My first day walking dawned misty, and though the sun quickly burned off the mist there was a milky sheen to the light all day.
Here’s the official start:-
And the obligatory selfie by the first waymarker:
Wainwright described the Pennine Way as a masculine walk and though that may be quite sexist(!) there’s something pretty rugged about day one walking: it’s an austere, at times bleak yet stunningly beautiful first day’s walk.
This is the kind of landscape I’ve been experiencing all day. There’s a lot of peat bogs of course, though much of it is now traversed by stone slabs taken from the now redundant Lancashire cotton mills:
Some of the rock formations are stunning:
An amazing day’s walking, the only downside being the strong wind, which gets wearing after a while (I’ve been doing Marcel Marceau impersonations on and off all day!)
The day includes Kinder Scout, a high moor plateau and the scene of a mass trespass by thousands of people back in 1932, protesting at the lack of access for the wider public to privately owned wild land such as this around England. The event eventually led to the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949, which of course indirectly made it possible for me to do this walk.
All in all a great day. I don’t feel as tired as I expected, but I reckon I’ll still be in bed by 9.
And there’s rain forecast for tomorrow…
Chris Stuart's Walks 