A Trip to Hebden Bridge

Day Three

Day three was a Sunday and I don’t much like walking on a Sunday, at least not until late in the day when people have gone home. If you’ve read my other pieces you might have gathered by now that I’m an unsociable bugger when I’m out for a walk. Whenever I meet other walkers I don’t greet them with a smile and a “Lovely day today” I growl and snap a “Get off my path” at them.

To get to the next possible place to stay past Hebden Bridge, not wanting to either carry or sleep in a tent, would have meant a full day. Settling for the Hebden Bridge/Mankinholes area, on the other hand, worked out perfectly. Being a pretty flat, very easy nine or ten miles meant I could set off late in the afternoon, when the crowds had gone, and I'd have the day to complete my preparations for the walk. This was mainly scribbling down a list of accommodation along the route. Some might say I should have done this sooner, but there was no point if I’d given up after the first couple of days was there? My idea was to book as I went along. As I never expected to complete the walk I didn’t want to book too many miles in advance and I also didn’t want to plan ahead too much anyway. Being tied to a fixed itinerary would diminish the sense of freedom I was planning to delude myself with. I thought I’d play it by ear, so to speak, though as it turned out neither of them had any influence at all in where I stayed on any night.

My wife and more importantly, my son, went out for the day so I was able to gain access to the computer. I spent several hours tapping away, getting very little more information than what’s listed in the free Pennine Way Accommodation Guide. Of course it was a bit late to order one though I eventually picked one up at Middleton.

I was eventually waved goodbye to from the M62 footbridge at about 5 having remembered to book a room for the night: The White Lion in central Hebden Bridge, a bit pricey but I’d saved on two nights accommodation so could splash out a bit. It was only a matter of minutes before I met one of the more interesting characters I came across during my expedition.

On the run up to Blackstone Edge I noticed a figure ahead of me. It was soon evident that I was rapidly gaining on him and as I got nearer it crossed my mind that it was possible he was moving house. Of medium height, aged about 30 his wiry frame was bowed by the weight of a large rucksack while at the end of one stretched arm a bulging day sack was being dragged by the strap on its top. A guitar grasped by the neck in his other hand would have completed the picture perfectly. He’d wandered off the path to the left when I overtook him, something I learned he was rather good at, but when I stopped at the trig point to take a snap we met and started to chat.

Blackstone Edge

He was a very friendly sort of chap. If you ever had to change schools as a child he’d be the sort that would have befriended you on the first day and the sort you’d have made do with until you found someone better. We walked together for a while. He’d also started out on Friday, and he told me his story so far.

He was camping out, living on tins of sardines, which meant he walked all day, stopping for the night when he couldn’t walk any further. This beggars the question why wasn’t he on Haworth or Ickornshaw Moor by now?

The first time he’d got lost was coming down from Kinder Scout. He’d been going great guns until he suddenly realised he’d no idea where he was. He’d no proper maps, only those that were in the book and he’d gone off the page. Rather than retrace his steps he carried on until he’d reached The Grouse near Hadfield. It took him at least two pints to find out he should have turned right on Mill Hill and get directions for the way back. He spent that night somewhere near the Snake Pass road, he couldn’t be more specific than that. The second day was uneventful but somehow he only got as far as Black Hill before pitching camp. If nothing else he can be one of the few who can legitimately wear a “I camped out on Black Hill” sticker. Sunday had been another disaster early on. He’d gone wrong somewhere near Wessenden Lodge. He didn’t know how he’d done it but it was not because of the diversion signs, which he said he hadn’t even seen when I asked him. The path here is so easy to follow, unless you purposely go of it, getting lost deserves some sort of prize, a sticker’s not enough. He wandered the moors for two hours apparently before he stumbled on the path again at Black Moss reservoir. Perhaps the moors decided against swallowing him up and spat him out, sick of being tramped over.

These diversions into the unknown were not only exhausting for him, the time they were using up was a serious hindrance to his chances of completing the walk. He only had two weeks to do it in, which is pretty good going for someone who can read a map. In passing he mentioned to me that he’d only taken up walking a few months ago and this was his first long distance. I told him there was a lot to be said for starting on just about the biggest and hardest in the country and working your way down, not all of it bad.

Like me he was heading for Hebden Bridge for the night and I would have walked further with him but I wanted to get there while it was still Sunday so I left him at the Aiggin stone. He was all for going straight on, but I told him the easiest way was part way down the “Roman” road and turn right. I wouldn’t say he was slow but after 500 yards I turned round and he was half a mile behind. I never saw him again and I really hope he made it, but without allowing himself a couple of months I doubt it very much.

Even though, at least in the circumstances I met him, he was the type you laugh at, not with, I admire the chap. He is set in the same mould as those great British failures Eddy the Eagle and Scott of the Antarctic, for there is something very British about embarking on a venture with little more preparation than packing some optimism and then smiling through the adversity (while moaning about your feet). The world is a cheerier place because of people like him and I’m glad I walked with him for a while.

If I hadn’t been off the booze I would not have been able to resist the temptation of a pint or two in The White House. This is an excellent pub with not bad beer and very good food and all drinkers should organise their walking schedule accordingly. There were a few people walking off their meal or working up an appetite near the pub but after a few hundred yards there was no one else until I reached Hebden Bridge. This is the best part of walking in the summer evenings, everyone’s gone home and you’ve got the countryside to yourself.

The best way to view Manchester

It’s very flat walking next to the reservoirs and a bit dull, apart from the view back over Manchester, which doesn’t look too bad from a distance. If they cleared all the buildings and made it open country it would look even better of course. The trouble with looking where you’re going here is your eyes keep being drawn to the monstrous wind turbines on the horizon.

On turning the corner Stoodley Pike comes into view, a monstrosity in itself but at least there aren’t fifty of them, in cold, clinical white, continually cocking two of their fingers in the air at you over the moors. It looks quite close but it took me nearly an hour to reach it. On the way I walked through an exaltation of skylarks. They all flew up to do their hovering and chirruping at me, all that is apart from one. It had been a good day for Sunday walkers and the path I was on would have been in continual use. These birds

must have been like yoyos for a good ten hours and it was too much for one bird. It still managed to do the chirruping, but while perched on a rock, obviously just too knackered to bother to hover. I took a photo of it but though the song of a skylark is an absolute delight a picture of one is drab.

Stoodley Pike, still a league hence

A bit closer

I stopped at Stoodley Pike for a short while to take a couple of snaps, have a snack and brave the dark staircase to the viewing platform, though the view from there is not really much better than at ground level. A sign above the door attests to some involvement of the Freemasons. They must have been made of sterner stuff back in the days it was built. I can’t imagine many of the masons I know puffing their way up to the monument, it’s nowhere near a pub.

By the time I’d wandered my way down to Hebden Bridge it was about 9.30. The town’s main claim to fame since the 70’s is as a sanctuary for hippies. I suppose it won’t be too long before it’s a sanatorium. I was half expecting to see guys and chicks grooving along the streets in tie-dyed shirts, loon pants and smelly kaftans carrying Steve Miller Band albums, saying “Love and Peace” or “Hey man do you want to score some shit” or perhaps reciting the words to Close to the Edge, still looking for the hidden meaning, or any meaning at all. Of course I didn’t see one. At this time of day they would be laid back on their bean bags, spaced out, grooving to Traffic or Crosby Stills and Nash. Far out.

It was too late for food at the pub but I’d had a late lunch and wasn’t hungry anyway. I’d already seen a lot of the town while trying to find the place so just went to my room. It was a very good size and had everything in it though it was a bit dusty and had a general dowdy air about it. My room was in the row of what I assumed to be converted stables in the cobbled courtyard at the back next to which, on the other side of a wall flowed the town’s eponymous river. It was o.k. but could have been a lot more pleasant without the litter and the pile of dog-ends by the back door where the staff took their fag breaks.