LEJOG Day 54: Baldersdale to Langdon Beck

Weather: Showers to start, brightening later with chilly westerly

Distance covered today: 24.2km (15.0mi)

Last night's B&B: Clove Lodge (£35)

Cumulative distance: 1070.6km (665.2mi)/ % Complete: 56.0%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 54 (click!)

Yet again I will struggle to make the blog post!  This time there isn’t even a computer in
the B&B, let alone an internet connection! Ironically as I approached it, I passed a BT van
installing connections and they told me that there was an advanced telephone exchange right
below the B&B, so they could have super-fast broadband if they wanted it. A brief chat with
my host and hostess convinced me that hell would first freeze over. Not that they aren’t
the sweetest and kindest people one could wish to meet. It is one of those little B&Bs
where you share the facilities with the owners. The communal bathroom is downstairs so I
will be trudging down the stairs in the middle of the night for my ritual visits to the
loo, but they said not to worry; they have to do so also! It’s an age thing, they said. 
I’m currently sitting in a little front-room, full of bright colours, homely mementos and
pot-plants, with a stunning view out over the fells and a roaring log fire at my back. 
I’ve had a cup of good, strong, northern tea and resisted many of the proffered biscuits. 
The contrast with last night’s stay in up-market and very posh Clove Lodge couldn’t be
starker!

Meanwhile, I’ve got a cunning plan!  There’s a Youth Hostel up the road near the pub where
I will have supper, which I bet has wifi. If you receive this blog tomorrow, my bet came
off. My post though will have to be finished soon, because my host is insisting on running
me up there in his car, and I had better be ready to post!

I am beginning to have serious problems with the author of the official Pennine Way
guidebook! Today’s walk was just tremendous, despite showery weather at the start. Having
thoroughly enjoyed myself, I read at the end of the relevant chapter that this leg was “not
the most exhilarating of walks….”  I beg to differ!  Granted, there was much up and down
work to start with ((though he generally thrives on that) as I crossed the fells between
Baldersdale and Lunedale, then finally Teesdale, but the going was mostly good between the
traditional barns that appear in almost every second field.
 
A real feature of the day was the many unspoiled meadows that I crossed, almost too many to
count and all full of a profusion of spring flowers as good as any I have seen all the way
from Cornwall. Top of the list was a gorgeous nature reserve called “Hannah’s Meadow”,
named for Hannah Hauxwell, a woman who lived on her own in a cottage on an isolated farm
called Birk Hat. Apparently a TV documentary was made in the ‘70s about her and her arduous
life in the dales without electricity or running water, and her love of natural meadows.
Her work has resulted in her meadow becoming a “Site of Special Scientific Interest” and is
preserved from ever being cultivated, because of the rare species that grow there.

Hardly had I descended towards Teesdale, entertained by chirruping Skylarks than I was yet
again chased by a number of rather concerned Lapwings and Curlews who decided I was too
close to their nests. Apart from the wind (and sometimes the rain), almost all I could hear
was the sound of all these birds yelling at me! Perhaps they were warning me that I was
getting too close to Kirkcarrion, a very mysterious place indeed, to which no roads or
paths lead! It was visible for many miles of my walk, distinguished by a circular
plantation of pine trees. It is an ancient tumulus or burial ground. For centuries people
have avoided it as a haunted place, where children are afraid of seeing ghosts.  I was
fascinated to learn that archaeologists have in the past few years accepted the spiritual
significance of such places, though in what form, I don’t know.

I made the decision to divert from the Way into the really attractive little village of
Middleton-in-Teesdale in search of a cup of tea and tea-cake! I was handsomely rewarded.
The very first tea-shop I came across, called “The Conduit”, made a huge fuss of me and
insisted I sign their visitors’ book with a full description of my journey and the whole
shop got involved in a conversation about it. Then two bikers arrived, a man and a woman,
all suited up in dramatically coloured leathers, and added to the conversation. Neither of
them was a day under 70.  The man told me that he had done LEJOG to celebrate his 60th
birthday, but of course, he’d done it on his motorbike, which, after all, isn’t quite the
same thing. Still, we shook hands warmly!

I left Middleton reluctantly, but as if in compensation, there followed an idyllic walk for
miles and miles along the lovely Tees River. I passed a number of waterfalls, each called a
“force” in this part of the country. A couple of days ago, I had a brief look at Hardraw
Force, the highest unimpeded waterfall in Britain. Today I passed Low Force and then
finally High Force, all the while passing through enchanting meadows of spring flowers. My
guidebook complained of these sites being “uncomfortably popular”, but I saw only a lone
photographer, a Geordie who complained to me that there was “too much light”! The sun had
come out, but he wanted to take one of those atmospheric tripod shots, where the water in
the falls is blurred, and everything else remains in perfect focus. He had been waiting for
an hour and was about to pack up because the (expletive deleted) sun wouldn’t go out!

I am definitely in the North!

Caroline, my hostess outside her exquisitely decorated house, Clove Lodge

Early morning in Baldersdale at Blackton Reservoir

Yet more exquisite meadows leading down to Middleton-on-Tees

The Conduit, a welcome tearoom in Middleton

My eternal spring continues

On the banks of the lovely Tees River

This is Eddie, an elderly fellow, who looks just as my good friend Paul will look in 15 years time (!) and who told me all about Kirkcarrion and its mysterious past

The jagged hills in the back are my first sight of Whin Sill, a cliff of quartz-dolerite which runs across the whole of northern England and is responsible for many of the amazing sights in this area

Whinstone is exceptionally hard and has led to a number of delightful waterfalls in the area, because the rock doesn't easily erode. This is Low Force

That is Kirkcarrion up on its lonely hill, visible for miles around, but no paths lead there

And this is the highly impressive High Force