Pete learns to read a table

My short walk today sorted itself into three chapters.  It opened with a boggy bit across open moor.  It wasn’t as boggy as yesterday afternoon.  I only had to broad jump once.  Next there was a bit across open fields and old cart roads, alive with rabbits and birds.  Nothing spectacular, but easy walking.  Finally, there was the walking along a busy highway bit.  That wasn’t my favorite.

 

On my trip materials, Alan had written that the Bowes Moor Hotel was on the Pennine Way.  (OK, actually, he hadn’t.  He’d written that Tan Hill was on the way, which it was.  I got confused.  I’m leaving the error in here, because it caused me to behave and feel in a particular way.  Alan’s notes made it very clear that I had to walk along the road, I was just too dazed to read them correctly.  All my fault.)  There’s a spot a mile or so short of the village of Bowes where the Way splits, so I phoned the hotel from that decision point to find out which branch they’re on.  Turns out they’re actually about two miles west on the A66 from where the trail crosses that busy road.  It didn’t wind up being difficult walking, but it was unpleasant.  People really fly down these roads, and I’m sure that having lived the last 10 days at a walking pace makes it seem all the faster to me.

 

Eventually, I did get here and checked in.  I’m in a neat but small garret room.  Looks like the kind of place that would be held special for hobbits in middle earth.  At one end of the room, even I need to mind my head.  I got out of my boots and rested my legs for a few minutes then put on my town shoes and caught a cab to Barnard Castle.

 

It turned out to be a really beautiful little town.  First stop was tourist information where they told me my best bets for internet connection were the newspaper and the library.  As it turned out, in either case they could get me time on an internet connected computer but that I could not hook up my own.  As a result, I could review my email and make sure there were no emergencies – there weren’t – but I couldn’t put up journal entries. 

 

After taking care of email, I pottered around the castle ruins for a while.  It’s a pretty big pile built into a bend in the river Tees.  The rest of the town is then wrapped around the castle at about the same angle as the river bend.  Makes for a nice combination of town and landscape.  There’s a circle at the south end of the market street with a round, fairly pointless building in the middle of it, maybe it gets used for something on market day.  It is decorative. 

 

I was just poking around the streets and saw a sign for a barber.  I started this trip wanting a haircut, and have of course just gotten shaggier by the day.  I dotted into Just Cuts, Sarah Winter proprietress.  I waited, pretending to read my book while listening to the conversation as two young boys got haircuts, then it was my turn under the scissors of what I sincerely hope was the skinniest and the most wired lady barber in county durham, if not the whole of the north of England.  She gave me a good haircut and was charming.  She’s interested in a trip to America and wanted me to give her ideas of where she ought to go, but she had no very clear notion of what she hoped to do beyond just being in America.  With that agenda, I aimed her at New York.  It was a little unnerving to have all that nervous energy radiating behind me and knowing it had sharp things in its hands.

 

I had almost intentionally dawdled around till I thought the museum would be closed.  I couldn’t drum up any real enthusiasm to tour the art, but the building and grounds promised to be lovely.  I walked over there and saw that I’d pegged it – museum closed, grounds open.  I walked around for a bit until it started to cool off, then I grabbed a cab back here.  Tomorrow I’m on to Middleton in Teesdale.  I’m hoping to catch some kind of ride back to the trail head so I don’t have to open the day with two miles along the highway.  Even if I can’t dodge it, it ought to be a bit quieter on a Saturday morning.

 

It’s hard to believe I have only two days walking left.  I’ve got a complex mixture of relief and a sense that I’ll miss walking along the moors.  The practicalities of waking up somewhere new every morning and trying to sort out where I flung everything the afternoon or night before are getting old.  On the whole, the Pennines have been very good to me.  I’ve had to use my sunscreen more often than I’ve had to use my raingear. I’ve seen some wonderful scenery, and collected a fair number of characters.

 

I think I’ll close for now.  If I stay awake for it, there’s the second installment on TV tonight of an absolutely breathless documentary on the history of London.  I saw the first bit last Friday night in Mankinholes, it was thoroughly diverting, partly for the suspense of wondering whether the narrator was just going to burst from enthusiasm.

 

Garmin Facts:  8.9 miles in 3:11 walking and 21 minutes resting.  2.8 mph on the move.  2.5 mph total.  250 meters climbed.