Trying to Avoid Getting to Malham by Alliteration

Day Five

Breakfast couldn’t have been better. It helps when the landlady is cooking it not ten feet away so you can tell her how you like things done. Susan and Sandy, the owners of Woodland House have a great deal of experience in long distance walking. Indeed, you’d be hard pressed to outdo them in the number of miles and areas of Britain they’ve covered on their feet unless, of course, your name is George Tod and you’ve done just about every long distance walk in the country, twice. Being walkers themselves they know how to look after you properly and understand when you arrive either very sweaty or very soggy. I’ve stayed at some guesthouses where I’ve paid good money to be treated like a leper. They are also handy if you have any questions on other walks you might be thinking of doing.

Time to take off a clout

I was a bit more organised on this morning and managed to get myself out the door by 9 o’clock. I intended to try for Malham but thought I’d see how I was getting on before ringing for a room.

It was a hot and sunny day and the sweat was pouring into my eyes as soon as I started up the side of the valley. A lot of people decided to talk to me on this day. First was an old chap with a dog in the village wanting to talk about boots. As this season I was mostly wearing Scarpas, which are the Rolls Royce of the boot world and come with five speed gears I didn’t think I could do much better. During the conversation, though, he mentioned a problem with Brasher Hillmasters which I’d also had: that is the difficulty staying on your feet when walking over wet rock. This is a shame as otherwise they are an excellent boot, the most comfortable I’ve ever worn. I still use them for the peat and millstone grit of the Dark Peak but I won’t go near limestone or any other rock that can be tricky when wet in them.

Half way up the hill a friendly farmer stopped me for a chat then near Lothersdale a couple of old biddies stopped me for directions, and a chat. They were out walking without a map. “Got no use for a map” said the elder of the two, who looked as though she’d worn a whistle round her neck and umpired a few hockey matches in her time, “can’t make sense of the bally things anyway!”

Lothersdale’s a pretty village, as you can see from the picture, down another hill and up the other side of course. I think the population must have seen me coming and hid away behind locked doors and closed curtains, with their dogs and children, I didn’t see a living thing as I walked through.

Lothersdale locked and bolted

It had started out hazy and by the time I reached Pinhaw visibility had dropped to murky. I could just about make out Pendle Hill but there was no sign at all of the hills of the Dales. There was a couple on the summit who were sat chatting together so happily I assumed they were having an affair, but they turned out to be married, to each other. They pointed out where the landmarks were had I been able to see them. He was from Gargrave on one side of the hill and she from Kelbrook on the other and they’d been married 25 years. Unfortunately, when they were teenagers her father hadn’t forbad her to see the boy she loved from the next village so she had never had to sneak away for illicit trysts on this ideal metaphor for the hill they’d have had to climb to be together. This is the trouble with a lot of parents, they give no consideration to the stories their children will need for the great grandkids.

More to the point, if you’re ever in the area at a meal time, pop in to the Kelbrook chippy, they do the best fish and chips between Barnsley and Blackpool.

Shortly after Pinhaw the walk is mostly through fields until past Malham. I much prefer the open moors to fields. For one thing there are usually a lot of stiles to negotiate. I reckon, between Cowling and Malham, whatever the height climbed due to the topography you should add at least another 300ft for the stiles. There’s also the matter of continually having to refer to the map. Paths have an annoying habit of vanishing in fields, five yards from the stile or gate, or there’s confusion when other paths cross or lead off. I have never liked carrying a map in a case round my neck and only do so when it’s raining so I either carry it in my hand or more often in my bag which means I have to stop and take my rucksack off before I can check it. It also means I often go a bit astray.

Affordable housing for the rural worker, once

Shortly after Thornton in Craven the way joins the Leeds-Liverpool canal. There was a chap there painting his narrow boat which brought to mind the fun I could have been having had I been at home. I had a quick J2O in the pub at East Marton and rejoining the tow path, happily sailed past the point where the path leaves the canal so I did an extra ½ mile of the chat I was having with the ducks. If ever I walk this way again I’ll continue along the canal and miss the fields which were of no interest. In Gargrave someone else stopped me for a chat, an oldish gent who said he’d done the Pennine Way in 1955. This of course is ten years before it opened but he was pretty convincing and I suppose there’s no reason he couldn’t have walked a version of it before it became a national trail.

I was going to stop at a pub but it was shut so went to the café where every other Way walker goes and got my photo took by the sign like everyone else. I had a can of fizzy orange and bought a bottle of water to go. I hate the idea of buying a bottle of something you can get free from a tap so I bought one with a hint of something. A hint of rip-off I think it was.

An idiot in a hat trying to get in the way of the photo of the famous P.W. sign, which for some reason doesn't add up to 268 miles

Looking at the map in Gargrave I thought I was practically at Malham, only an hour and a half or three quarters max to go. It took me just short of three. There is the odd undulation and a bugger of a steep bit at Hanlith but it’s generally pretty easy while a lot of it is very easy, and quite pleasant I might add by the side of the river. The only explanation of this is it’s one of those areas where Ordnance Survey have cleverly decreased the scale of the map in such a way that you can’t tell by looking. I’ve noticed this on other walks, where its also taken me twice as long as it should to cover the distance. They either do this for bloody mindedness, they seem to know where it is you’ll be tired or perhaps it’s like the A to Z city map people who stick in the odd fictitious small street to protect their copyright.

Near Malham many of the stiles have been replaced by kissing gates. However, this only makes things easier for walkers who aren’t carrying a bag on their backs. The way they have been constructed means anyone carrying a rucksack has to take it off to get through. This is annoying as they can quite easily be made with space at the back to allow you to swing the bag round; they have them all over Teesdale so it’s just a matter of whoever’s responsible in the Malham area not using their brain. The last gate before reaching Malham was the worst, but luckily there was a pair of them. I threw my rucksack through one while squeezing through the other and a hundred yards later I was there. After a morning’s meandering and a p.m.’s perambulating I had made it and was marching down mainstreet Malham. The time was about seven so it had been a long day to cover about 18 miles. My appetite for walking had been fully sated for the day. In fact I felt quite knackered. My feet hurt as did the backs of my legs both with the exertion and sunburn, in spite of the factor 15 slapped on that morning. My shoulders also ached from the pack.

If you have never been to Malham before you must go to Gordale Scar, which in my book does not come off second best to the Cove. I’ve visited Malham several times before so I didn’t bother on this occasion, particularly as I hadn’t the energy. The first time I’d have been 16 or 17 on a field trip for geography A level so I understand everything about the geomorphology of the area, it’s just that I’ve forgotten it. This was quite some time ago, of course. Malham then was considered quite a long way by coach from Richmond, we needed two changes of horses.

I’d booked a room at Beck Hall where I’ve stayed a few times before. It’s in a very pretty location, next to the beck of course and some of the rooms are very well appointed and have a great deal of character. I didn’t get one of those this time. The place was full and I was deposited in a room at the rear of the building where very good use had been made of the space available and neither the pictures nor the paper hanging on the walls were in danger of being faded by direct sunlight.

After a quick shower I went to the Buck Inn for beef and ale pie and cheesecake. If I’d been drinking I’d have probably stayed to have a few but there’s not much fun proppingg up the bar while sipping a cocktail of orange and passion fruit, so I went back to my room.

Gordale Scar, very interesting once you get into it

The t.v. was a bit complicated and came with instructions. I should have borrowed a child from somewhere to work it out for me but eventually managed on my own. While randomly pressing a few buttons the radio station Planet Rock suddenly came on so I was able to head-bang round the bathroom while I did my washing. After two and half days I thought I’d better wash my shirt. I normally carry two shirts but on this occasion I’d traded one for maps. The Regatta shirt I had with me was fairly cheap but it’s much warmer than its thinness would suggest. It also dries overnight in warm weather, just about.

One rather strange thing, which I noted at the time, was that I couldn’t get rid of a farmyard sort of smell and taste in my mouth. I didn’t know whether it was on my clothes or in my mind. At the time I put it down to the intensive muck spreading going on at a farm near Thornton when I passed through. Whatever it was I woke at 7 the next day with the runs.

Malham Village