Training Weekender Day 2 - to Todmorden

Distance: 19 miles
Ascent: 900m
Weather: cloudy start, warm and sunny later

After yesterday's walk there was much excitement listening to England beat South Africa in the cricket and then with the unexpected appearance of a beetle.

After breakfast we set off just before 10am,   down the road to the bridge over the motorway, before crossing some fields of very long wet grass. Shoes, socks and trouser legs quickly became pwt. Thankfully we were soon into sheep fields with short grass and on to a track.

The first five miles today were through fields of confusion,  with fences and locked gates and paths not being where they were shown on the map. A chap mowing his lawn came over to assure us that the path was open,  after we'd aborted with the fear that the footpath would be impassable.

A potentially boggy stream crossed, after being barked at for a long time, in a little meadow next to a small waterfall which seems to be being incorporated into gardens, when a female pheasant jumped out at me and ran around while her baby hid in the bushes.

The field confusion ended with us emerging from an overgrown, nettley footpath in front of a cottage with a blue plaque to John Stancliffe, Horologist.

A track led downhill alongside woods, where we heard a green woodpecker, then took a lane which led to Fiddle Lane (no fiddling experienced)  and on to the Calderdale Way. We had to do a bit of extra up here, but were rewarded by seeing a donkey, goats and chickens.

We bought provisions at the  Co op in Ripponden,  stopping for first lunch at the memorial gardens opposite. Heading up from town we saw a bunny and a squirrel, and as we got up onto moorland there were swallows, curlew, lapwing, raven, jackdaw and housemarten.

Second lunch was had by Round Hill, on a wall by a sheep field, where it was quite breezy, but there were fine views over buttercup fields to Studley Pike. We crossed the hills to Todmorden along the Calderdale Way and Centenary Way passing Catherine House, which has an impressive chimney, along Coppy Nook Lane and passing by Withins Clough reservoir.

The route took us around Todmorden, through woods on a cycle track above the town. before dropping down near the sports centre to head under the tall arches of the railway bridge and up to the Staff of Life Inn.