Pennine Way Day 14 - Lothersdale - Mankinholes

July 7, 2008

Journal

0837 Lothersdale
Up at last.. rained in the night. But reasonably bright now. Sort out feet, sort out GPS traces, then I'll pack up and move on. Long day ahead :)

Non-National Park footpaths are not always so welcoming looking...

Climbing up onto Ickornshaw Moor - rain, rain more rain.

2050 Top Brink Inn, Mankinholes
Oh my God what a day! Rained about 6 hours solid. Finally made it to Mankinholes. And thank God they a) were open; b) were still a youth hostel and c) had a bed for me.

That was a long way with a lot of climbing compounded by the weather - I wrang my socks out twice - my feet were wet after 2 miles! Once again the book is nonsense for distances.

It did clear up for the last two hours but my shorts wouldn't dry out and now I have painful chapped skin on the insides of my legs... Pray for it to heal overnight and for clear, dry weather tomorrow...

Right now I'm in the Top Brink pub - my God I needed a beer. I can totally see why Dad gave up here. They have about 10 beers on draught!

Walshaw Dean Middle Reservoir.

The PW at Pry Hill - you don't seriously expect me to walk up that do you?

The paths on this walk are occasionally not very good, especially around towns that are not in a national park. There was a bit where I was supposed to walk between 2 walls through all manner of nettles and stuff - luckily there was a nice field parallel to walk up! The people in the house there thought I was lost - I wasn't - I just could bloody believe that that was the path! It's the premier national trail ffs! Lots of up and down today as well. Saw Top Withens - just a ruin. But it's true that some of the signs around Haworth are in Japanese. Weird!

Dropping down into Hebden Bridge.

The fact that is had rained so much of course meant that all becks and rivers were in full force - at Hebble Hole it was so powerful!

Mmmm starter justd arrive - black pudding - v. nice... probably could've eaten the mixed grill I reckon, but anyway, cumberland sausage to come! :)

Isn't cumberland sausage usually a spiral? Maybe I'm wrong but anyway... it was nice too, and God I needed it. Now on 3rd pint of Lomond Gold's Blonde Ale @ 5% - need to go after this and it'll be dark soon... and the door closes at 11 - not that that's a problem - I'll be back at half ten.. then I can check on how all my stuff in the drying room is doing.

You can see Stoodley Pike from miles away.

And then you walk right past it.

Later @ Mankinholes YHA
So back at the YHA - my inner thighs really hurt from the chapped skin. Have put more savlon on them - doubt they'll be painless in the morning though :(

Just before dropping down off the PW to Mankinholes.

Day 14 Statistics

LOT - MAN
23.6 miles
1403m ascent
452m max elev.
time moving: 8h25m
time stopped: 0h43m
overall average: 2.6mph
average while moving: 2.8mph

Comments

You can see I think that I was getting to the point now where I really needed the end to come. I wasn't writing as much in the journal during the day and this day in particular I remember the walking was quite hard because of the weather. My camera lens steamed up so a lot of my pictures came out blurry too.

Of course there was no question now that I wouldn't finish, but I had a conversation with the manager of the Mankinholes YHA who told me that after I finished this walk I wouldn't want to look at my hiking boots for a very long time. As it turned out, he was right!