John O'Groats to Land's End: Tipps and Tricks

Churches and Cemeteries: When I hiked through Germany I always looked for churches and cemeteries. Why is that? German cemeteries almost always have a free and easily accessible water tap because people have to water the plants and flowers on the graves. And now the bad news for the UK: British cemeteries generally do not have water taps - because they graves are usually just plain tombstones with no plants.... So what about churches? In Germany I used them to recharge my electronic equipment while having lunch outside. In the UK this strategy showed mixed results: In most areas, especially in Scotland and Northern England I found that almost all churches were locked. But when I had almost given up hope I found that many churches on Offa's Dyke Path were extremely hiker friendly! Not only were they open and had electrical outlets, they also offered free tea-making facilities! That is something that should definitely be exported to Germany....

Animals: The UK is definitely a dog country. Nowhere else in the world have I encountered so many dogs.  Usually I am very afraid of dogs and have had some unpleasant experiences with them. But to my big surprise I never had any bad experiences on my JoGLE hike. I hardly ever saw a stray dog - almost all dogs are out with their owners. Although they are still dogs and have selective hearing I was never attacked or even felt threatened. Due to the dog density "No Fouling" signs are ubiquitous - as are they little dog doo doo plastic bags that are now littering the countrysides.... I have mentioned unpleasant cow encounters several times and indeed did I feel very threatened by cattle, especially after having read a magazine article about several hikers who had died in cow attacks. But I want to put this into perspective: All fatal cow attacks were connected with free running dogs. The dog attacks the cow who in turn wanted to protect its calf and went for the dog. Unfortunately, the dog owner then got between the cow and the dog - and got trampled to death. As I was hiking without a dog and trying to give the cows a wide berth I probably never was in any serious danger - although it felt very differently.... I liked sheep best: They always run away from you, do not make much noise and leave very little poo!

Clouds and sea on the SWCP

Weather: This hike proved that what we learnt in our English lessons at school really is true: British are obsessed with their weather! It really is the most favourite topic for small talk and countless times I was greeted with "Lovely day, isn't it?" - even if the whole day has been miserable and the sun had just come out for 2 minutes. Two things really surprised me about British weather: I did not expect such a tremendous difference between the weather up North and down South. Although I was hiking into from summer into fall instead of getting colder it got warmer and warmer because I walked from North to South. Although this can partly be attributed to an unusual weather pattern this year this huge range of climate should be taken into consideration when planning a hike - as should the probability of rain. It seems to rain almost every day and Brits think they are in drought when it has not rained for three days - I am quoting a native here. But the good news is that the rain usually does not last very long: Very often I would hike in sunshine with very little clouds, that became more and more within 15 minutes, then dumped a 4 minutes shower on me only to disappear and let me dry my now wet stuff in brilliant sunshine again. For me wind has been the biggest problem - not rain.

TT Rainbow in the Scottish Highlands

Equipment: I do not want to go through my whole gear list here - I was carrying pretty much what I am usually using on a long hiking trail. But I want to point out two pieces of equipment that posed a certain problem for me but worked out extremely well in the end. The first item was the tent: My default tent was a Tarptent Contrail but this has proved to be not very wind stable on my last trips. As I knew that I would be camping in very exposed terrain most of the time I had to bring something more robust and therefore I decided on a Tarptent Rainbow - which was even donated to me! And this tent worked out remarkably well. Only slightly heavier than the Contrail it was even roomier, very easy to set up and worked resisted the wind pretty good. It still is not a Hilleberg expedition tent, but is a very good compromise  between weight and stability. I will definitely take it again on a similar trip. The next concern was my sleeping bag. Although I had always used down bags before I realised that this would be a trip in very damp conditions with little opportunity to dry stuff in the sun. As down's warming capacity deteriorates rapidly when damp I decided to bring the BPL synthetic quilt. It worked surprisingly well, too: When temperatures dropped below zero Celsius I was still pretty warm in it - although I had to wear all my clothes. But still: it fared much better than expected and will probably become my standard bag from now on.

John O'Groats to Land's End: Conclusion

As you might have guessed from my previous posts this hike has not been my most favourite hike. To tell the truth it has probably been the worst hike I have done since I have started this blog. But still: If you asked me if I would recommend this hike to a friend I would not say "No". I would just say that there are better hikes out there. So why has this hike been such an unpleasant experience? There are various factors that in combination with each other turned this hike into a miserable trip. Some of them are just bad luck, some are my own mistakes, but most of all I came to the conclusion that the UK is not the greatest country for long-distance hiking:

Bad luck: I started August 11th and finished October 23rd. Right from the beginning of my trip all the way to the end of September I have had bad weather. Not disastrous weather like the torrential rain I had experienced on the Florida Trail or in Australia, just colder and windier than usual weather. I had frost on my tent on August 25th!!! The constant strong wind made hiking cold and miserable and camping challenging. Bad weather can happen on any trip but in the UK it has a much higher impact on the quality of your hike than in other countries. And unfortunately, Scotland and Northern England were experiencing a very cold and rainy summer this year. End of September the weather changed all of a sudden and I was rewarded with an unexpected glorious Indian summer. But unfortunately by that time I had already been so ground down that the good weather could not boost my morale any more.

My own mistakes: For JoGLE I had used the same sort of map / guidebook setup like on my hike through Germany a couple of months earlier. I had the whole route as a track on my GPS. The GPS had only basic maps, in this case Open Street Maps. I carried guidebooks with strip maps for the marked official trails and print outs for the stretches between them. On top of all that I carried an overall guidebook for the whole route by Cicerone - something that was not available for my German hike. This set up had worked extremely well for my hike in Germany, but was absolutely insufficient for JoGLE. Why is that? Well, in Germany there was not much need to find alternate routes due to bad weather. Also German trails are very well marked. Even if you do not have great maps, you will get there by just following the trail markers. The situation in the UK is very different: Gale force winds and driving rain very often made me want to change to a lower or less exposed route - but unfortunately alternative routes were not covered by my strip maps or print outs and my basic GPS maps were too unreliable and not detailed enough for creating alternates. Following established trails was not an option either: There are far less waymarked trails in the UK than in Germany and even if there was an established trail the waymarking is usually so bad that you will get lost without a detailed map.

Stile

A second mistake has been to trust the Cicerone guidebook. Although the route given in there, the list of trail town amenities and the sketch maps were pretty good and accurate, the break down into daily stages led to several problems. The author gives 2 schedules for JoGLE: 2 months or 3 months. I had always considered myself to be an experienced hiker and therefore believed I could easily do the hike in 2 months. I planned my resupply accordingly and set off with 9 days worth of food for the first 8 day stretch - and ended up with almost no food left in the middle of the Scottish Highlands because I physically could not hike the daily mileage. I only escaped starvation by detouring to Ullapool with the map another hiker had given me. Even in hindsight it is still a mystery to me how the author can suggest a daily mileage of 40 km and more in challenging terrain like the pathless Scottish Highlands, demanding  Offa's Dyke Path or the steep South West Coast Path. I was falling more and more behind schedule and getting more and more frustrated by it.

UK is not a good country for long-distance hiking: Keep in mind that I am writing this paragraph just with respect to long-distance hiking, e.g. month long camping treks. What is tolerable for shorter trips becomes a big problem if you have to deal with day after day after day! And some problems do not arise if you are not camping but using hostels and or B&B. What made me arrive at my "not suitable" verdict?

• No forest: As I have pointed out in earlier posts, only 5% of the UK is forested as opposed to 30% of Germany. And this leads to a serious problem for long-distance hikers: There is no shelter from the inclement weather. You are almost always directly exposed to the wind and rain. This can make hiking miserable and camping almost impossible. If you are able to find a rare patch of forest it will be fenced in and most probably completely overgrown. 

• Bad waymarking: There are not many fully waymarked long-distance trails. Of course there are thousands of public footpaths, but finding your way on them can be challenging. Because there are no trees, blazes on trees that are used in Germany will not be found in the UK. Instead you will see signpost showing you the general direction - and then you are on your own finding your way across huge pastures full of aggressive cattle or mud pools. If you are lucky you will find foot paths signs on stiles and gates, but again they will only show the general direction. Even with a good map and/or a GPS navigation is difficult and time consuming. 

• Difficult terrain: The combination of cattle, a lot of rain and no forest turns a huge part of British trails into one huge mud pool. Especially notorious are cattle gates: Because there is a lot of animal movement the area around them is generally one big dirt pool. But of course the gates are usually locked and you can only open it by stepping right into the deepest part of the dirt pool - yuk! Although you would assume that there aren't many steep climbs and descents because the UK does not have any high mountains. Wrong! Whenever there is a hill the trail climbs straight up the steepest slope only to drop straight down again immediately. It seemed to me that they tried to make the hills as difficult as possible in order to disguise the fact that there are no mountains. Also: Switchbacks do neither exist in British vocabulary nor on trails....

Can you spot the stile?

• Stiles and gates: It is not a great problem to climb a stile once in a while, but if you have to climb one every 10 minutes it starts to get annoying. I encountered the highest density of stiles on Offa's Dyke with up to 80 stiles in 20 km!!!! And of course most of them are not exactly easy: I encountered loads of half or completely broken stiles, slippery rock stiles and stiles completely overgrown with stinging nettles and/or thorny blackberry bushes. 

All those factors lead to a dramatic drop of my daily mileage. I usually hike around 36 km per day, whereas I was happy to cover 30 km on my JoGLE hike. The only stretches were I could actually just hike without spending hours on navigation, climbing stiles and mastering mud pools were on canal tow paths or rail trails. 

To sum it up: I think there is much better and easier long-distance hiking in other countries than the UK. If you do not want to specifically hike in the UK for whatever reason, I would just recommend hiking somewhere else. If you insist on hiking in the UK be prepared for a low daily mileage and lots of rest days due to bad weather. Carry good rain gear and bring detailed maps for the whole trail. If I was to hike in the UK again I would chose a route along towpaths and rail trails - or cycle John O'Groats to Land's End instead of hiking it. But if you are just looking for a 1 or 2 week hiking holiday the UK offers some really unique and beautiful trails like the Pennine Way, Offa's Dyke Path or the South West Coast Path. 

John O'Groats to Land's End: South West Coast Path

Walking towards Westward Ho!

I joined the South West Coast at Barnstaple still without a South West Coast Path guidebook. I had not been able to get the one I wanted in Bristol or any other town along my route. So I really pushed hard to make it to Barnstaple before shop closing time. I had even decided to reward myself with a stay in a B&B there. I reached the Visitor Information just 15 minutes before closing time on a normal weekday in October and asked them to book me into a nice B&B - only to find out that everything was fully booked! This was the one and only time I wanted to splurge - and then I cannot find accommodation.... I had to walk back for about 3 km to the last possible campsite I had passed without having indulged in a shower, laundry or other luxuries of civilisation. At least I had been able to purchase a guidebook 5 minutes before the book shop closed and was now able to plan the last days of my hike.

I must admit that I felt really tired and worn out by then. I had only about one week left to go but it seemed like an eternity. I just wanted this hike to be over - a feeling that I had not had before very often. I still wanted to finish but if I did not want to hate this hike I had to take it easy - and that is difficult on the SWCP that has constant steep climbs and descents. Therefore I made 2 decisions: Stay in hostels wherever possible to avoid camping in gale force wind and short cut the SWCP by flat road walking when quite country lanes offer an easy alternative. My first hostel stay on the SWCP was Westward Ho! This little town is really spelt like that - including the exclamation mark! The hostel was fantastic and I even had the whole dormitory for myself - an experience that should repeat itself in the two other hostels Boscastle and Perranporth. This was low season and hardly anyone else around except for the weekends when sometimes the whole hostel gets rented out.  The road walking was just a short experience: First of all because there were not too many feasible quiet country lanes, but mainly because I realised that the coast was really spectacular and even worth the constant ups and downs.

The terrain on the SWCP varies from walking on sand beaches to rocky cliff top walking and is truly spectacular most of the time. As an added bonus there is lots of evidence of former tin mining. There are mine shafts and ruins of former industrial buildings. You can even visit a former tin mine which is right on trail - but I must admit that I could not be bothered to see it. On average I had 1.500 meters of ascent every day and that does not put you in sightseeing mood. At least the weather was behaving itself during this last week. Camping became my biggest problem: There was no shelter from the wind on the exposed cliff tops and the only chance of finding a decent campsite was in the small valleys or by venturing a bit off trail into a little patch of forest. It was difficult to tell from the map what the ground would be like but I was usually lucky and found a halfway decent spot.

Eventually the end of my hike came into sight. I was counting down the days and hours and still feel a bit guilty about it. The SWCP is truly beautiful but I was not in the mood to enjoy it much. After a while all the rugged headlands and beautiful beaches looked pretty much the same to me. Most of all I was constantly worried about the weather changing. My hike had taken longer than expected and I was well into the second half of October. How long would this good spell last? Well, it lasted until my very last day on my thruhike - I was very lucky.

The End at Land's End

I finished on October 24th at Land's End in gale force wind that made walking difficult and even scared the tourists at this well visited tourist spot. It is so touristy that the famous "Land's End signpost" is owned by a professional photographer who does not allow individuals to take pictures of it with their own camera - you have to pay for that privilege.  I dutifully took some finish pictures, signed the John O'Groats to Land's End register, had a look into the gift shop and waited for the bus to take me to Penzance. My hike was finally over - thank God.

John O'Groats to Land's End: Offa's Dyke to South West Coast Path

M4 road bridge

The stretch between Chepstow at the end of Offa's Dyke and Bristol is pretty much a hiker's nightmare. First of all you have to cross the Severn River and the only way to day that beside swimming is the M4 motorway bridge. This bridge is 4 km long, is fully exposed to the elements and has 4 lanes of fast traffic on it. The only good news is that there is a separate bike lane that can be used for hiking and that I had exceptionally good weather on that day meaning that I did not get blown off. Once off the motorway bridge you meander around pastures and fields until you hit the suburbs of Bristol.

Bristol

It would have been a very long day without any good camping options if I had not planned a couchsurfing rest day in Bristol to break up this long stretch through urban areas. It came as a very positive surprise that my couchsurfing hosts almost lived on my route through the outskirts of Bristol! Phil and Sheila are very experienced couchsurfing hosts and guests and had a lot of interesting couchsurfing stories to tell. They have even couchsurfed in India - which has put some interesting ideas into my mind. As usual time was too short: So many stories to share and a lot of sightseeing to do. Bristol came as a very positive surprise, too: I had expected a rather ugly city with no sights and was surprised to find a vibrant city with plenty to see - I spent half a day in the newly opened Bristol Museum.

Dyke

Then I set off to tackle the second stretch of urban hiking through the outskirts of Bristol this time crossing the River Avon on the M5 motorway bridge. When I finally reached more rural areas I had to  mostly hike along dykes. This was all very low-lying country and instead of using fences pastures were divided by dykes. I had found a nice patch of forest on the map for camping but when I got there I had to realise that it was completely surrounded by a dyke - no way whatsoever to get in. It was totally overgrown anyways. What now? I did not really want to camp with all those curious cows... but luckily I found a nice patch next to a footpath - separated from the cows only by a dyke. 

Sunrise over Exmoor

Things got really bad when I reached Exmoor National Park. I have had decent weather for over 2 weeks by then but of course the one day I had to hike across moorland the weather turned bad. It rained the whole day and I was soaking wet. My morale reached a very low point when I met 2 farmers tending to their sheep and they told me: "We wondered wether we should go and work in this miserable weather, but you are even hiking in it?...." I should have just taken the next possible campsite then and had a half rest day. Instead I hiked on trusting my guidebook that promised campsites further along the River Exe. 2 hours later and even wetter than before I had reached Exe Head with not a single feasible campsite in sight. I looked around for almost an hour I could not find the tiniest piece of ground that would not bubble up water as soon as I stepped onto it. As light was fading I started to get desperate. I saw a tiny bit of forest but that was very close to a farm house. I did not dare to camp there without asking for permission - and usually I do not camp that close to civilisation. But this was one of the rare cases when I did not have a choice. I walked up to the farmhouse, knocked and yelled but nobody answered. I tried the door and it was open. I could have stolen the whole household as nobody was there but the house was clearly inhabited. So what to do now? I walked around a bit and then luckily the farmers showed up clearly surprised to find a totally drenched, slightly incoherent hiker at their doorstep - but they did not have any objections to my camping plans. And this being the UK I was immediately invited to a cup of tea. 2 hours later I emerged back into my tent after several cups of tea, half a dozen eggs, my clothes dried in their boiler room and loads of knowledge about farming in the UK. I had quizzed them with hundreds of questions and it had been especially interesting for me to compare my Australian agricultural  knowledge with the UK.

John O'Groats to Land's End: Offa's Dyke Path

Chirk Castle

I wanted to join Offa's Dyke Path as far north as possible in order to be able to see the 2 National Trust castles along the trail: Chirk and Powis. But unfortunately between me and Chirk Castle was the totally unmaintained Maelor Way - and Chirk Castle closed at 5 pm! I decided to roadwalk to get there in time for some sightseeing. I arrived at 4 pm only to learn that I had to walk half a mile around the whole place just in order to get my free National Trust member ticket. By 4.15 pm I was completely pissed off with the whole castle idea, but at least in the possession of a ticket. But 45 minutes proved to be enough for the castle - although impressive from the outside there was not that much to see inside.

Once on Offa's Dyke Path I realised that I had run into a positive problem: Good weather! I could not believe it, but now - already towards the end of my hike when I had completely given up hope that the weather would ever improve - an incredibly warm Indian summer had begun. On October 1st temperatures nearly reached 30 degrees Celsius - after I had had frost on my tent in Scotland on August 25th! Day after day after day sunshine! I started hiking in shorts and a T-shirt and nearly got a sunburn. Now you wonder why all that is a problem. Well, I wanted to as much advantage of the good weather as possible and lose not a single day of sunshine for a rest day. I even skipped Powis Castle in order to hike on and on and on - and ended up hiking 2 weeks without a rest day. After all that bad weather I had not expected that the weather would stay that nice for so long. But I did not only need a rest, I most definitely needed a shower and laundry. I started to smell really bad even for thruhiker standards. I washed up in a lot of rivers and hand washed one piece of clothing at a time so I could dry it a the back of backpack while hiking. On my second last day on Offa's Dyke I got to Monmoth were I discovered a camp ground with a coin-operated shower. I could not believe my luck but had to realise then that I did not have a 20 pence coin needed to operate the shower. I went off to get change. The first person I asked did not have enough small change but gave me 20 pence. "Don't worry," she said. "I just want you to have a shower." I guess I must have smelled really bad....

Offa's Dyke offered a lot of hiker amenities: Lots of the churches were open to hikers and offered tea making facilities and sometimes even free biscuits or juices. Free food was available in the form of huge apple orchards, the occasional plum tree and loads of blackberries. And to my great relief the waymarking was excellent. Still hiking was not easy: The trail follows a dyke built in the 8th century by the Welsh king Offa in order to defend his kingdom against the English. The steeper the terrain the better for defence purposes - and therefore 12 centuries later I was climbing up and down every single steep hill that was around. I felt like back on the Heysen Trail in South Australia! The actual dyke is sometimes very well preserved - and has sometimes completely been ploughed over by farmers. Although it often looks more like a mole hill than a defence dyke I still had to admire the technical achievement of building this 285 km long wall with just manual labour in the 8th century.  Very little of Offa's Dyke Path is on exposed ridges, except the stretch along Hatterall Ridge at an altitude of over 500 m. But here you are rewarded with great views and the sight of wild ponies. Needless to say that when I hiked Hatterall Ridge I had glorious sunshine, but gale force wind....

Hatterall Ridge

I really liked Offa's Dyke Path a lot: Good waymarking, enough patches of forest for good camping, scenic and convenient trail towns and most importantly really nice hiking. The hiking is strenouos due the steep terrain but you see a lot of varied terrain. In addition to the usual sheep and cows (which here are very tame and used to hikers) you will even see wild ponies! I can definitely recommend Offa's Dyke Path and I prefer it to the Pennine Way because you are less exposed to the wind and the weather.  And if you are forced to have a rest day due to bad weather then there is plenty to see in the trail towns.

 

John O'Groats to Land's End: From Pennine Way to Offa's Dyke

I was really desperate to leave the Pennine Way: I was just fed up with the seemingly endless bog and the constant gale-force wind. I left it earlier than planned in an area where I unfortunately did not have any maps for... oops. Still by using my GPS map, asking day hikers and doing half a day of road walking I was able to connect back to my planned route. And what a relief it was to be off those exposed ridges! All of a sudden I was in low-lying, pretty agricultural country - apple and plum trees everywhere, no more wind and even sunshine! And the very best of all: I was back into trees. Of course there were no extended forests, but little patches of it and lots of trees lining the fields. Camping became easy again.

On my very first day off the Pennine I had a very funny experience: I had found a nice little forest patch on my map that even existed in reality when I got there. Nice pine forest, but very densely grown. And as always in the UK with a fence around it... But I managed to find a gate, fight my way through the trees and find a great camping spot on pine duff completely sheltered from the wind. Life was good again and I was enjoying an early dinner when all of a sudden I heard a voice. I was very much surprised as my little forest patch was surrounded by huge pastures - and no settlement in sight. So where would a person come from? To my even bigger surprise this person was not talking, but singing. Actually singing rock tunes very loudly?! What on earth was going on here? I was pretty much convinced that nobody could find me inside this little pine plantation jungle, but still... Well, after carefully peaking out of my tent and listening it turned out that some teenage boy with rock star ambitions was practicing being the lead singer while walking his dog. He was pretty persistent and sang for over an hour - not having the slightest clue that a very surprised German hiker was listening to his exercises hiding in the trees. It would indeed have been very embarrassing for either of us to be discovered...

Greeting comitee

My planned route was stringing lesser known trails together: The Gritstone Trail, South Cheshire Way and Maelor Way. Because they were less travelled than the National Trails I encountered new problems: First of all the cows were not used to hikers. As soon as I had to cross a field with cows I was checked out by my big four-legged friends. I developed the following strategy: Climb the stile into the pasture and wait for half a minute. If the cows ignore you, just continue walking. If you are immediately surrounded by inquisitive bullocks, climb back to where you have come from and look for a different way. Unfortunately because these foot paths are very little hiked they are also very badly maintained. I encountered lots of broken or non-existing stiles, bad waymarking and paths overgrown with stinging nettles. In short very hard work - until I discovered that there were canals close by. And that meant easy and smooth canal tow paths! The lesson I learnt is that 8 km along a tow path take as long as 4 km on an obscure and neglected trail like the Maelor Way. So even if the distance was longer it made more sense to detour to the tow paths. Better maps would have helped a lot but I still managed to make good progress eventually on tow paths and quiet country lanes only using the foot paths when absolutely necessary.

Moreton Hall

This stretch also brought a nice cultural surprise: Moreton Hall, a medieval castle now run by the National Trust. And I being a National Trust member could visit for free. Nice forest close by that provided lovely camping turned this day into a real delight. Plus the weather was getting better and better every day - I could not believe my luck. I started to look forward to Offa's Dyke Path, the next National Trail along my route.

John O'Groats to Land's End: The Pennine Way 2

I had hoped that after a rest day in the youth hostel in Alston the weather might have had improved - and the forecast had predicted a less windy day. So off I went in the morning in order to go over Cross Fell - the highest and most exposed place on the whole Pennine Way. Cross Fell is just 893 meters high which is nothing really measured with German standards. But here in the UK with nothing between you and the Atlantic Ocean the winds on top of it were horrible. Again I had to be careful not to been blown over. I had realised before how dramatically the weather can change here but on top of Cross Fell a sunny and clear day turned into an almost complete white out with 10 meters visibility within 10 minutes! But with my GPS and following the flagstones I managed to get down Cross Fell into a nice and calm valley with no wind at the end of the day.

I still had seemingly endless days to go on the Pennine Way and I felt already thoroughly fed up with the miserable weather. Luckily another highlight of my trip should come up soon: A visit to my old PCT hiking friend John who lives close by the Pennine Way. We had started the PCT together back in  2004 and had even hiked one day together. We both finished on different days but had always stayed in contact - and this would be my chance to meet him again. We had arranged a date and place where to meet and due to his schedule I could walk at a leisurely schedule now. This came in very handy when one day at 2.30 pm I came across a very nice shelter on the trail. Of course this shelter was not mentioned in any guide book or any map: Brits seem to think that hikers do not need to know where shelters are - I had found that out already in Scotland with the mountain bothies.... I could not resist the temptation and settled into the shelter reading a book and relaxing - when all of a sudden all heaven and hell broke lose and it started pouring down hard. It rained so hard for half an hour that water was flooding into the shelter from underneath the door!!! I was very glad not be out there hiking and was rewarded with an incredible rainbow the next morning. Of course as soon as I left the shelter it would start raining again....

Crazy John 

By the time I arrived in Horton-on-Ribblesdale and was picked up by John's partner Steph I was thoroughly fed up with the whole Pennine Way. It did not really boost my morale when John explained to me that the insufficient waymarking on the Pennine Way was done intentionally in order to achieve a sort of wilderness experience for the hikers! I was already way behind my original time schedule at that point and was getting worried about the ever deteriorating weather and my equipment that might not be really up to an English autumn. I was especially worried about my sleeping bag which at that point was just a synthetic quilt. I had already woken up in a frozen over tent in August and thought I would not survive colder weather without a proper winter sleeping bag. When I told John about my worries he just asked me: "What sleeping bag do you want?" First I did not understand his question but then he explained to me that as a freelance writer for outdoor magazines he gets a lot of equipment for free - for writing test reports. He actually came up with 4 synthetic sleeping bags I could chose between as a present. He wanted to clear his storage rooms and claimed that I would actually do him a favour by taking one. What hiker can resist such an offer? I mailed my quilt back to Germany and continued my hike with a new winter sleeping and other such goodies as replacement tent stakes and a new gas cannister. And of course we had a lovely time chatting about the good old times on the PCT. I left his place in relatively good spirits only to be drenched by a major downpour a couple of hours later and getting nearly hypothermic on another exposed ridge the same evening...

Malham Cove

I knew that in a few days another couchsurfing stay would come up in Hebden Bridge and also the trail offered a lot of very scenic highlights : Lots of waterfalls, High Cup Nick which is a fantastic glaciated valley and Malham Cove to name just a few. But the weather and the hard walking had ground me down. When I arrived in Hebden Bridge I was already counting kms before I could leave the exposed Pennine Way and return to some gentler hiking. And I had given up all hope on the weather ever improving. I still asked my couchsurfing host Karen to have a look at the weather forecast and we both could not really figure it out. We could not find the column for the probability and amount of rain. After a lot of guessing around we found the solution for this mystery: The forecast predicted a 0% chance of rain for the next 4 days. And that is something almost unheard of in Britain I assumed. I could hardly believe it but it almost turned out the be true. Only a little bit of drizzle for the next couple of days and then a major change of weather occurred: I was to experience a British Indian summer!

High Cup Nick

But to sum up the Pennine Way: It is a really very nice and incredibly spectacular and scenic hike - if the weather is good or decent. But if the weather is miserable you are in for big trouble. There are hardly any less exposed alternative routes to escape the wind and rain and hiking along these exposed ridges of the Pennines is a sure recipe for hypothermia. Do not assume that you can compare conditions between other countries and Britain at the same altitude - anything above 400 meters in the UK will be exposed and hard to walk in in bad weather. The lack of waymarking and fog with little visibility can make navigation a big issue. More than once could I see less than 10 meters and mistook cows for signposts! And of course you will be wading in mud most of the time.... No wonder that the popularity of the Pennine Way has steadily declined during the last 10 years. Half of the youth hostels along the trails have closed down you meet very little hikers along the trail. Still, it is a great trail - if you are willing to suffer through all I have mentioned you will be rewarded with unique sights.