Weather: ☁️☁️🌧️🌧️☁️
Food: 🥪🥪🥪🥪(4 out of 5, surprise 2nd breakfast and indoor lunch on track today, while we thought there would be no cafe’s today!)
Track: 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 (3 out of 5, nice trail along the river and through some towns. Great views over Manchester and good trail up into the Pennines)
Signposting of the trail: 🚸 (1 out of 5 for having signs. Had to go back and forth too many times because of unclear signage. Hard to follow without gpx or booklet)
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺ (3 out of 5, flat, sheltered and quiet)
Name of followed trail: Trans Pennine trail
Special mention: the men of the drywall building association for keeping the trade alive with such enthusiasm! The Coffee and muffin Cafe in Glossop, the 2 people with the daft dog on the Woodhead railway line, the lady at Woodhead Station who gave us water and the dog lady we met at our tent.
We got up in time, so we don’t disturb the dog walking people on their morning rounds too much 😅. It’s cloudy, and a lot cooler than yesterday. We’re expecting rain at some point today, so everything is packed away dry.
We start on the river trail and climb up to a trail along a canal. From there we climb further through a town, into the fields with great views over Manchester. It takes some effort, because the signage is bad, and not always agrees with the gpx. We need to climb a fence because of another anti-hiker gate, so we’re happy to get to the part with the nice views! It gets even better when we pass a nice cafe 10 minutes after opening!
Refreshed, we continue through the walled fields, further into the hills. We see some men at work on the walls. We find out that the stone walls, stacked without concrete, are being rebuild by volunteers that want to keep the craft of making them alive. The drywall building association! After a lesson about drywalling, we continue our walk past the memorial, into the Pennines.
Another nice stretch of trail follows, through forest, along creeks, into Glossop, where it starts to rain. We get the raingear on and continue. Soon we find another cafe, just when it’s time for lunch! We have an enjoyable conversation about our hike with eh.. the whole cafe actually…😅 We had a good meal, out of the rain, with good company. What more does one need?!
The trail continues through Glossop towards a series of lakes. We get lost again a few times, find our way again and enjoy the scenery. Wh hike up a field, where we can’t find an exit, so climb the fence instead. When we climb a bit further, we get to a wide trail that is part of a former railway line. Surprised with the wide clear path after losing our way, we make progress pretty quickly, until we find a dog that desperately wants to play. His owners have a chat with us, nice people who know a lot about this part of the trail. During the conversation it starts raining again. After one more joke, we say goodbye and walk the last kilometers to the old railway station of Woodhead.
The trail is forested and surrounded by the Pennine hills. At the train station we find some houses where we get water from a lady. After that we walk back a bit and pitch tent right on the parallel track of the trail, because there isn’t really another option. It seems fine too in this more remote part of the trail. It’s dry again for now, so we make use of the change in weather!
After we pitched, there is a lady walking her dogs that checks if we’re alright. How sweet of her! We chat with her about our hike and her dogs before we get back to the tent to make dinner and go to bed. It’s been a long but pretty day today!