The Great Pennine Way Adventure – Day 3 – Tuesday 4 August 2009 – Standedge to Hebden Bridge – 15 miles

Bogs fallen into: 0
Car disasters: 0
Progress is being made!!

This morning, I was so organised that I was parked and walking from Standedge at 7.30 am. Blimey! All day I’ve only seen one Pennine Way walker and one dog walker until Stoodley Pike which was overrun with ramblers.

It’s been very changeable weatherwise all day – with intermittent showers – so my waterproofs have been on and off all day. I had some climbing straightaway and reached two different trig points before 9.30 am. The views were amazing, even with the low cloud.

I had a major result at 9.30 am while crossing the A672 – a tea van! I got a severe amount of ribbing from all the lorry drivers there – along the lines of needing to get a shimmy on. The van owner, Brian, guessed exactly how far I’d walked, how long it had taken me, where I was walking to and my estimated time of arrival. I asked him if he’d ever walked it as he was such an expert, but he hasn’t – he has, however, had the tea van in that layby for thirty years and his father had been there before him. So he’s made it his lifetime study. His major customers are the campers who start early – the B and B’ers come along much later and are generally full so don’t want anything from him. Soon after leaving them chuckling at my expense, I had to cross the M62 which was slightly surreal following the peace and quiet of the last couple of days.

Not long after I reached my third trig point of the day and walked along a boulder strewn path – very bleak indeed. The path had been gently undulating today rather than major up and downs and indeed for a lot of the way has been totally flat as I walked wide gravel paths beside reservoirs – Blackstone Edge, White Holme, Light Hazzles and Warland.

Past Warland, the path became stone slabbed as I walked towards Stoodley Pike which dominated the skyline for ages. The villages down in the valley were really picturesque – all looking a bit chocolate boxy. It was while looking down on all the scenery that I decided to call the campsite to make sure I could turn up after eight o’clock this evening, only to be told there were no pitches. Gggrrr. So, with that, I sat and tried to do some planning – by ringing my Tourist Info advisers at Norwich! I was then bombarded with texted numbers so sat down to ring some local campsites by the side of a gravel lane. The postie pulled up in his van to ask if I was lost, but I just told him my predicament – with that, he offered me a lift to Tourist Info in Hebden Bridge. I thanked him profusely but said I was walking that way anyway. People are really quite extraordinarily kind.

I then had a bit of a grumpy march into Hebden Bridge to the Tourist Info office – the lady there listened to my tale of woe and told me that the campsite had shut completely but that the owner was a bit “odd” – lucky escape there methinks. She gave me a list of campsites and the first one I rang – the New Delight Inn at Colden – said yes I could stay two nights and they’d only charge three quid a night – bonus!

So, with that, I went off to find some sustenance – Mum and Dad had put a tenner in my birthday card with a note to say “have a cream tea on us” – which is exactly what I did.

There then followed a very exciting journey back to my car – a train to Brighouse, another train to Huddersfield to be followed by a final train to Marsden and a taxi to my car. So I finally got to my campsite after eight o’clock where I celebrated with a pint of lager shandy and a shower. And I’ve planned tomorrow that I don’t have to get in my car at all – bonus!!