10 3/4 miles
Weather -Warm sunshine
We had an excellent night's sleep and a splendid breakfast - our hosts were wonderful - and, best of all, we are staying here again tonight! I went out to see the sheep and share some toast with them (by the way - bread was homemade and delicious). I also thanked the chickens for the tasty eggs. Now, today's walk. Weardale was new territory for me and so I was excited about walking here. Behind the house the moor we should have walked over yesterday looked incredible - remote, stark, bleak, boggy, bliss.
We followed the path out of town and we were soon on The Weardale Way which was our host path for part of today's trek. It was a steep climb out of Westgate and, for once, the sun was shining. We reached the top of the valley and paused to look back over the town and further to the far side of the Weardale Valley where we could still see our B&B. Our hosts had promised to look out for us so we gave them a big wave as we crested the hill and disappeared.
We skirted Height Quarry - a working quarry - and then we heard gun shots. We rounded a bend in the path and laid out below and to the right of us was a line of men with shot guns and dogs. I think they were hunting rabbits. They saw us, they all stopped walking, called back their dogs and waited until we had passed round the next bend. So glad they were vigilant and organised! We followed a track which passed through a boggy redundant railway cutting and we descended the hill via Smailsburn to Rookhope. So far the scenery had been majestic - an industrial landscape full of quarries, mine workings, old rail routes, tram ways, moors, ruined buildings, blue skies,Green grass and no rain. It continued in this vein all day.
We decided to take advantage of a tea and cake opportunity in the mining village called Rookhope. We enjoyed a refreshing cuppa sat outside a pub and I'm glad we did as next we had to climb Bolt's Law Incline. We were now deep in Lead mining country and this was a track going 600 feet straight up along the Sustrans C2C cycle trail. All was fine until we reached the summit and then misread the instructions and missed a path. We continued along the main track and realised after 20 minutes we had gone awry. We retraced our steps and found what we thought was the right path but soon realised it was not. The path soon fizzled out and we found ourselves doing acrobatics and tussock hopping along a very, very juicy non existent path. We could see where we needed to be - two old lead mining chimneys in the distance but to get to them we had to cross a very boggy, wet, section of moorland. We followed a fence with the idea that it must eventually hit and a path. Well it almost did. Eventually we were back on the official route via some fence climbing, grouse scaring, swearing and a feeling of slight panic. At least it was a sunny day and we could see where we wanted to be but even now looking back at the maps I cannot see where we went wrong! Back on track we walked between the two chimneys and down the hill towards Ramshaw. Again this path was indistinct and extremely wet and boggy: basically the whole hill seemed to be a river and we were wading through it and this time we were scattering rabbits in all directions.
We eventually reached Blanchland which AW waxed lyrical about on his original walk. The tea room was still open and so, of course, we took advantage. Our Host from the B&B came to pick us up and drove us back for our second night's stay - very few B&B's round here. When we arrived back at the B&B a drink was offered, we were expecting tea but instead we gratefully accepted Gin and Tonics - Colonial style. We enjoyed them sat in the summerhouse and watched the sun go down - Cheers!
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