Venturing onto the Pennine Way

Kent has its White Cliffs, Cumbria has its Lakes, Derbyshire has its Peaks. And into those Peaks I ventured on a day of all seasons. The range of mountains and hills known as the Pennines, often called the backbone of England, divides the east from the west starting in Derbyshire and running north to the Scottish border. It lies within the Peak District which encompasses sections of the counties of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, and South and West Yorkshire. The Peak District National Park was designated in 1951 making it the Untied Kingdom's first national park.

Hiking and rambling are a national obsession in the United Kingdom and one can understand why. If you lived in London you could, if you wished, get on an early train at Euston, be in Manchester for breakfast, hop on a train to Edale and be trekking up the Pennine Way by lunchtime. In fact, public transport is the best way to tackle the Peaks. One can relax and admire the outstanding beauty of the heather-covered moorland and the interweaving folds of lush farmland, divided up into patchwork fields with hedges or stone fences, in valleys that stretch away into the distance. Driving a car in these areas is not to be recommended.

No doubt that the motor car has improved life in general, but there comes a point when you begin to wonder if we couldn't do with fewer of the beasts. Here in the United Kingdom there are more than 60 million people, add to that the millions of tourists who arrive in the warmer months, and consider the fact that the country is only about the size of Victoria (Australia). The entire population of Australia is roughly 26 million, so imagine doubling (nearly tripling if you throw in the tourists) our population, moving them all to Victoria, increasing our roads by about ten fold (at a guess) but reducing most of them to half the width, add a degree or two of difficulty by inserting a bend every 200 metres, throw in lots of hills and you will have some idea of what driving in the UK is all about.

I have driven twice over the road engagingly named the Cat and Fiddle which takes one over the Peaks from Buxton in Derbyshire to Macclesfield in Cheshire. It is reputed to be Britain's most dangerous road. The switchback which winds its way up into the breathtakingly beautiful starkness of these windswept peaks is apparently an irresistible invitation to drivers and motorcyclists with a death-wish. The more local authorities do to improve the road's safety, the faster they can travel! As far as I can tell the only danger in travelling this road is doing it at speed. The road itself is well sealed and wide enough for a bus going one way to pass a truck going the other, but taking it slowly around the frequent bends is essential.

The road has its name from the Cat and Fiddle Inn, Britain's second highest pub. The inn, built in 1830 shortly after the construction of the turnpike road, sits by the side of the road, alone and isolated, on the very top of the ridge that separates Derbyshire from Cheshire. It's a popular spot with walkers who must be glad of a pint and a sit down by the time they reach the Cat and Fiddle. Motorists seeing it up ahead know that the climb is over and the descent about to begin.

I seem to have wandered away from where this tale started, so let's get back on that train and head through the two-mile-long Cowburn Tunnel and emerge into the beautiful Edale Valley. The pretty little village of Edale marks the start of the Pennine Way, a 267 mile trail traversing the hills of the Pennines north to the Scottish border, ending a little further on in Scotland's Kirk Yetholm. The Pennine Way is the ramblers' Everest. If you haven't done the Pennine Way then you haven't really rambled. People do it from bottom to top, and from top to bottom. They do it in stages, they write books about it, the get lost on it, and sometimes they die on it.

The famed Kinder Scout, the highest point in the Peak District, is a moorland plateau owned by the National Trust and it is right there above Edale. A 7 ½ mile circular walk skirting the plateau takes one to the stark roof of the Pennines.

I can't claim to be a walker or a rambler in any shape or form. A dodgy foot, suspect knees and sixty-seven-year-old hips mean that I'm more at home on a bike. But, how can one visit the Peaks without stepping onto the Pennine Way, even for just a few miles. The day was cool for summer but not windy, and the sun showed through the clouds every now and then.

The instructions on the internet for the walk were a little short on detail, as usual. I was instructed to walk up through the village from the train station. On leaving the tiny unmanned station one cannot actually see the village so should one turn left or right? Luckily, a National Trust cafe is close by, the Trust being the owners of many areas in the Peak district. The young cafe attendants point me in the right direction and I set off uphill and eventually through the village to the Old Nags Head Pub. 

A sharp left opposite the pub set me on a rough path under trees until a fingerboard stating 'Pennine Way' directed me across a field containing a mob of very tame sheep. That fact is testament to the number of people who pass this way on a daily basis. I had so far walked about 100 yards and said good morning to at least six people.

The route across the field is well defined with large flat stones set in the ground forming a path diagonally to another foot gate. The gates are spring-loaded to make sure stock stay where they're supposed to be. 

The path takes up again through the next field but becomes a rough gravel track thereafter. As the path climbs higher and higher the views back down to the Edale valley are wonderful, the hills fold one on another and the farmhouses dotted here and there look like models. A tiny train pulls into Edale station and other walkers are small specks on the track below. The treeless hills above are purple with heather.

From this high point the trail dips down until it arrives at Upper Booth Farm, where a farmer is working a mob of sheep in the sheep yards with the help of his sheepdog.

He takes no notice of the walkers tromping through his yard and on over the River Noe to the National Trust's Lee Farm.

The path heads up again and I have my eye on the time because I must be back on the train at about 4.30. My objective is Jacob's Ladder, a set of stone steps put in place by the Nat Trust after erosion caused that part of the Pennine Way to become hazardous. The gritstone boulders used to form the steps were helicoptered onto the site. This is no short flight of steps, the shallow risers and deep treads made up of numerous stones, wind up and further up until they reach the Kinder plateau. This was a packhorse route across the moors from medieval times until the arrival of the railways.

A stream rushes along beside the path, splashing over rocks in its hurry to find the river. A quaint stone bridge crosses the stream at the bottom of the hill and just beyond is Jacob's Ladder.

 It climbs steadily uphill and then disappears around a bend. I ascended far enough to see the hikers ahead of me gain the summit. They were just small specks on the horizon.

I retraced my steps back down to the river, through the farm, up again to the hill looking down on the Edale Valley. I sat on a stile and had a cup of tea from the thermos as black clouds rolled over the hills and the purple of the heather turned grey in the mist. Confirmation that the weather here can turn in a very short space of time. The old scouting motto 'Be Prepared' should be embraced by all ramblers.

As it turned out, I would have had time to climb Jacob's Ladder and stand on the Kinder plateau but my dodgy foot was not unhappy to miss that adventure.