Pennine Way

Tan Hill → Middleton-in-Teesdale

Distance: 17.26 miles
Ascent: 559 metres
Duration: 6 hours 46 minutes

Halfway
« Not walked | Not walked »

In terms of number of days walking, we've now started on the second half. Our guidebook told us that partway through today's walk we passed the halfway mark in terms of distance too. With no significant injuries to report, it looks like we just might make it to Kirk Yetholm by this time next week.

So we set out from Tan Hill with a renewed sense of purpose, although that was tempered by trepidation for what was up first: Sleightholme Moor.

The path here is marked by a sequence of white posts, spread just far enough apart that the next is only visible once its neighbour is reached. Where the ground underfoot isn't a tangle of heather roots it's a peaty bog, and the combined effect of the terrain and the incessant rain made the moor feel endless.

Red grouse had the right idea: hunkering down from the cold wind, oblivious to the fact that their shelters were shooting butts.

The rain persisted almost all day.

At Deep Dale one end of a gamekeeper's hut is used as a walkers' shelter, and the pencilled graffiti on its wooden walls tell the tales of many who've trod this path before. "The horror!", quotes one, while another simply repeats "the blisters will not beat me" three times as a mantra.

As our shadows lengthened we finally crossed the River Tees and dropped into Middleton. We'd had the briefest of glimpses of the sun, but the forecast for the rest of the week doesn't look good at all.