South Pennines Walk and Ride Festival

Dot, Abbie, Chris and I joined twelve other people on a 9 mile walk around Gorple and Widdop as part of the South Pennines Walk and Ride Festival. We arrived at 10:00 in Gorple Car Park to find various people publicising local walking, taking our photos and asking us to fill in feedback forms. This is what you have to do to get funding for events like this nowadays so we dutifully complied.

We finally set off around the back of Gorple Reservoir on a glorious sunny day. The three dogs that were accompanying us seemed very happy to run and up and down the group and it got me wondering how far a dog would walk if kept running from the front to the back of the party all the way round. I guess it depends on the relative speeds of both.

 

After letting some cyclists past, overtaking them and letting them past again, we struck off across the moor to the Hoof Stones Height trig point (SD914291). It's pretty boggy up there despite attmpts to prevent erosion with what looks like hemp netting. By now people were beginning to get to know each other.

Norman, our leader wore a Hi Vis jacket with 'Walk Leader' printed on the back. Unfortunately this was covered over while he wore his rucksack. Nevertheless his cheery Lancastrian voice and humour made for a relaxed leadership style. He accompanied this with his 'Whistle System': Three blasts means stop, two blasts means slow down and one blast means go.

I can imagine it must be a potentially daunting prospect; leading a group as part of a Walking Festival where anybody could turn up. However, this was a very strong group of walkers with lots of experience including, I was assured, the World Womens' second fastest bog snorkeller!

We had lunch at the top and headed off West then North to walk back alongside Gorple Lower Reservoir which, unsurprisingly given recent weather, was completely full and overflowing. Several people had fallen over and got muddy now by inadvertently placing their foot into the many small holes caused by the now defunct lead mining activity. But they didn't mind.

We managed to shelter from a couple of showers in a ruined building and a shed and found our way back to the start at about 4pm. It had been very enjoyable 9 mile walk on a beautiful day with lots of interesting people to talk to. Everyone thanked Norman and we headed off home.