Weather: ☁️🌤️🌧️🌤️🌧️☁️
Food: 🥪🥪🥪(3 out of 5, surprise cafe at for 2nd breakfast and a dry (and therefore short) picnic with wraps on a dyke!)
Track: 🇬🇧🇬🇧 (2 out of 5, nice trail, well signposted and well maintained, but not that interesting.
Exercise of the day: Getting into raingear ASAP (and out of it again 20 minutes later). We did this about 7 times today, so we’re well practiced by now!
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺ (3 out of 5, fine spot sheltered and flat)
Name of followed trail: Trans Pennine trail
Special mention: Andrew, the man in the pub who loved our story and got us free drinks. Thanks Andrew!
We left Barnsley by bus to get back on trail and at 9.30 we’re on our way again.
Today we follow a lot of old railway track and walk along a river quite a few times. It’s nice to walk through, but in the end it feels like a lot of the same scenery during our 35 kilometer day. The biggest changes were in the weather that kept going from sunny to wet, and sometimes even to hail! It’s really annoying to get in and out of raingear every time.
We enjoyed the kart track where there’s a race going on and the visitors café at old Moor, along the trail, where we had a nice 2nd breakfast. We continue our walk until it’s time for lunch on a dyke. We see a black sky nearing, so we have a short, sunny lunch and put on the raingear once more.
The rest of the day we continue on railway track and along the river, and back on the railway track, where we see a dog making pirouettes and running like mad in front of us. We have to laugh about the funny, way to energetic animal. The people he’s with ask us about our walk and we have a nice chat with them. We continue into Doncaster to the Bay horse Inn to get a drink and some water for the night. Here we meet Andrew and Paul. Andrew isn’t having the best time in life right now, and finds our hike a great story and a wonderful distraction. So we have a fun chat and get some free drinks from him. Thanks again Andrew!
After a while it’s time for our last 2 kilometers into the forested park of Tollbar. We find a nice spot and pitch tent. It’s kind of late now, so we quickly make a meal (noodles with fresh veggies and ‘gourmet Thai style chicken balls’) and go to bed.