Walking The Pennine Way When I Was Eleven - Stage 11: (Tan Hill to Middleton-in-Teesdale)


Stage Eleven

Start: Tan Hill

Finish:  Middleton-in-Teesdale

Distance: 17 miles

Total Distance Walked: 137 miles

It says something about the relatively mundane nature of the walking on this stage that I can recall very little about it without the aid of a diary, which I had by this time neglected to keep.  Therefore this post is quite short.


The first part of the day was walking across the heather of Sleightholme Moor.  It was fairly flat and uninteresting but fortunately the weather was as obliging as it had been on the rest of the Way and there were few difficulties.  Apparently this part of the walk can be unpleasant in wet conditions but having coped with the moors at the start of the Pennine Way when we hadn't been "walk-fit" these seemed easy enough on springy turf.

The afternoon was a little more interesting in fields but I can't remember much about it.  We stayed in Middleton-in-Teesdale at a B & B following four nights under canvass.  I don't remember much about it or where we had supper.  Another seventeen miles had been knocked off without incident and they had seemed pretty easy, if unmemorable.

We had by now reached the half-way point of the Pennine Way and were more convinced than ever that we would complete our journey.  Apparently this wasn't the case for the "Family Party" who we met earlier on.  We had last seen them in Gargrave but heard that they had been seen in Bowes, an alternative route on this stage of the walk, and had stopped doing the Pennine Way there. 

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