Pennine Way Day Twelve - Dufton to Alston

Distance: 21.5 miles
Ascent: 1140m
Weather: cloudy
Humming snipe, golden plovers, curlews, hebridian sheep, geese in the mist, goats, millions of bunnies and chickens.

As we were leaving the New Inn, they were getting ready for a busy day preparing for the Appleby Horse Fair - by moving the furniture and taking all the pictures off the walls.

The way back to Dufton didn't seem so far this morning, as we knew what to expect and how to avoid the swampy lake obstruction. In Dufton, there was a disparity between our map route and the guide book, so we it may be that we took a short cut, but it wasn't deliberate.

A wood lined footpath headed up on the moors, becoming a track through sheep fields. There were a couple of young sheep headbutting and scampering, who turned to look at us all innocence as we passed.

The Pennine Way turns off the track just through a gate with a stream and becomes a rocky path in the grass. A steep climb took us up to Green Fell, Knock Hush and into the clouds. The streams up here are called Hushes, from when there was mining for lead in the area. Dunfell Hush is marked as disused, so does that mean that the others are still in use? There are a lot of old mine workings and shafts. And Shake Holes. So many Shake Holes.

We passed the Knock Old Man cairn and walked over The Heights, Great Dunn Fell (which apparently has a big white radar dome on the top, we just saw the bottom of a couple of masts and some funny looking blobby things.)

A stone flagged path leads down towards Little Dunn Fell (where I thought we were at Cross Fell but we weren't) and then over some streams and up on to Cross Fell. There was bad visibility and we followed the map and a line of cairns to the shelter.

We had lunch at the shelter (with good company) and then followed the map and line of cairns off the summit.

The clouds began to clear as we descended, and apart from a few rain showers, it was dry most of the day. There were some impressive Cumulonimbus clouds and little patches of blue sky. A clear track lead down into Garrigill (where the shop and pub are shut down but they do have nice public loos) and then we walked alongside the South Tyne River (which you get to through a very strange scrap yard / chicken farm / rabbit sanctuary place) and though meadow fields until we got to Alston. You can tell you are getting near town by the amount of dog poo on the paths.

We are at the Cumberland Hotel in Alstom, which is nice. I have had a Bewcastle Brown Ale and Rob is having Yates. We have seen some horse and traps go by and there are quite a few horses in the field at the back. Again it seems that we've been lucky with the weather, as there are some cyclists here who've come from Penrith and it rained most of the way.