Day 63 The twite triangle

Today was another hot day. The first mile back to the Pennine Way was uphill but Stephen, the landlord from the pub drove me up there after an early breakfast. I set off at 8.10 along a relatively easy path.

To tell the truth, the scenery was a bit dull so I had to take my excitement when I could

I walked along an edge for a while, looking down into the valley before moving away from it to cross the M62

I made pretty good progress, so much so that I was five miles in by 10am. Annoyingly, this meant that the pub I had hoped to have a rest in wasn’t open when I passed it at 11.20. I powered on past a seemingly never-ending reservoir-there are a lot of reservoirs around here, the three I passed after the pub were originally built to supply water to the Rochdale canal. I think they supply drinking water now. There were certainly a lot of complicated-looking drains and sluices about.

There were also a lot of twites about. That’s the little brown bird type of twite, as I was walking in the twite triangle, which is, of course, between Huddersfield, Halifax and Rochdale. I say there were a lot of twites, the notice board at the reservoir said there were only 100 breeding pairs and the South Pennines is where they hang out. So I might have seen a twite or maybe just some other little brown bird, like a pipit.

I was getting to be in need of lunch. There wasn’t really anywhere to sit that wasn’t boggy. I spied a walking group ahead who had been having lunch on some stones and were clearly packing up. They were very impressed with my walk and gave me a round of applause so I sat down to lunch feeling rather pleased with myself.

After lunch is always a difficult time. One stiffens up, one’s feet hurt, and one’s limbs (and lungs) don’t have much circulation as it is all diverted to one’s stomach. Today was no exception and I hobbled along for a while before getting back into my stride.

The next excitement was watching Stoodley Pike approaching. It is a monument built to commemorate victory over Napoleon.

There was a Roman Road. A medieval stone marker (border of Yorkshire and Lancashire), and a welcome stream where I filled my water bottle.

It was all downhill from Stoodley Pike. There was farmland, woodland, and another stream where I sat and bathed my feet.

My B and B is very central and very comfortable, although hot. I’ve had dinner at a pub (vegetarian lasagne) as most of the restaurants are closed on Mondays. Tomorrow is a shorter day of 10 miles (today was 15.5) and I’m camping again. My B and B landlady has offered to take my camping gear to the campsite so I don’t have to carry it. What a wonderful woman.

The only other thing of note is that I have saved the landlady’s cat from death. Put aside thoughts of heroic manoeuvres on my part- the cat had got out onto the window ledge two stories up, above the Main Street. (I think it must have got into my room when I left the door open. Either that or it is a daredevil cat who regularly hangs out on window ledges.) I tempted it back in with a saucer of milk, grabbed it and put it outside my room, shutting the door firmly.