After a lovely rest day and drying my gear out in the Hartlepool Travelodge, I mooched around the outdoor shops while Maxine went to a meeting and lunch for one of the companies she works for.
Day 4. Nice Beard!
My gear dried out and good comfort food in the way of a good pub meal inside me we chilled out in the evening and made plans do a shorter hike along the Pennine way in the Malham area. We parked Maxine’s car near the Field Studies centre and walked south towards Comb Hill and down to the naturally eroded Limestone Paving where its always fun trying to not break an ankle on the slippy wet stones. The weather was fairly kind and only windy and a little wet with light drizzle.
Temperatures were around 3-5 degrees so not too bad.
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| Looking into Goredale Scar |
Once down into the village we hung a left and headed off towards Goredale Scar, a naturally eroded canyon of limestone. Dating back to the last ice age some 10,000 years ago where water and melting ice carved out the formations and built the walls with Tufa deposits. A truly spectacular bit of local scenery. Normally in dryer weather there is a path where you can scramble over the rocks at the end where the water comes down through at up the north west side and back up onto the open land to the side. With it being so wet recently and so much rain around this patch was not accessible, you could climb the side on the grass but again with it being slippy there is a higher risk of a fall. We decided to come back out and use the path up to the road from Goredale Bridge and along the Dales Way.
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| Looking out from the scar |
Along the path we me a couple and the man had a beard and made the compliment “Nice Beard!” which is the only truly manly acceptable male greeting for blokes.
We took the path back up to the road then followed the road back to the car park. Wew then went back to the Travelodge, got changed and had a lovely Carvery for tea.
Day 5. Winter is coming…..
The next day we decided to walk a different section of the Pennine way Ponden reservoir down to Top Withens hut and back again. The weather was a bit chilly today with temperatures around freezing and snow and hail all the way to the hut. As usual the hut door was stuck and had to be kicked to open.
Maxine famously got stuck in here on the spine race last year and called me 50 miles away to get her out! Luckily there were runners and walkers nearby that were able to release her from captivity.
After a short rest out of the wind and hail we walked back down to the car and headed off to the Travelodge again, no Carvery this time as all the roast parsnips were not helping the atmosphere in the room remain breathable overnight.
The next morning we headed back to Essex and Paramo’s few days of adventure were over……till next time.