What a great day! It was forecasted to be another hot one, so we started off early from the youth hostel, just after 8am. Temperature records were broken in the UK yesterday for May at 92 degrees. I was so glad of the luck of planning a rest day in pretty Malham on what turned out to be a sweltering Monday Bank holiday. We could take a few early walks, sit with our feet in the creek, nap, have a delicious vegan cream tea at the fabulous Buck Hall (if you’re ever in Malham, eat and stay there!)
I had gotten up extra early to have a relaxed time to get all the tape, bandages, compression thingies, etc. on my feet that they seem to need to walk a good amount of hilly miles. Then, making sure we had lots of water and fruit from the hostel breakfast spread, we walked up to Malham Cove and then climbed the long path of big steps to the limestone pavement on top. This is an interesting geologic formation of limestone, first carved out in a later ice-age, and worn down over the millennia. It’s interesting, but hard to walk across. It was early, the sun was blazing already and my walking rhythm hadn’t set in yet, so I was a little wobbly and worried about twisting an ankle. Made it safely across, found the actual path again, and walked through an impressive gorge. It was only 9am by this time, but it was scorching. Absolutely no wind, more humidity than I am used to, and the path kept going up. The gorge offered brief shade, but the heat and pathway continued up. We came to a small stream and I filled my hat with water and dumped it on my head. Better.
An aside: I’ve been a bit lackadaisical about drinking and eating and resting regularly on these walks, but really I should do all of the above on a more frequent basis to be able to have sufficient stamina, avoid injury, and experience better recovery when walking 10+ miles each day. With the heat and terrain today I decided to be more proactive. I think it really helped, because I finished the 13.3 mile day feeling upbeat and strong, my feet sore but no obvious injurious thing to worry about.
Shortly after the stream we came to the expansive Mam Tarn. In the California Sierra Nevada, tarns seem to be small mountain lakes, but this tarn was impressive. We walked around it, found more shade in the paths of a forest. Eventually, though, there were no more trees, just beautiful Yorkshire green fields stretching over hillsides that seemed to go on and on.
We crossed a road, and started the ascent to Fountain Fell. Only halfway into the day and we were getting low on water. The map suggested there may be a small stream further up the hillside, so we walked in hopeful anticipation. We came to a farm where we were to take a sharp left, and the first of three wonderful things occurred. Through the farm gate there were sheep, of course, and then I saw a blur of black and white, almost simultaneously with one high pitched bark and a whistle. I quickly realized it was a working dog and he was rounding up the sheep. A few steps further, and just before we had to turn, the shepherd came into sight, holding a genuine shepherd’s hook stick thing that is always part of a shepherd costume. But he was really, for honest to goodness, using it! He gave a little smile and wave, and we turned. I so wanted to get a photo or video of the action, but it didn’t seem appropriate.
Walking uphill, past more sheep nibbling on grass and running and baaa-ing frantically away from us passing through, the small stream appeared. Hooray! We filtered water, and since nobody except for sheep was around I took off my shirt, dunked it in the cool water, and put it back on. Bliss. Eventually, we climbed to the top of the fell. I was a tad alarmed by the graphic sign warning of mines that you’d slip I guess headfirst into, and settled for lunch in the inches of shade provided by the stone wall next to the stile. It was a glorious lunch: branston pickle and cheese, mint cake bar, and cheese crackers for the salt replenishment. We were looking across the valley to Pen-y-Ghent, one of the famous Yorkshire Three Peaks. Admiring it happily, especially since we had already decided not to climb it. It’s officially on the Pennine Way, but since I’m not “officially” walking the Pennine - just using it to get through the center of England, I felt fine giving it a pass.
As I was relaxing, nibbling and enjoying the view, I saw a flash of white on the mountain’s peak. It disappeared, then reappeared - a couple of times. What was it? It was the second wonderful thing! Another blue thing joined, and then they started going up, off the mountain top, swirling and climbing and twisting around and around, caught in an updraft current of air. Hang-gliders! Such a dangerous sport, but how wonderful to *see* the air currents moving around, up and down, very much there even though invisible to my eyes, with the help of these two adventurous people! Lunch turned out to be a longer break than planned because I couldn’t stop watching the two gliders, like huge kites in the sky. They went so high, left the upward swirling current, then sailed past the puffy clouds. How and where would they land?! Then they became separated, one caught another updraft, the other sunk slowly toward the ground. I was fascinated by their gentle flight and worried about their separation and landing. It was a wonderful thing to watch.
But we had to get to our destination and still had 7 miles to go. The trail headed downhill from that point and pretty steeply. Down is definitely harder than up, thank goodness for trekking poles! Pen-y-Ghent always looming over us, we walked across fields of grass and yellow flowers, filled with sheep and bordered by stone walls. In one of the final fields before coming to the road into town, the third wonderful thing happened. I came just over a small rise in the path and a bird popped up, startled, right in front of me. It flew straight up about 6 feet, stopped for a second, seemed to reverse and fly backward about 6 inches, then zoomed forward, and turned up and up. As it went it sang its shrill patterned whistling notes and I realized it was a skylark. Its speed and agility were truly wonderful. Absolutely took my breath away to be so close and see clearly its clever maneuvering.
I was on a big feel good high from all this wonderfulness as I walked into Horton. We saw the welcome sign at the church for a cuppa tea, and trying out the English belief that a hot cup of tea will cool you off, we entered and enjoyed the the coolness of the 12th century St. Oswald’s. I do think the tea cooled us off, too! A few blocks later we arrived at The Crown for tonight’s supper and bed. No foot pain. No more lingering cold-y symptoms. Wonderful.
