A Walkers Tale

The Dales Way is a walk I had started a year ago - and last September I had spent two days walking (mostly along) this trail, from Dent train station in the Yorkshire Dales to Ambleside in the Lake District (the final stretch to Ambleside was beyond the end of the  Dales Way ). Originally the plan was to walk the rest of the trail over two days, staying in Grassington - but lately I have been splitting walks up into smaller chunks - and today the plan is to head out and to do a single day of walking, along the  Dales Way  from Grassington to Ilkley.

The previous day I had planned to walk the Pennine Way from Alston to Appleby-in-Westmorland, stay over in Carlisle - and then head down today to walk from Ribblehead to Settle along the Pennine Bridleway . But in the end I'd had to abandon that walk before it could be started, after the bus driver let me know that he could only go so far towards Alston due to a road closure - and so I had to settle for a lovely walk along Hadrian's Wall . But today we are back on plan, and ticking off new sections of National Trails.

Today we are back on the North Yorkshire Moors , completing the last section of the Tabular Hills Walk .  Last time we were on this trail we completed a section between Pickering and Lockton - and today we take on the final section from Lockton round to Scalby Ness - before following the coast  down to Scarborough.

Today is the second of two days spent walking the Pennine Bridleway , and having walked from Settle to Sough (near Colne) on the previous day, today I am walking from Sough to Hebden Bridge. With this in mind I am making my way across Burnley, via the M2 and M5 Mainliner buses - and for those doing walks around Burnley, the M4 and M5 (half-hourly) buses seem to be the most useful connections into the countryside.

Today we are back out following the Pennine Bridleway - which is one of the National Trails I am hoping to complete in this calendar year. This is a trail that often surpasses expectations - but we may need to have a little bit of patience today, as whilst we begin our walk in the  Yorkshire Dales  - and in the pretty town of Settle - there is a flatter section to come once we get out of the Yorkshire Dales .  That said, towards the second half of the walk, things should improve substantially - as we start to close in on Barnoldswick.

Today we are doing the stretch of south coast that I came down here to do - with this being the third of three days spent along the coast  - and having walked from Hastings to Eastbourne on the previous day. What makes today special is that we will meet up with the chalk cliffs off the South Downs - and for the stretch from Eastbourne to Cuckmere Haven we will be doubling up on both the King Charles Coast Path and the South Downs Way .