In contrast to recent days crossing high, open moors, this morning was spent walking beside the River Tees. Hay meadows seemed to have a greater variety of flowers than earlier on my trip, not just buttercups, and where the path was close to the tree lined river there were bluebells, yellow ladies bedstraw, geraniums and many others. Brown water raced over rocks in the river, with rapids and minor cascades over ledges. There were two major waterfalls, Low Force and further up river, the impressive High Force, where water fell 21 metres over a cliff of harder igneous rocks, framed by trees.
Continuing up the Pennine Way, moving from farmed to moorland landscape, I caught up with a group of bird watchers. Asking about a whistling I could hear from the other side of the river, I was told it was a common sandpiper. They stood aside as I passed, hoping from boulder to boulder beneath the scree and cliffs beside the river.
Cauldron Snout was an impressive, white foaming cascade falling over and between rocks beneath the Cow Green reservoir. I had fun climbing up those rocks on a well worn route, the only place on the Pennine Way where you need to use your hands as well as your feet. Many people were enjoying the sight, including a fellow Pennine Way walker who I was frequently meeting at campsites or on the trail.
A long uphill slog followed, feeling longer as the wind was blowing against me and because I had not anticipated its length. In the river the track was following an aristocratic fly fishermen caught a fish just as I passed, his assistant hurried to detach it from the hook. Scruffy, shaggy sheep looked at me as I passed. Wool prices are apparently too low to cover the cost of shearing them, so they loose their thick winter coat in chunks, rubbing against posts and rocks to remove it. Their lambs by contrast look neat in trim, curly white coats.
Eventually I crossed the watershed and reached High Cup. On my last trip down the Pennine Way I walked this way in dense cloud, with compass navigation, unable to see more than ten metres away. This time I could see far into the distance, beyond the perfect "U" of the valley that formed High Cup, across farmed fields to distant mountains. The Cup itself is a feature formed by a glacier with a steep backwall and steep sides above the curved valley bottom.
Then it was along the edge of the Cup and downhill in intermittent sunshine into Dufton, a small village built with red sandstone. The caravan site has a length of grass for backpacking and cycling campers where a group of us have pitched our tents. Although the Stag Inn was busy this Saturday night, thankfully they still had room to feed me.
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