18 miles/30 km

Total miles: 72 miles/116 km

The day started by crossing farmland for a few kilometres between Ickornshaw and High Stubbing which meant quite a few ups and downs through rolling farmland to begin the day. After a while of this, we descended to Lotherdale which is the last former mill town on the Pennine Way. The village was decked out with flags for the platinum jubilee of the Queen next weekend.

After Lothersdale, we climbed up to Pinshaw Beacon through moorland and then down through a steep descent to the village of Thornton-in-Craven.

Sadly on Pinshaw Beacon, there was a monument to all the people in the UK who had lost their lives to coronavirus. Shortly after the village, we went through some farmland and had a chat with the local farmer, an old hand in his 60s. He was a chatty fellow and we spent the best part of 15 minutes discussing the differences between Australia and the UK and the changes in both countries over the last few decades.

We then went through East Marton along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and it was nice to see the narrowboats moored up enjoying the sun.

Finally we reached our lunch stop of Gargrave. I have been through here many times whilst driving to the Dales but this is the first time I’ve walked here from Derbyshire. We had a quick look around and the best fish and chips from The Frying Yorkshireman.

I was by this time struggling with a sore knee which had progressively been getting worse over the past few days. By Gargrave, I was struggling to walk and it was good to have the break to recover a little. I was a little worried about making it the next 10km to Malham.

From Gargrave, it was a beautiful walk along the River Aire into Malham. The Aire is not so beautiful by the time it flows past Bradford and Leeds but here the water was crystal clear as it flowed over the limestone rocks. The weather was great and we stopped a few times to take in the scenery and even to dip toes in the water.

After a long day, we finally reached Malham with an extremely sore knee making walking quite difficult by the end. It was amazing to see Malham Cove and to realise we had walked all the way here from Edale. Malham is the start of limestone country!