Ascent: 400m
Weather: sunny and warm
Beautiful day and beautiful walk down little paths and lanes through woodland with just about every type of flower in swathes (ed- plus Speckled Wood butterflies.) But in this world it seems you rarely get anything for free, and the path was a horrible churned up muddiness. We both got stung on the knees by nettles, prickled by holly and poked at by gorse, but at least nobody slipped and fell in the mud.
Crossed some small fields with rough fell sheep and a squirrel, through a gate onto higher track, more mud.
There was a bit of confusion in a cow field near a small farm at Hagg Wood about which bridge to cross over Levisham Beck, as the signs pointed in all directions. We made a decision and crossed the farthest footbridge, then walked through farmyard with big plush chickens and over the Farworth railway crossing.
The THW takes a steep lane up (hot!) and out onto stony lane lined with more trees and flowers. We heard what sounded like a buzzard. It is very pretty here, apart from the big, burly sheep. We took a detour into Newton hoping for early lunch at the White Swan but it is closed during the day (except Sundays) so we had a sit by the duck pond and watched the ducklings and a baby moorhen.
Leaving the village we entered some woodland and across Stony Moor, which is proper upland heath with rocks, heather and small trees plus plenty of bog. The path leads into a small pine plantation, which looked lifeless in comparison, and out into farmland (bunny!) and onto slightly (maybe) drier (maybe not) paths. We went along a few farm tracks and through a wood of silver birch trees, crossing the stream by a footbridge (passerelle!) and out on to lane into Cropton. We called in at the New Inn for a pint of Yorkshire Pale and Yorkshire Classic - and some crisps because they'd stopped serving food 2 minutes before we walked in.
Leaving Cropton along the road, with a horse escort, we stopped to look at a sign listing some woodlandy things round here, we've seen wood sorrel and dog's mercury, but nothing really exciting like the tawny owl they promised. A nice grassy track led through open woodland, and we made it to Appleton without needing to crack open the emergency food (beef jerky is a lot like Dwarf Bread.)
Leaving the walk for the day, we turned into Appleton (sheep on the main street!) and the Moors Inn, where they brought beer and made us sandwiches. I like it here. (No phone signal or wifi.)
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