Hike Journal # 2: Bronte Waterfalls
@bingbabe completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge on Saturday. If you check the link, it’s supposed to take 12 hours to climb 3 mountains and hike 24 miles. She did it in just over 7 hours with her friend, more running than hiking.
Crazy or not, she ended up on the Red Cross Facebook page as the first ones to come in. It's not really surprising to be honest, but this kind of effort has consequences and these are in the form of the DOMS.
Day 2 is considered the ‘bad’ day for the DOMS and today is day 2 and so we went for a ‘short’ 4 mile hike. This one is here:
https://www.ifootpath.com/display-ifootpath-walk?walkID=3589
Consequently there were many ‘ows’ and ouchs’ coming from a distraught @bingbabe on the downhill sections of the walk.
You may or may not have heard of the famous ‘Bronte Sisters’ who lived in the remote village of Haworth in West Yorkshire. Haworth is the next town along from Stanbury which is close to where our hike started.
We struggled to find the entry point for the walk start as it is described as the car park for ‘Penistone Hill Country Park’. What we did find is a horrible stony road that didn’t do my car very much good with a deserted very large car park after maybe a quarter of a mile.
OK, car park discovered. We set off through moorland with lots of heather until we met a gravel track that brought us to a farm ruin.
These sights are a common sight over Lancashire and Yorkshire, buildings that’s have been abandoned and left to rot away.
This one had has the lower doors sealed so as to keep visitors away complete with warning signs. Only the sheep prevail here now.
The heather gave way to some dense ferns the lower down the trail we went until it was everywhere. There were no people around whatsoever, we didn’t see anyone.
The ‘Waterfall’ was little more than a bubbling stream with a reconstructed bridge connecting the two sides. It was easy enough to vault across as it was quite narrow.
The guide says. In this area you will see the chair shaped rock, where it is said that Emily Bronte rested to gather her thoughts.
I could not see this ‘chair shaped rock’ anywhere which was quite disappointing, unless it is in this picture somewhere (below).
I had plans to seat @bingbabe on it and for her to extract some 'Emily inspiration' leading to her writing a best selling contemporary novel, so I could put my feet up for the rest of my days!
It simply wasn’t to be, and the ‘chair’ was not to be found. The bridge has some etchings on it, stating it was destroyed by floods and had been reconstructed.
It was a nice place to take a dip in the stream as I had suddenly become very hot after the chilly start we had.
I noticed the signposts where also in Chinese or is it Japanese. They do cater for Far East tourists in this region it seems.
A very steep climb from the stream took us onto moorland once again and eventually on to a stone road leading down to the village of Stanbury. It was getting very hot despite the cloudy skies and very muggy. There were a lot of biting insects about and it was a little uncomfortable at times.
The road wound down and took us on to the main road to Howarth. This is an old village with old style cottages, some dated. I have noticed that several of the very old houses and properties in England have these dates on the front, etched into the stonework.
We passed this seemingly abandoned large house with a date of ‘1753’. It does seem a shame that these old relics are just left to rot away.
Next to this old house was ‘The Wuthering Heights’ public house on the far side of the village and I noticed the claim, ‘Welcoming Folk since 1763’.
Emily Bronte was not born until 1818 so I think the pub may have been there but has since changed the name to cash in on its famous neighbours. We couldn’t go in as it was closed.
Leaving the town, we turned left for the last and most tedious stretch of the walk. The reservoir had noticeably less water in than usual due to the drought that England is having right now, and on the other side was this monster hill with our car sitting at the top.
I was drenched in sweat by the time we arrived. The walk is labelled as ‘2 Boots – Quite Easy’, and it was besides this last part. I was glad to be back in the car.
Not a bad walk, but not too much to see besides the ‘waterfall’ which wasn’t a waterfall! Perhaps the dry season had it evaporated it
If you found this article so invigorating that you are now a positively googly-eyed, drooling lunatic with dripping saliva or even if you liked it just a bit, then please upvote, comment, resteem, engage me or all of these things.
Massive congratulations to @bingbabe - that's a huge achievement, and I hope she stops aching soon!!
Your walk looked rather lovely - shame you couldn't find the chair! I can't believe that gorgeous old place was standing empty- what a waste of a beautiful home.
I really enjoyed your photos- thanks for taking me along with you on your walk. E x
Thanks, I have a feeling it may be this stone.. in yellow but cant be sure. There were no clues.
That's a beautiful hiking path.
On a side note, the Asian writing on the signpost can be either chinese or Japanese kanji, they mean the same thing which is "walking path".
How weird to see signs in Chinese on hikes, first time I've seen that. The Chinese tourists don't generally hike when they're on holiday, and those who do, know English.
Is it Chinese? I wasn't sure.
Sounds to me like Chinese tourists on holiday have better sense.
looks like a beautiful walk. :)
This is quite a terrain! Love the old style cottages! Modern life is boring.
Lovely travel post @slobberchops, I always find it so sad to see dwellings in ruins like that - thinking of how vibrant it must have been in its time!
Thanks @lizelle :)
There's a beauty in the bleakness of the place. It's hard to describe yet seemingly understandable that the Bronte's were inspired by it.
Good point, the waterfall might be much more impressive when it isn't quite so dry. We have a lot of places like that around here. Looks like you had a nice walk and still quite the hike for "taking it easy"!
Do you know how crazy this all sounds to those of us who aren't into ... well, ... serious pain??? I'm not kidding even a little bit. I don't get all this running and climbing and then wishing you were dead for the next three days. But I guess it beats some of the other stuff you've been known to do.
Srsly. Stay safe.
I'm trying to get fit, the walk was quite decent except the end with that monster hill. I'm out of work at the mo, so I'm using the summer weather here to try and keep fit a little. Another hike today probably, though maybe a little shorter as my calf is a little injured.
That walk looks very atmospheric - real Bronte country. I couldn't help thinking of Kate Bush...
I visited the Bronte museum in Haworth with my family when I was about 13. It still sticks in my mind. We were astonished at how tiny their shoes were, and there were also tiny little books with teensy writing. And a painting of Charlotte running on the moors with her dog, which made me feel a real connection to them.
Well done to @bingbabe! That is some achievement.
We visited the museum about 2 years ago. All interesting stuff, they didn't live very long due to the water in the area. People used it for all kinds of things which created disease.
I was gonna stick the Kate song on the bottom, but it seemed a little cheesy somehow :)
I never realised that it was the water! But their father and brother survived. Maybe they drank beer.