Pennine Way (top bit) Day 5 (Which Wasn’t On The Pennine Way At All)

Wednesday 11 April (0835-0920)

Distance: 2 miles

Ascent: Too tiny to count

The plan for today didn’t involve much of the Pennine Way to start with, and the reality didn’t involve any.

I didn’t want to walk the section over to Greenhead for two reasons. Firstly, I intend for us to walk Hadrian’s Wall at some point so we’ll cover that ground then, and secondly, the section from Greenhead to Alston is reputed to be an uninteresting day which serves simply to join more interesting things. I also didn’t want to walk straight down to Alston along the South Tyne Trail, because we did that walk northbound in 2008 and I as I didn’t enjoy it then I didn’t see value in wasting a day on it now.

So, the plan was that we would walk the 7 miles down to Lambley and jump on a bus to Alston, then walk out beyond Garrigill to camp the night, which would position us nicely for Cross Fell tomorrow.

The reality of the day was that we walked the 2-miles to Haltwhistle train station and caught a train home.

We omitted the summit of Cross Fell in 2008 due to foul weather, opting to skirt it instead. We also didn’t get to see the golf-ball on Great Dunn Fell, even when standing at the fence of the radar station, because it was so cloud-bound. I’d really like to see both of those places, and their views, in reasonable weather. I certainly didn’t want to be standing atop Cross Fell in the lashing rain and feeling cold and miserable – which looked the most likely scenario if we pushed on this week.

So, we’re home and all of the kit is now being cleaned and dried, ready for the next trip, which is, after all, only 5 days away.