THE PENNINE WAY This is the Classic long distance walk 270 miles up the backbone of England starting in Edale Derbyshire and finishing at Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish borders. Not being regular walkers some would say we were perhaps foolish to attempt this walk as our first project. When I say we I refer to my wife Hilary and our friends Marje and Paul. To be fair the initial suggestion was floated by Paul and as I am ore not to resist a challenge it was decided (possibly after the consumption of much red wine that we would attempt the walk.

The purist do the whole walk over a 2 week period however as we had neither the time or the stamina to attempt this we set out to do the walk in stages when time and funds permitted (so it took us about 2 years 1996 - 1998). The plan being that Paul and I would do the walk and the girls would do the shops and cafes on route as our support team. They would drop us off at the start of each stage and pick us up several hours later at a pre-arranged pick up point. The strategy was put to a severe test on our first abortive sortie when we became lost on Kinder Scout and ended up back in Edale, lessons learnt a compass and mobile phone are essential equipment!!

We are fortunate as living near Halifax that half the walk is in easy travelling distance this enabled us to do several stages travelling from home. However once we got past the Dales it was decided that overnight stops would be required and we spent some good weekends away in some pleasant hotels/pubs and a good hot bath and meal followed by a few drinks always help to ease the aches and pains of the days walking.

The walk itself is a mixture of pain and pleasure walking through some of the most scenic parts of the country however some stretches over squelching peat bogs in torrential rain make you question your sanity at times, however the good vastly outweighs the bad and the feeling of satisfaction on the eventual completion will live in my memory forever. Now for the next task the Coast to Coast