Tue 25th May - Day 39, Gordale Br (Malham) to Hardraw (26 miles)

I started at 07:00 in the sun and had a short, sweet scramble up past the waterfalls in Gordale Scar to get up onto the top and then pick up the minor road to Malham Tarn.

It was starting to cloud over as I went round the tarn to pick up the path again.

First it was the climb up Fountains Fell (600m) and back down to the road, then the climb up Pen-y-Ghent, the highest point of my walk so far at 694m.

I was up here by 12:00 so I had my lunch here before deciding to change my route and bypass Horton in Ribblesdale, my intended stop for the night, and push on to Hawes.

I came down the hill to the track then cut across Horton Moor to rejoin the Pennine Way on a farm track/drove road, 2 kms north of Horton.

I stayed on thses tracks for 16 kms, just about all the way into Hawes. At Dodd Fell I waited for a good few minutes while a farmer and his sheep dogs rounded up some sheep and moved them past me.
The path left the track at this point and went across and down the fell into Gayle then Hawes but I elected to stay on the track.
In hindsight it would probably have been easier to keep to the path as the last few kms of the track was very stoney.

I got to Hawes at 18:00, my campsite was a bit farther on at the Green Dragon PH, Hardraw so I had a meal in a cafe (I thought I deserved it) and did some shopping before finally getting there at 19:45.

The landlady was outside the pub so I asked her if she was the Green Dragon, I don't think she appreciated that !!

This was only a backpackers campsite and the only facilities were in the pub which wasn't all that convenient but it had been a long day, the 26 miles were a lot more than I had planned, so I was staying here regardless.

655 miles completed.