Does walking the Pennine Way look hard to you? Well why not sponsor me here!

Perhaps it should have been obvious but having got to the Golden Lion and having had a shower dad was happy to attempt to continue. Given that all the remaining days until the last two are much easier than our previous days I can see no way that we will now fail to complete the walk. Of course we have not yet had any bad weather and perhaps this will dampen our spirits.

Exactly as I remember it the path up Pen-y-ghent was essentially immaculate. I recall with some clarity that when we arrived at Horton-in-Ribblesdale 10 years ago that from here it would surely be easy and that we were only giving up due to the pending start of term in Cambridge. I suspect that this opinion was made much easier by the lack of a requirement to actually complete the walk.

For some reason I thought it would be fun to carry a Yorkshire flag around with me on this walk. I had only had it out on the first day so far and having decided to continue past our obvious break point it felt like a good day to get it out again.

At the top of the hill the wind was substantial but it was but nothing compared to how it was on the way down. The side down which we were climbing was, of course, the usual ascent side and it was quite a scramble. When climbing up almost shear rock one is not in much danger as a fall forwards would be not very far at all but coming down it feels quite unstable. Though as hard as it was it was but nothing compared to the difficulty one person was having as they attempted to carry their rather large and rather rugged looking mountain bike up the side of the hill for their first attempt at off road cycling!

Once we were over the days two hills the scenery really opened out at the countryside was very beautiful. One thing that can not really pass without comment was the number of people who appeared to be walking their dogs. “I’m just popping up Pen-y-ghent to stretch the dogs legs,” must be a common refrain in the houses of Ribblesdale but it seems like total madness to me.

The final approach up to Malham is through some rather well maintained national trust property. With weather like we had it looks particularly splendid. There was even a couple of people out on the Tarn in a little boat, though I imagine they were scientists from the nearby research centre.

Sadly once past the tarn it is a real scramble round to the cove. Despite being very clearly a vibrant tourist attraction it would seem that the tourist mainly drive between the Tarn and the Cove for the path seemed almost impassible in places. Our progress was excessively slow. But we did eventually get there and after looking around for a path marked on the map that must actually be straight down the cove crossed the cove and headed for Malham.

Down the cove and we were in Malham. Dad was satying in the youth hostel tonight (which along with everywhere else was full) but they were kind enough to let me shower there before I met Hannah. (Who was meeting us in Malham tonight!) which had the distinct advantage of leaving me smelling almost tolerable so we were able to enjoy a nice dinner in Malham rather than rushing off to the place we were staying 6 miles down the road!

Does walking the Pennine Way look hard to you? Well why not sponsor me here!