Marsden to Crowden – perfect penultimate perambulation – 2nd blog today.

I got up late as it had been raining and I wanted to let the tent dry whilst having a cold tin of beans for breakfast. Heinz – money no object. I took down the tent, filled my water bottles and set off in the breezy but mostly sunny day.    

The day was made for walking. No, walking was made for days like this. No, days were made for walking like this. No, walking days were…….  Shut the front door Smithy lad. On the boggiest parts of the moors the stone floors from old cotton and wool mills have been helicoptered up and form a solid base for a path. It means that erosion from footfall is less and that you can make reasonable speed. But I wasn’t reacting well to the rucksack. I’d forgotten how heavy it was. Wasterd.

The route rambles over moorland for a few miles, then up Black Hill and finally over the top and down to a campsite in Crowden. 

The views eastwards into Yorkshire outshone westward Lancashire by a long chalk. Useless Lancky gets. This view sees the TV transmitter at Emley Moor in the distance.

Onward and downward to a small stream spilling down the Moorside, with the purple heather in abundance in its late summer finery. It stoned me to my soul. Stoned me just like going home, and it stoned me.

Upward and onward to Black Hill. Only 11 miles today but not a pushover. Certainly not a pushover with the rucksack. Has Che put lead weights in here for a laugh? This was one of the few times Pennine Wayfarers passed me in the last week. It really seems to be less popular. 

And down to Crowden.

The Way skims precariously along the sheer edge of a ridge, the most vertiginous part of the whole walk.

Down to the campsite in the valley below. I find myself singing old songs that my grandmother, mother and (surprisingly) my father sang when I was young. Trekking takes me back to a simpler time, before school and before my family became dysfunctional. But when I was 8 years old my mother was petrified by the Cuban missile crisis and told me and my 4 year old sister of the potential end of the world through nuclear war. We never said nuclear war. It was atom bombs in those days. I lay awake and cringed at every plane passing overhead, thinking it was a Russian coming to Atom Bomb me, and less significantly Norton RAF aerodrome nearby. If something horrible is happening then tell your kids that it’s ok. And they’ll be happy in bed, like this.

Night night.