Hiking the Pennine Way just a little bit... And bog bashing...
No trip to the Yorkshire Dales National Park would be complete without some hiking... Or without experiencing Pennine Way if only for a short while.
Weather had been "normal" so far and continued to be "normal" today as well. "Normal" here of course means overcast and grey with rain coming and going. Anyway, we managed a short 7km hike, as follows, before lunch when the bulk of the rain arrived:
We parked the car next to a gate where the Dales Way commences. Nowhere near as busy as the other day when we passed here, in fact we were the first and only car parked there.
Location shot from the start of the hike.
And off we go... Dressed for success...
On the other side of the first stonewall was a bunch of calves, who promptly moved away when we arrived, but still curious enough to check us out. If the black cow was the mum, she however couldn't care less.
A brand spanking new bridge had been built across this "river" which according to Google Maps is called Thorn Gill, I.e. not a river at all...?
The long and crooked road of Dales Way.
Huffing and puffing up the hill...nah, easy!
And looking back to where we came from. If you look very closely, you can see the "river" Thorn Gill and also our parked car to the right of the picture.
But wait, a signpost. Could it be...?
Yep, it is. The Pennine Way. After all we heard about this classic and boggy route, we just had to hike it if only just a little. Here, it shares the path with the Pennine Bridleway, which is a different route and also brand new (2012). In fact, we did not know this the other day, and in our blog that day we claimed Pennine Bridleway to be Pennine Way in a photo. Now we know better.
Hans on the Pennine Way next to the sign.
And a self portrait with the Pennine Way in the background, not overly boggy just here.
Then onto an old bridge across Cam Beck.
The brown water of Cam Beck points to a significant level of iron in the environment. Here it formed a tiny waterfall. Looked great.
Di is checking out the water from above. No, not suitable for swimming...
A little further downstream, the water has been dammed up, possibly to minimise / prevent washouts and erosion during periods of heavy rainfall.
We then suddenly found a map along the Penine Way, confirming that if we would have continued on its path, we would divert more and more from where we had parked the car. We didn't have any proper maps for the hike today, we just roughly knew where the paths were and given the almost total lack of trees, you could see for miles and miles...
Anyway, according to the map, there were a public pathway going west / northwest from here which is sort of back to where we started from. So that's where we headed...
But first, Hans is demonstrating how to scale a stonewall...with some handy steps...
The so called public pathway had clearly not been utilized a lot. It looked more like a sheep track when (if) we could see it at all. Lots of grass with significant patches of... bog.
Di was checking out a signpost on the public pathway that clearly had been there for a long time. It didn't really help us as the sign pointing to the left would take us further away from where we would like to be and the other sign pointed to where we came from. Improvisation beckoned...
So, over the hills and far away... Grass and bog... Bog and grass.
With the occasional creek to jump over...
Or stonewall fence to scale...
It turned out to be real fun to make up the trail as we went along. Should we go here... Or there...?
Up until now, we only had a few spits of rain, but then we saw this front, with the wind coming strong from that direction...
In the end, we were very lucky. Just a little bit of rain over us as the front seemed to move away from us quickly. After a significant amount of bog bashing, we eventually ended up back on the Dales Way.
We had seen this scene before, the sheep huddling together behind a stone wall to get protection from wind and/or rain. Of course, the dumb ones choose the wrong side of the wall, but not these guys. Almost finished...
Finished - Di in her red cheeked glory and appropriate head gear for this windy, cold day...
Hans contemplated the trail. Hmmm, that wasn't so bad...quite fun actually with our only companions being sheep and cows... Not humans...
The lower parts of our pants took a beating from the hike as they were both wet and dirty. Oh well, that's what they were supposed to handle. Our boots were brilliant - wet on the outside, dry on the inside. Built for bog bashing :-)
We finished the hike just after noon and decided to drive the short distance to The Station Inn near Ribbleshead Viaduct for a hot drink. Di had a great vegetable soup, bread and soda water while Hans had plenty of hot black coffee. Wonders after a cold and wet hike. And as we had our refreshments, the skies opened up big with lots of rain coming down good. We had been lucky.
Refreshed, we drove back to Dent and our pub George and Dragon for shower for Hans, and bath for Di, lunch and chilling with books and iPad. Lazy afternoon followed as the weather was a bit bleak.
At 6pm we headed downstairs to the pub section for some drinks and later dinner. Good beer here - Hans had a few pints of Aviator the most popular local craft beer from Dent Brewery. Di had a couple of shandy's.
We weren't really hungry so ordered 2 starters to share for our dinner - garlic mushrooms and garlic bread. Very generous on both the garlic and serving size. Plenty for us and at £7.50 combined a cheap dinner option. We felt sorry for other pub patrons if they didn't like garlic. Phew - vampires beware. Too bad, so sad.
The George and Dragon Pub has a really nice atmosphere - very relaxed and laid back with a combination of locals and walkers. We were particularly impressed with this use of duct tape, yet another way - a Travellers friend!
The George and Dragon was a 2013 Pub of the Year for Craft Brews (from Dent Brewery) and they have a good selection on tap. This picture doesn't even show the Cider taps.
At 7.30pm the pub TV came on for...UEFA Champions League with....drum roll... Manchester United playing LeverKusen. The pub manager walked into the bar area and when we told him Man U were playing he said "oh shite". Regardless of what he thinks, Hans got excited and went to our room to check whether the game was also on our TV. Thumbs up - it was, so we headed upstairs.
We settled down in bed to watch, with wine and snacks for dessert. All good. David Moyes, the new Man U coach, after Sir Alex, was interviewed before the game...
First goal to ROONEY! Woo hoo. Sorry, that's it for blogging for today. Got a match to follow. Good night.
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