into town, and soon after that I was sitting at a table in The Angel with a book and a pint of Speckled Hen, waiting for scampi and chips to arrive :-) By the time I was half way through the scampi the door opened and Dave, Stephen and Gordon came in. It turned out that they were indeed at the Youth Hostel. Stephen had managed to locate the campsite, but it didn't look inviting, and I hadn't been there, so he'd opted for a night indoors. The others had gone straight to the Hostel when they'd seen that it was open. Later on they'd looked in the pubs lower down the hill, but when they'd not found me they'd made their way on up. Pennine Way walkers are a loyal bunch :-) Anyway, they ordered food and we moved to a larger table and sat around discussing the events of the day. At 9.45 Mr Dent came out in his car to pick me up, and drove me back to Greycroft. When I got in Mrs Dent invited me into the sitting room, to chat with some other guests who were thinking of doing the walk. Half an hour later I repaired to my room and got changed for bed. When I got in I found that Mrs Dent had switched on an electric blanket! :-)) I had the best night's sleep of the entire trip... Despite its length - perhaps to some extent because of it - this was an utterly fantastic day, and certainly one of the best of the whole trip :-) Return to Home page -- Previous page -- Next page [ Me] [Music] [ Guitar Stuff] [My Tunes] [Backpacking] [ Running] [Nice Places] [Software] [Front]