Day Twenty Four

Tuesday 30 March - Diggle to Hebden Bridge.

Leaving Diggle by a chain of lanes and footpaths, I rejoined the Pennine Way on Standedge, which is, unsurprisingly, one of the region's gritstone edges. The day was cloudy, but visibility was fairly good. Places unknown (in that they were just off my map) could be clearly seen below the edge.

The breakfast weather girl had been almost foaming at the mouth as she disclosed the latest extra-dire, most severe, guaranteed catastrophic weather warning of deep snow, extreme winds and a plague of boils (sorry, getting carried away). Luckily for me, the worst predictions were for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Cumbria, with only light snowfall for the Pennines. I saw about four flakes all day.

After Standedge, the PW heads across the moors to White Hill. Only the trig point gives it any real credibility as a hill – they don't do conical hills round here. My crossing of the A64 had been unexciting but, as I approached the A672 I got very excited indeed. There was a layby with distinct signs of available coffee. The neat white trailer, flap invitingly open, carried two other signs of being open for business – an orange flag on a pole and an orange flashing light. The very friendly chap who dispensed my coffee and something told me proudly that the flag could be seen from the nearby M62 junction. Regulars would come off the motorway and look up the hill for the flag. No flag, drive on. The stall was open from 5am until about 1.30pm, which entailed getting up each morning at 3am to tow the trailer from home and set up. This happened six days a week, except in the walking season when he did Sundays as well.

I got a bulletin on a chap I had met at Crowden. He told me he intended to wild-camp near Standedge while I was comfortably billeted in Diggle. He had indeed camped, and was about one and a half hours ahead of me. It had not been extremely cold the previous night, but even so I did not envy him.

Five minutes after my coffee stop, I crossed the M62 on an elegant footbridge far above the unlovely traffic. It was a good half hour before I left the noise behind.

The path varied from neat pavement or shale to the boggiest bog, with some rock-hopping to enliven the walk along the next of the edges, Blackstone Edge. So likely are walkers to be disorientated by the litter of boulders that the authorities have weakened and actually erected a rare waymark. You don't get many of these on the Pennine Way.

On the other hand, reservoirs are like Tescos back home – everywhere you look, there's another one. Blackstone Edge Reservoir was followed by White Holme, Light Hazzles and Warland, and that was just adjacent to the path; others could be seen in every direction. After half a mile of the gloopiest gloop yet – bootprints fanning out in all directions as tokens of previous walkers' desperate attempts not to end up with water-filled boots – the PW got its act together and headed towards Stoodley Pike Monument on quite a reasonable surface.

“Stoodley Pike is a 121-foot monument that stands on a prominent Pennine hill, also known as Stoodley Pike, on the moors of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, Northern England. The current structure was designed by local architect James Green in 1854 and the building was completed in 1856 when peace was declared at the end of the Crimean War” (Wikipedia).

Inside the monument a spiral staircase wound up into the gloom. I gave it a miss. I was soon walking on a newly-established stretch of path covered with loose chippings, not good as a walking surface yet, but it probably just needs to settle. And so much better, he moans again, than the waterlogged field which came next. It was a relief to reach a farm track which led to some things I had seen little of for three days – trees. After a pleasant woodland saunter, I left the PW for an equally pleasant amble down to Hebden Bridge, bathed in sunshine. Looking back, I had had maybe half an hour of desultory rain all day, and much less wind than on the previous two days. There was a downpour, though, while I munched cake inside my b&b. I was sorry to miss it.