Pennine Bridleway

Diggle → Mankinholes

Distance: 19.56 miles
Ascent: 1026 metres
Duration: 6 hours 13 minutes

Air
« Not walked | Not walked »

Incoming inclement weather and a long distance to cover before my train home persuaded me to make an early start today. And so I watched the sun rise over Diggle and Delph as I climbed to the point where the Pennine Way and Pennine Bridleway briefly share a path at the top of Standedge. A disc of sunlight traced across each fell, as if gently waking the villages one-by-one.

Unfortunately the magic didn't last, the glorious start to the day replaced by dank greyness by the time I'd crossed the M62, and soon I was walking across moorland adjacent to marching electricity pylons, their wires fizzling in the misty air.

For the first time on the Pennine Bridleway today's leg didn't follow a dismantled railway line at all. But on the final stretch of moorland, another familiar wayfinding mechanism returned: across Langfield Common the line of the path is marked by big flagstones sunk into the ground, a memory of many walks on the Pennine Way. Eventually the mist cleared sufficiently to reveal another old friend — Stoodley Pike Monument — just a shade beyond my destination for the day.

It's been good to get out these four days. I'll be back soon for the next hundred miles or so.