DAY 4 – 26th August 2020
Heptonstall to Cowling
16.62 miles 25.14km
8.50am to 3.15pm
We got the bus back to the PW and went straight to May’s Shop. A PW institution and purveyor of anything your heart could desire. Here we set the template for all future lunches with cake, in this case glorious iced buns, and apples. My right knee was feeling strange, I think I had done something to it the day before on our sprint up and down the hills at the end of the day. I bought some ibuprofen which was, annoyingly, the only thing I had meant to pack that I didn’t have with me. My one concern on the trip was that one of us would pick up an injury as I knew that otherwise we should be OK with the distances, terrain and walking consecutive days.
Stoodley Pike now behind us.
It was an overcast day with patches of sun. We met a couple, he was a photographer and asked if he could take a photograph of us as we walked away. To be honest it was nice to be asked as we wouldn’t have known if he had just taken it. I do regret not giving him my email so that he could send us a copy.
The paths, as they were or the entire walk, were absolutely sodden and at one point I miss judged the mud and came within a whisker of going in over the top of my boot.
There were plenty of people about as we passed Top Withens.
Heading over the moors we met another lad and dad pair, though they were considerably younger than us the boy being about 9 I would think. They were walking for 4 days south on the PW to their home near Hebden Bridge. This was their second day so they had been out in the foul weather the day before. I remember a couple of times when my son was younger that people taking an interest in his walking when we met them on the hills really encouraged him, I hope we did the same for this lad.
The rain, having generally held off all day, got us in the end. We turned up at our B&B damp, though the rain had stopped by then, and they took our boots off to dry by the Aga. They also told us about the father and son that had been there the night before, the ones we had met earlier in the day. It sounded as if everything they owned had been Aga dried.