Distance: 15.5 miles
Weather: lots of rain
Todmorden is a great town and I saw two of the edible gardens for which it is famed. I was on the road with my sister and her partner by 9:30am. It was a drizzly start to the day and the hills were shrouded in mist - Stoodley Pike was hiding. We left town up a very steep road which ascended the valley past lovely stone cottages, a church and the town cemetery. It was almost 1 1/2 miles straight up which hard, hot work. Whilst huffing and puffing up the hill a car stopped with a man and his wife inside. The gentleman proceeded to tell us his name and his exploits on his motorbike which involved year long journeys exploring the world. His name is Ian Coates - an interesting chap with lots of stories.
They drove on and we continued on our way and now we were following the Calderdale Way and we passed seventeenth century farmhouses and trod on ancient, paved footpaths through fields and back gardens over stiles and through gates with no two the same. We eventually rejoined the Pennine Way near Colden and visited the famous Aladdin's Cave and what an amazing place it is. May sells everything including iced fingers with currants and Parkin (both are amongst my most favourite cakes and hard to find in the East Midlands so I bought and ate both types). We sat at May's picnic benches and she kindly allowed us to eat our packed lunches. After Colden, we left the villages behind, walked past a sailing yacht in the middle of a field and passed over Heptonstall Moor. The mist was down and it drizzled the whole way across. Down in the valley we could see the Pack Horse Inn which was built in 1615.
The route led us down into a beautiful rocky hollow filled with ferns, a river and rocks and lots of lovely green. Of course, we visited the pub and had ginger beers by the roaring fire. The trail now took us to the reservoirs of Walshaw Dean of which there were three. We saw lots of wildlife (grouse, sandpipers, gloden plovers, oyster catchers, lapwings and herons) as we plodded through the drizzle. The weather closed in even more and our world shrunk to the paved footpath. We were very wet so we took shelter in the ruins of Top Withins and a drink and a snack and then onwards through the weather. Before, we knew it we had reached Ponden Reservoir. I went to check in at my B&B and my sister and her partner went to pick up their car from Stanbury. I washed my kit and was soon ready for my lift. Dinner was at the Old Silent Inn and we had a tasty, substantial meal. A long, wet day but still satisfying and interesting with May's shop and the variety of birds we saw.
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