Oughtershaw to Whernside Manor

The third day started off pretty uncomfortably. Not only did I have the aches and pains of the past two days but my only pillow had been a cloth bag stuffed full of my spare clothes. Little did I know that that fitful night’s sleep was to be the best I was going to have in three days.

Mr Smith (aka Sandip) in a rare photo, proving to his mother that he did in actual fact do some of the walk.

After a hearty breakfast and filling up my water bottle with suspiciously yellow tap water we set off walking. Any traces of optimism I may have had remaining were soon beaten out of me by a rather unpleasant hill. within half an hour of setting off we found ourselves climbing up to the highest point of the Dales Way, the point incidentally where it also joins briefly with the Pennine Way.

I have decided, I am never, ever going to do the Pennine Way.

In my estimation I am at least 70lb heavier than all of the other walkers, therefore at a natural disadvantage when hauling my carcass up bloody great big hills. I proposed that given this handicap the others should have at the very least offered to carry my backpack up for me. Strangely enough they all refused, muttering something about me “eating all the pies”. The swine. Still, after much huffing, puffing, and cursing geological plate tectonics I made it to the top.

Then it was downhill for a bit, then flat for a bit, and all was looking right with the world. But then we received a message over the walkie talkies that the fast group had just had to tackle a slope that they had ominously christened “The Bitch Hill”. Oh joy.

My guidebook had said that The Dales Way was an easy gentle walk suitable for beginners! If I had had a mobile phone reception I’d have rung Amazon and demanded my money back.

The view from the top of The Bitch Hill. I’d like to say it was worth it, but quite frankly it wasn’t.

We were about five miles into the day and had nine more to go. I’m pretty sure that stumbling up that Bitch Hill was responsible for the problems I would later have with my right leg,. Mushy thinks it was responsible for the injury that saw him relegated into the slow group too.

Still, onwards and (thankfully) downwards. We spent a couple of hours traversing some pretty desolate moorland, then descended towards Dent Head Viaduct into another Valley bottom.

The remainder of the day was pretty much straight forward. We all ran out of water at one point and were too English to dare ask anybody for some. Thank god for honorary Scotsman Oli who saved all of our lives by knocking on the door of The Sportsman Inn. If he hadn’t have persuaded the landlady to allow us to fill our bottles from her outdoor toilet (the taps obviously) we would have all been desiccated skeletons by now.

“You ask”, “No you ask”, “No YOU ask”

Whernside Manor, the accommodation on the third night was slightly less salubrious than it’s name might suggest. The Manor was built by a slave trading family in the 18th century and it’s grounds were used to house the slaves. And I think I know where they kept them.

Gav and Jez very wisely chose to bow out at this point as they both had weddings to go to. Gav however would rejoin us later on the walk.

The facilities were basic, which was fine. The main problem was the fact that there were swarms of man eating midges outside and so we had to sleep with all the windows closed. Have you ever slept in a room with nine other sweaty snoring men with all the windows closed on one of the hottest nights of the year? No, neither have I because I didn’t sleep a wink.

Still it was cheap, and the owners (Lord and Lady something-or-other) even knocked £20 off the price when they heard we were doing it for charity, so it would be churlish to complain too much.

Vital Statistics

Time set off: 9:30am
Time arrived: 4:30pm
Rough distance traveled: about 14 miles
Number of times I sulked: 2

You can find more photo’s of the day here and you can still see the video for the third day over at the ITV local site. Neil has also kindly uploaded some of the day three footage to youtube:

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