A Day In The Life

Saturday 2 June – Hebden Bridge

Rest day! Oh what bliss those two words mean….

Because of a late unexpected change in accommodation we’ve had to stay in two different places, but both hosts have been really accommodating about either storing our packs for a while or letting us have early access.

After Skyping Genevieve we spent a very pleasant three hours wandering around Hebden Bridge. This is not our first visit, having been here with the girls back in 2005, and we remembered how charming this large village is, so were delighted to renew our acquaintance. Most of the buildings are of the local gritstone, which starts off slightly darker than the pale stone of the Cotswolds but develops a darker sooty colour over time. The commonality gives the village a real sense of visual coherence. As it’s in a fairly deep valley it has a feeling of closeness about it.

With both the Calder River and the Rochdale Canal running through the village, there’s plenty to add to its character. We spent an hour at one point at a café by the cobbled Market Square, simply watching the world go by, resting our feet while other people used theirs! With a number of walks and lovely places to visit in the vicinity, it’s definitely on the list of places we’d like to return to.

As well as it being a rest day, we thought it’s a great opportunity to describe what a typical day ‘on the trail’ looks like. Every day is different, of course, but they have some common features, and by now we have a fairly well-established routine. So here is A Day In The Life.

We start with getting dressed (who’d have guessed?) and maybe a bit of sorting out, then it’s time for breakfast. Generally this is from 8am, though in a few places we’re able to eat earlier. Most places offer cooked as well as continental breakfasts. Through trial and error, we’ve settled on muesli and toast for Val, and muesli and a stripped down cooked breakfast (and a decently strong coffee!) for Peter. Packing up afterwards doesn’t exactly take hours – after all, what came with us goes with us, and by now we know what best packs in where.

On a few days, such as through the Pennines, we use a pack transfer service, but most of the time we’re carrying everything.

We set off about 9am, with the map of the day’s route in in our waterproof map holder plus (where we have one) a guidebook. We’ll often walk till around midday, with Val having snacked on a muesli bar along the way. Ideally sometime from now a café or a pub will hove into view, an opportunity for Peter to satisfy his caffeine craving, a cold drink for Val, and hopefully a slice or a piece of cake. Frequently there’s nothing available so we make do with snacks we carry such as biscuits or crisps or fruit.

We’re fairly set after that. Peter has found the cooked breakfast carries him through the rest of the day, whereas Val is more likely to snack as she goes along. Both of us will have a chocolate break mid-afternoon if our energy is flagging!

Our ideal distance is around 22 to 25 km, which we can do comfortably and still arrive at our destination by around 4 or 4.30pm. Much longer than that, and we start to slip into ‘destination mode’ where the arrival at the destination is much more appealing than the journey itself. If we’ve got there by 4.30 it gives us a chance to freshen up and relax into pre-dinner mode. This would include writing up our blog (and, wifi permitting) posting it. With some of our later arrival days, we’ve basically had to drop our packs and go and get dinner.

Typically after dinner, we don’t want to do much, we just want to relax, texting updates to family, maybe the odd email, reading or watching something on TV. By 10pm we’re generally dozing off, so it’s time for sleep…

Repeat again tomorrow!

View from our bedroom window:

Hebden Bridge street: