Pennine Way Day Two - Padfield to Standedge

Distance: 17 miles
Ascent: 950m
Weather: wet, wet, less wet, wet
Bogs, rivers, ponds, rain, mist

Buzzards, red kites, baby pheasants.

Forgotten keys: 1

Detours: 1

As we set off this morning, there was blue sky and a very bright rainbow, unfortunately just not in the direction that we were going in. The skies over the hills were very dark and wet looking indeed. We retraced our steps back to the end of the Trans Pennine Trail and, taking a brief look down a slippy tunnel, went a bit further and over the reservoir. There was a nice little wood to act as a wind break, but at Crowden we turned up the valley into the wind and rain. There were some birds of prey,  definitely some of them were buzzards, some might have been red kites. As we headed up the valley side towards Laddow Rocks,  we met a runner coming the other way who commented that there were a couple of gnarly river crossings ahead. He wasn't wrong. 

Everything was in spate. The paths were streams,  the streams were rivers and the fords were indistinguishable from them. We managed to avoid the gnarliest of the river crossings by heading up the hillside,  and took a few detours upstream to find crossing places over others, the one near North Grain took a while,  with much wandering through wet grassy bogginess. But we made it over the stream (me by flinging myself head first into the reeds on the other side) and back to the stone flagged path,  which was much appreciated even if it was running with water. 

Coming down off Black Hill we saw a sign cautioning about the difficult ford crossing at Dean Clough so decided it would be wise to take note. The detour added an extra mile, through wet grass, fords and more bog (Rob was lucky to escape with his shoe from one - we decided that the crossing at Dean Clough must have been very difficult indeed, possibly even guarded by bears) on to the Intake road and returned via the Kirklees Way, having to climb over a chained up gate which was odd.

No sign of the burger van as we crossed the Isle of Skye road,  then headed down to Wessenden Reservoir,  startling a pheasant with some babies. It was dry-ish but misty along here.

As we dropped down and back up the steep clough, the heavens opened, but soon it was blue sky and sunshine, and lots of birds singing. It rained again as we got near the reservoir and the A62, but as we went in the pub it stopped. We are staying at The Carriage House, which is very comfortable and does lovely Turkish food.