John O'Groats to Land's End - Day 033 - Hawes to Horton in Ribblesdale

Day: 033

Date: Sunday, 03 July 2022

Start:  Hawes

Finish:  Horton in Ribblesdale

Daily Kilometres:  23

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  955

Weather:  Cool all day, windy and mostly overcast with numerous icy cold showers from late morning to mid-afternoon.

Accommodation:  Hotel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Full English breakfasts

  Lunch:  Skipped

  Dinner:  Chicken pie, peas & chips, Chocolate brownie & icecream.

Aches:  Nothing to report

Highlight:  Passing half-way (according to the guidebook) on our journey from John O’Groats to Land’s End.  It seems to be going very quickly.

Lowlight:  The regular icy showers, driven by a strong wind, were a bit of a downer.  We just seem to dry out from one and the next would arrive.

Pictures: Click here 

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We slept in a little and ventured to the hostel dining room for breakfast at 7:45am, along with most of the other residents.  It was packed.  After eating our fill, we finished packing and left the hostel soon after 9:00am to navigate our way out of the very attractive village of Hawes and back to the Pennine Way.

The first hour or so involved a steady climb up onto Cam Fell, a broad long mountain which we followed for much of the rest of the day.  It was plateau-like in places at the top - a soggy moor, populated by the ubiquitous sheep - but mostly our route ran high along the edge of the fell giving fantastic views to the west and down into the valley, occasionally marred by squally showers.

Much of our route for the morning followed the Cam High Road, another old Roman road.  You have to admire their energy and expertise.  Around noon, we began a gradual descent from Cam Fell and followed old cart trails, which were very rough and stony underfoot, towards Horton in Ribblesdale, our goal for the day.  We had a break, our first for the day, around 1:00pm, when we finally found a protected spot under a tree beside an old stone wall.

We reached Horton soon after 3:00pm and checked into our hotel.  It will be our most expensive night so far (and by far), because accommodation was hard to find.  The room is fine, though no shower, just a bath, and there’s no wi-fi or mobile phone reception.  We’ll manage, though it meant we had to go for a walk, after dinner in the pub, across the valley a little to upload photos and update Julie’s Strava.  Dave has paid for wi-fi access through a BT hot spot on his laptop, so he can do the blog and book some accommodation on our route ahead.