Weather: Cold and Fine.
Distance:
22 km (13.7 miles) Total Distance: 3283 miles
I
delivered another ‘workshop’ at York University in the afternoon and then made
my way over the Pennines to the Lake District.
The
journey over the Pennines was long, most of the time spent getting out of York
and then through Harrogate. I had booked
myself into Millon Youth Hostel and was told when I booked that I would be the
only person there but when I turned up there were seven others there, a pair
of Spanish and a pair of German language students from Dundee, an elderly lady
and a young couple – an intense young man who was teacher training but believed
in corporal punishment, and his Hungarian girlfriend.
I went
into Millon to try to get a Chinese take-away but was told in one that it would
be an hour and in another that it would be an hour and a half and there was me
thinking that when they asked me whether I had ordered I thought they meant
they were going to close the shop soon. I guess it was because it was Saint
Valentines night and people’s idea of a romantic evening in Millon is to share
a take away. I ended up with chicken and
chips from the chippy - evidently not people’s idea of a romantic meal judging by the
lack of queue.
I was
up early and got an early train to Bootle.
It was one of those trains where I had to ask the driver to stop at the
station. After a 15-minute walk down to
the beach I was walking the coast for the first time this year and it felt
good.
The
beach was full of pebbles and not easy walking.
At one stage I got fed up with it and tried to make for the cliff tops –
well not very high but they were steep to climb – but when I got to the top it
was evident that there was no path and barbed wire fence everywhere so it was
all the way back to the pebbles again.
Even after the map indicated that the pebbles could have given way to a
vast expanse of sandy beach it was evident that I had been fooled and no doubt
local dredging had taken all the sand away.
I kept
going till I was past the wind electricity generators at the headland and then
took a break out of the very cold wind. There were lots of clear skies in cold
temperatures, below freezing, but once I was up and walking warmed up quite
nicely in the main.
I got
to the village of Haverrig about 12.15 and was torn what to do. I was very pleased with the progress I had
made and was only aiming to get to Millom that day so popped into the Harbour
Bar and ended up watching the Man United and Arsenal match (0-2) on a giant TV
screen, mainly by myself. That was
exciting, especially as the opening 20 minutes was mainly the players kicking
each other. The Wales versus Italy match
followed and that was the opposite – Wales loosing and reaching an all time low
I think.
The
walk back to Millom was gentle – after three pints of bitter, past the large
lake that had been reclaimed from the iron ore mine that once fed Millom Steel
works, on which the Youth Hostel is now built – a bit of local knowledge for
you there. I stopped briefly at the
Youth Hostel and then walked over the waste ground into town so that the next
day I could start from there, plus to collect my car that I had left near the
station that morning.
I
popped in Safeways to get a ready made curry and then back to the hostel. I knew I wouldn’t be long before an
Australian turned up and there he was – a young man who was into family history
believe it or not and he was a real historian not someone who just claimed to
have traced their family back 500 years with very littler evidence.
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