Pennine Way Day 10
Monday 2nd September 2019 Dufton
A broken sleep as I had fallen asleep around 6 last night, was woken by loud music at 11 and lay awake until after 3. Once I got on the trail the first hour and a half was at a fast pace along a river trail.
I was sometimes leapfrogging some other guy (who I initially thought to be American for some reason, but later discovered he was British) who said nothing during our moments of passing at and around Low Force.
At High Force I met another chap, Graham, who admitted that he was rather a plodder, so I left him behind (until later).
I caught up with the first guy I had been paralleling, whose name is Robin, and we walked the rest of the way that day together.
There was a long section alongside the river that was covered with rocks that we had to scramble over. Then we arrived at the Devil’s Cauldron, a waterfall that we had to climb up the right hand side of.
At the top I leapt across a pond (of what I thought was water) to another rock, but somehow my foot slipped, and I ended up butt-first in the pond (which was actually bog).
The day had gotten wetter and mistier as it went on and now we could not see very far in front of us. Following my Sat-Nav app we managed to get around High Cup Nick (without being able to see it), having the mist only lift for a few seconds, on our descent for us to see how high up we were, and then close in again.
At Dufton, Robin and I chatted for a bit outside of the closed pub and made plans to meet in the morning to walk together again (as he was catching a taxi to his B&B which was elsewhere) and I hit the hostel to shower, only now realising that my shorts were black across the behind from my encounter with the bog. How embarrassing!
As the hostel did not have Wi-Fi I wandered to the pub (which was now open) to use theirs and drink some cider.
Back at the hostel for their evening meal (and more cider) and chatted with other Pennine Way walkers, including Graham, who arrived after a 12-hour day’s walk, his friend Dave, and a father/son couple, Mike and Adam (who was walking a section of the Pennine Way from Dufton onward). There were a few interesting tales.
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