Day One Edale to Torside 16 miles walked including a small diversion looking for a plane wreck8/4/2015 Day started off well for walking, set off around 8.30 after breakfast, it was overcast and cool, an hour into the walk and into steep climbs up Jacobs Ladder then on to Kinder Falls.
My plan on this walk was to visit several wartime aeroplane crash sites that are dotted around the Pennine Way, this first day had 3 such sites I could try, unfortunately in managing the database of my GPS I had neglected to load in the wreck sites so whilst I knew where they were vaguely on the map I could not navigate to them with pin point accuracy. I had an attempt to wander of track to look for a B29 wreck but it was hopeless so after wasting about 15 mins I resumed track. The path was very easy to find compared to the Coast to Coast trail.. plenty of signs along the way removing all ambiguity when alternative paths beckoned, also for at least two thirds of the day the path was either paved with flagstones or rough steps during the climbs and descents. The flag stones and better steps are used along parts of the path that go through the peat bogs to stop erosion and prevent walkers from disappearing neck deep in the quagmire. The rougher parts are where the ground is firmer and does not require these niceties. The slabs often squelched when stepped upon, laid down floating in the muck so to speak. Where a small stream cuts through the peat a trench is formed (called a grough) if the path were not paved and the grough bridged by an extra big slab, walkers would have to go over the stream finding the least muddy route down to the stream and up again, of course thousands of boots churn up the grough for hundreds of meters either side of the path crossing (this is what it is like on the Coast to Coast between Kirby Stephen and Keld.. where the groughs take on the proportions of the Somme front line trenches. The last third was awful though, rough broken stone, narrow footwell paths, toe jamming descents that went on for an eternity, I let out a few cuss words along this portion. Now when the path is challenging like this, one's eyes are necessarily always down looking at your feet and I couldn't help noticing that all the sheep poop on the path had now taken a purple colour, this puzzled me for a while until I realised that there were many Billberry bushes in the heather and that these berries which have a reputation for turning one's mouth blue black after eating them, were obviously being consumed by animals and their droppings showed the colours of their diet. I pondered over this and thought that perhaps there could be a market for Bilberries in Western Australia, after all what purple blooded Fremantle Dockers supporter wouldn't want to be able to say truely " I am such a great Dockers fan I actually shit purple". The market wouldn't end with Dockers supporters however, with clever advertising you could get West Coast Eagles supporters to eat them on the basis that they would shit Dockers... see what I mean? win... win Anyway I arrived at Torside quite knackered, thirsty and footsore just before 6 pm, I was pleased to find they had a reservation and a nice room for me.. ground floor whoo hoo! Two cups of tea, shower off to pub for dinner and two pints then back home to prepare for tomorrow and type this.. no internet unfortunately so I will post these blogs up when I can.
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