George Dragon Inn Garrigill

Dufton to Byrness - but not to Kirk Yetholm as planned - Pennine ...

One of those paths will be the Pennine Way which Catherine and myself first started in 2007, walking from Gargrave to Horton-in-Ribblesdale in the spring, before doing Horton to Dufton in the autumn. Then in Spring 2008 we did the start - Edale to Gargrave - leaving just Dufton to Kirk Yetholm to finish off.

Duly looking at our diaries, we decided to do the final stretch at the end of March, finishing off before Easter.

As I didn't chronicle those earlier trips on this blog, I decided not to do a day by day blog posting on finishing it off (you never know, maybe I'll do it again - and if I do, I'll blog it. Promise) however it seemed worth giving a flavour of the trip… Such as it was.

To say it was a bit of a disaster would be a bit of an understatement.

The omens didn't start well early on when a few weeks before the trip, I started getting problems with my camera - some marks started appearing on certain photos which I think are due to some dust on the inside of the lens casing. My attempts to sort it out came to nothing, and it had to be sent off for repair. Mike, Catherine's father, helpfully stepped in with the loan of his old one, which was delivered by my dad whilst he was on the way to his company's office in Slough.

That trauma aside, we headed up to Penrith on the train, then did the compulsory £35 taxi ride from Penrith station to Dufton - a lovely little village. A happy evening in the Stag Inn followed, and the next morning we had a lovely YHA fried breakfast, saw a red squirrel and were on our way.

Friday - day 2 - was just muddy and very very wet, but at least was a short day so we could have a pub lunch in a pub with some regulars who could easily have a sitcom based around them (there were slurred words, hugging, crawling on the floor to get to the toilets and some old women drinking Smirnoff Ice!)

Then when we got to Slaggyford, we found out that the pub I'd researched and believed to be nearby (thanks to a swift Google for "Slaggyford pub" ) was actually two miles away from our B&B… Thankfully we cadged a lift from someone who had been visiting the B&B owners (good news!) who then told us that there had been barely any rain recently… Well until a mere days before we arrived when the heavens opened and barely stopped…

This statement was much in my mind the next day as we spent Saturday walking to Greenhead on water logged moorland where paths had frequently become streams and the areas around stiles became mini-lakes. Oh and cold winds. Lots of them. No major disasters still, but not exactly the best way to spend the day. Indeed if you could find a problem at Greenhead it was that I only found out they had an excellent selection of local bottled ales late on in the evening!

Upper Teesdale, past and present

Waterfall Walks, Teesdale and the High Pennines

Circular Walks Along the Pennine Way

The Pennine Way

Walking in Britain