Stanza Stones Trail Day 2

‘The plates are very hot,’ the landlord told us as he delivered our breakfasts, ‘but the food’s cold.’  The bacon, sausages and the rest were, of course, warm and lovely, setting us up for another day.  The pub didn’t do packed lunches but our man recommended we call in at the nearby Post Office and general shop in Chiserley to get something.  The shop was a compact warehouse of all kinds of handy items from fruit to chocolate bars, from bottles of wine to Fray Bentos tinned pies.  The lad who was serving went to the kitchen behind the counter to make my ham sandwich while a lady served our landlord, who had just come in.  ‘See,’ he said to me, ‘it wasn’t just a rumour that you could get your lunch here.’  ‘How much change do I owe you?’ the shopkeeper asked our man, ‘I chucked your money in and now I’ve forgotten.’  ‘30p.  And I’ll take any tenners you’ve got in there too.’

My day’s walking started at the pub (I was cheating a bit by not dropping back into town to start the day, but it seemed ridiculous to go down there just to walk back past the pub.  I knew I was only letting myself down, so that was all right).  The skies, after being clear and sunny when we woke up, were now covered in cloud and soon after the rain began.  At first this seemed ominous, but luckily it soon stopped, though yesterday’s wind was still hanging around to chill the air.  Up on the hill, with the wind blowing, I found myself in the middle of a huge ocean of pink and purple heather, stretching out over the hilltops ahead of me.  A narrow, rocky path led me through the colourful scene.

Having just climbed up onto Wadsworth Moor and its ocean of heather, I now had to drop down into a valley.  Again I found myself on a narrow, overgrown path.  This was head-high with bracken which obscured the tiny track under my feet and I had to keep shoving the vegetation aside in order to see what I was stepping on.  This was important as the surface was wet and covered in loose rocks, and the path was extremely steep.  I tripped slightly at one point as the bracken stems lassoed my shins and for a heart-stopping moment thought I was going to somersault all the way down to the farm below.

It was slow going but I got there in one piece and then was faced with a steep climb up the other side.  This time the moor, Warley Moor, was open and bare, populated with cows and sheep.  The wind whipped into me and the path dragged on and on to the distant top.  I eyed the ‘rocking stone’ described on the map but in the gale and on boggy land, I just couldn’t bring myself to make the detour.

The right-of-way seemed to go straight through Slade Farm but its fences didn’t look very inviting so I circumnavigated the perimeter through a deeply muddy, cow-trodden field, past some piles of rubble and waste, onto the farm track, where a pair of dogs behind a gate suddenly leapt into life and barked like mad things, making me jump out of my skin.  They continued to bark at me, now they knew I was there, until I reached the main road, making me grumble even more.

Out on the road I stepped into a terrific headwind.  The wind kept nudging me, like someone trying to annoy you by repeatedly poking at you.  Nudge.  ‘Quit it.’  Nudge.  ‘Quit it.’  Nudge.  ‘Quit it.’  Nudge.  ‘I KILL YOU!’  It pushed, it shoved, it body-slammed me, tirelessly.  An old beardy bloke on a bike pedalled slowly past me.  ‘Lovely day,’ he shouted above the wind’s roar, ‘Invigorating.’  ‘Blows the cobwebs away,’ I answered.  Appreciating my irony, he obligingly laughed.  A police car rolled past, but didn’t offer me a lift.

Finally I turned off the road, through some fascinating old quarry workings and out to a stone wall with a seat in it where Jill was waiting.  On the seat, behind which Jill told me the Mist stone was, it was beautifully sheltered from the wind and its constant, lunatic yammer in my ears.  We sat for a while admiring the excellent view from the edge of moor, looking down over Oxenhope, and then did the tiny scramble to the stone.  The sky was clearing and things were looking up.

After waving Jill off I marched across the moor on another diversion to a trig point, this time somewhat more easy going a route than the previous day’s.  All the same, I was starting to feel tired as I walked along narrow lanes towards Cullingworth.  The road was long and the tarmac unforgiving.  I was just slogging along.  Then, as happens, the endorphins came back on-stream and I was feeling better again, singing ‘On Ilkley Moor’ (spied in the distance from the Mist stone).  At the far side of Cullingworth I dropped into Goitstock Wood for a bit of a change of scene.  It was a good choice.  The sunlight dappled through the leaves above as I wound alongside a rocky path through the trees, with the stream chattering over rocks to my left.  Further on it got even better as I passed a small waterfall which tumbled into a sunny pool, overhung with bright green ferns.  Mayflies danced in swarms above the water as spray drifted across to me.  It was just a wonderful place.  Instead of tiredness or delirium, I was taken outside myself, thinking of nothing but the surprising beauty of the wood.

For the rest of the walk I was flying, chatting with other passers-by about the unexpectedly good weather, and admiring the simple charm of stonewalled fields.  Beyond the woods south of Bingley, I could see that the dark clouds that had hung above Ilkley Moor all day were still there and, crossing Shipley golf course, a few spots fell, but they couldn’t dampen my mood.  Big, white-washed boulders led the way across the quiet links and into town.  I had arranged to meet Jill in the Library Tap on the main street in Bingley but as I came up I could hear loud singing, like some afternoon karaoke session.  At the door, I turned around and headed up to Wetherspoon’s.  I was early and was planning to call Jill to let her know the change of plan but I heard her call out to me from the other side of the road.  She had also turned down the Library Tap, having come back from a wander round Haworth, and was just waiting for me to arrive.

Back at the Hare and Hounds later, I had a delicious venison burger, a few pints, and a relatively early night.

For more about the Stanza Stones Trail see Ilkley Literature Festival

Stanza Stones Trail Day 1

The sky was grey and it was just beginning to rain when Jill dropped me off at Marsden station.  Zipping up my waterproof jacket I said goodbye for the time being and set off through the village.  A minor road led up towards the hill and here I encountered my first obstacle: a works lorry blocking the entire road.  Luckily the wall alongside the road was low enough and sturdy enough for me to tip-toe along the top past the truck and find my way out onto the hillside.

The busy railway line drove into the earth below my feet, into Standedge tunnel, as I started the steep ascent of Pule Hill.  A ventilation shaft ahead showed which way the trains were going.  The higher I got the more the wind battered me but at least the rain started to ease and from the top of the hill there were good views to the Colne valley to the east and the wide open moors in every other direction.  In the immensity I felt like what I actually was: a small creature crawling across the face of the planet.

Insect-like I scuttled along the edge of the scarp, trying to take a shortcut back on myself after visiting the top of the hill, back towards the first Stanza Stone.  It was something of a mistake as the grass was wet and slippery, and the drop to my left was precipitous.  Needlessly tiring myself, I finally arrived at the quarry and looked down to see Jill making her own steep ascent from the main road.  The Stone itself, Snow, was tucked into a cul-de-sac at one end of the quarry, carved on a wide lintel in a sheltered spot, so the letters of the poem were starting to become encrusted with green lichen.  Out on the poetry bench – a seat in a curved dry-stone wall – was shelter from the wind while I waited for Jill to arrive.  We admired the work then I marched off again onto the moor.

Shortly along the path I reached the Pennine Way and with it came more rain.  The wind was coming from the north-west so it was driven into my face and my hood was torn at by the storm’s fingers.  Stomping along the flagged path, I passed a couple with their teenage daughter.  ‘Lovely summer’s day,’ I offered.  ‘Well, it is August,’ the lady replied.  The conditions weren’t favourable for any more of a chat.

The Pennine Way ducked and weaved over the high country with moors all around.  The wind nudged me around, though thankfully the high bridge over the M62 felt stable.  At the top of Blackstone Edge, I climbed up to the trig point, perched on a rock right on the crest, and had to grab hold of the pillar to stop myself being blown backwards.  I dropped down a bit to have a bite to eat.

Jill and I had arranged to meet for the next Stone but as I approached the White House pub, I wasn’t sure whether she meant in the pub or at the Stone.  I popped my head in just to check and fought to resist the urge to have a quick pint.  Instead I barrelled along the wide, level path by Blackstone Edge reservoir.  Coming round a corner I could see a pink dot in the far distance and guessed this would be Jill in her cagoule.  It was, and I joined her after crossing a cute, Andy-Goldsworthy-style arched bridge.  The poem, Rain, was carved on a sheer slab by another quarry.  This time the lettering was still crisp and shining, five years after its carving, the golden heart of the rock revealed from beneath the weathered surface.

Jill was off to check out our accommodation at Hebden Bridge while I carried on along the Pennine Way.  Except this was where I was going to take the first of my diversions, first taking a path away from the main one and then, at a collapsed wooden bridge, turning off into rough country.  It was hard going, steering between bogs, stepping onto bouncy heather, stumbling on grassy tussocks.  I could see the trig point, the goal of my diversion, ahead of me but it took for ever for it to arrive.  I cursed and I muttered as I staggered along, the wind playfully knocking me around and making my nose stream.  The rocky outcrop where the pillar was built couldn’t come soon enough.  The trig is on its own rock and I did a Tryfan-style leap onto it from another (not that I have done, nor ever will do, the leap across Adam and Eve on Tryfan).

Given there was no path, I was free to make my own way back to the real route.  I decided to cut a corner and was amazed to find a tiny track slicing its way through the heather.  It was going exactly the right way so I took up its offer.  The path was so faint that it was almost impossible to see it unless it was actually beneath your feet, but it took me reliably westwards to Stony Edge, where I could rejoin a more conventional path.  It had been a tiring diversion and, given the length of the day I was in for, probably a mistake.  Nevertheless, these are the things we have to do for trig points.

The wind continued to kick my head in as I traced the path along the edge above the Calder valley.  I reached Stoodley Pike and glanced inside for a moment, considering whether to climb up to the viewing platform.  And feel the wind even more strongly?  I didn’t think so.  I was on the home leg with the thought of a pint in a cosy pub foremost in my mind.  A sign for the ‘Hebden Bridge Loop’ informed me that my destination was ‘the sixth funkiest town in the world’.  Fair enough.  Funky or not, the paths I took to drop down into it were terrible – overgrown, over-steep and covered in loose rocks.  It took an age until I finally emerged at one of the bridges.  A text from Jill told me she was in the Shoulder of Mutton and I found her outside, nursing a bump on her head where the wind had just smashed her over the bonce with an umbrella from the next table.  I felt similarly beaten up, only all over.

Our pub, the Hare and Hounds, up the hill, didn’t open until 6pm, so we had a couple of drinks (woohoo, Saltaire Blonde!) then drove up.  The shower in the room was beautifully warm and soothing, but I didn’t stay too long as food and beer awaited downstairs.  The slightly mad landlord served everyone efficiently while making puns about my Elbow tee-shirt.  The beer went down well, though it didn’t do much to ease my aching limbs, and the chicken pie refuelled me nicely.  The landlord was replaced by the landlady who called out, to regulars and visitors alike, ‘Right you horrible lot, does anyone want another drink before I shut the bar?’  There was a brief rush before we all turned in for the night.

For more about the Stanza Stones Trail see Ilkley Literature Festival