After a bit of a kerfuffle with a confused taxi driver (there’s way too many Church Streets in Huddersfield), we met Paul, Bryan and Ros at the beginning of day 2’s walk, in Crowden. This was another remote stretch of the walk, with no phone signal or buildings in sight for most of the day. We again began with a reasonably relaxed path which then led up into an ascent, and again it rained on us! Luckily after this initial section of rain though, it cleared up and we had a fairly clear day. The path followed quite a steep ridge for the first part of the day and the height-averse people in the group didn’t particularly appreciate that. It eventually led down into a valley though, and after jumping over some muddy and marshy streams, the flagstone path followed a river across wide fields and up to the summit of a big hill.

We stopped at the summit for lunch and chatted to another guy who was doing the walk. He said he’d avoided the weather yesterday by hiking from 4-11pm! I can’t imagine doing the descents in the dark, but he did say the rivers were fine for him, no wading required. He soon headed off though and we followed not long after. From the summit, the path had a fairly steep descent into a peat moor valley full of heather. The path was made of flagstones and was fairly easy to follow, with just one sharp descent and ascent to ford a little river.

Crossing a big road at the top of the valley, we followed the path along a wider road alongside a succession of reservoirs. The sun was finally out and it was fantastic to have some warmth as we walked – enough to even pause and put on sunscreen! Crossing another little river, we climbed up a very steep path that led to another ridge. This path just followed across the hilltops for the last few miles, leading to another reservoir and a sharp turn towards the north. It was much easier to walk and chat along this path, not needing to focus on either the weather or steep hillside ascents. We had a nice surprise as we came over one hill to look into the distance to the South-West and see the skyscrapers of Manchester! After one final river crossing, we found a t-junction which either led to a little town or the carpark and bridleway where Aurelia would pick us up. We made such good timing along the last mile and a half that we actually beat her to the carpark. There was another little reservoir there so we sat and admired a beautiful view before being ferried back to our Airbnb. 18.9km in about 6.5 hours today!

Back in town, we  had a shower and threw some washing in the machine, then walked around to Paul and Aurelia’s place and from there drove to Magic Rock, a brewery in town. We had hoped they’d let us get Ubereats as they don’t serve food during the week, but unfortunately not! We tried a beer or two and then walked down the road to a Mexican restaurant in town. After an enormous dinner of chicken and chips and plenty of chatting, we headed back to the Airbnb and once again collapsed into sleep.