Day 38: Back on track

Distance: 16ish miles (brief Garmin fail early)
Yesterday's snowfall: 6 inches (but with drifts seven feet deep)
We knew this morning might work out better than yesterday - we were able to sleep without the howling of the wind waking us up all night. Sure enough, we opened our window to light winds and sunny skies - what a relief!




The plan was to head out late, because the roads were still covered in ice, and we wanted to give the sun a bit of time to do its work. So after breakfast we switched our telly to the Challenge network. We spent half of our snow day watching this station; it's 24 hours a day of game shows, most repeats from the 80s and 90s. There was "Pointless", where they ask 100 people a question ("Name as many Bond villains as you can") and the contestants try to come up with answers that were least popular, but still correct (so "Blofeld" is a bad answer, "Mr. White" is a good answer). "Bullseye" combined two important pub skills: trivia and darts. "Catch Phrase" had you solving rebuses, and featured a host who enjoyed tossing little barbed insults at you if your guesses were not spot on. There was a really difficult show based on anagrams. The audience for that one was from Newcastle University. It was pleasantly low tech, and required letter tiles to be turned over by a nicely proportioned young lady in a form fitting dress. The game included an arithmetic anagram (rearrange numbers and operators to make some number) and part of her role was to work out a solution if the contestants failed. My favorite moment in the show was when the host told her "You are quite bright - but these Newcastle lads in the audience, you know they're all here just to have a gawk.". "tee hee" she giggled. If that happens every show my guess is that the host will one day be found dead due to some untraceable poison. ("Tee Hee" is also an excellent answer to the Pointless Bond villain question.)
This morning's show was "Are you smarter than a ten year old?" The twenty-something good looking contestant, Chris, clearly was not, but he was charming, likable, and very lucky. The host was a graduate of the great flowing hair school of British style; we'd seen him yesterday on the English version of "Deal or No Deal". He and the audience obviously liked Chris and everyone was thrilled when Chris ended up winning ten grand. At the end of the show, he was joined on stage by his girlfriend. He got down on a knee, and, tears in his eyes, proposed to her. It was really just a beautiful moment - in a game show! But it was time for us to get to reality. We switched the TV off, and headed out the door. (she said "yes")




The storm had brought in a clean, clear, cold airmass from the north, and so we could see for miles. The mesa at the top center of the photo above is Kinder Scout, the highest peak in the Peak District - it was crystal clear and beautiful even miles away. But we couldn't just walk along and admire the views. The road alternated between black ice and snow, often just a frozen crust of snow over six inches of slush and a couple of inches of water. It was pretty slow going. But even so, both of us were very happy to be out there; it felt just great to be making progress again after our unplanned day off.




We had originally planned a somewhat high route, along footpaths and bridle ways that would give us a flavour of the peaks, but without going all the way east to Kinder Scout at the Pennine Way. But we modified that plan, and as soon as possible headed down into the valley, to Broad Bottom (really) where there was no snow.




The road went down, down, down, and ended at a footpath, which crossed a pasture with sheep, and took us to the town. The storm was obviously very traumatic for us, forcing us to spend a day at a pub drinking, eating, and watching game shows - but the footpath reminded us quickly how much worse it was for the sheep. No one expected this storm, so the sheep and lambs were all outside. There was a dead sheep in the pasture, obviously due to the storm. And fresh on the ground what looked like a placenta, we imagined some poor ewe was lambing out in the storm. Yesterday would have been a bad day to be a sheep here. I will send the placenta picture to my sister in law Lianne for confirmation that's what it is (she's a doctor, so she should know, right?). The blog gets a picture of the sheep looking tired but happy that the storm is passed.




From Broad Bottom, we headed north on a path which gave us clear views of Manchester, only twelve miles west. It was odd to see skyscrapers and an Ikea after five weeks of fields and villages.




There are so many footpath options in this area; it was easy to string together a nice walk that was fairly direct. We again made use of a rails to trail conversion, and walked a towpath for a mile or so.




We knew our destination, the Saddleworth Hotel, was only a mile from the town of Diggle, so once we got close to town, we assumed nothing was between us and showers but a short stroll. See the town in the foreground of the picture below? That's Diggle. See the bloody great hill behind the town? Our hotel is on the other side of that hill. Dawn loves to pick places to stay that are way way way above towns.




We followed an old Roman track up the hill, back up into the snow, and over the top. Fortunately, the track came out right next to the Saddleworth - so it could have been worse. And the hotel was really nice, so in hindsight the climb was worth it, even clambering over the deep snowdrifts at the top of the hill.




Tomorrow, we are walking the Pennine Way up to Hebden Bridge. The route is up pretty high, so we're hoping that today's sun has melted most of the snow, or we could have some problems.

Location:Huddersfield Rd,,United Kingdom