Pennine Way 1998

If you are a British walker then the Pennine Way is something that demands to be done. The original long-distance trail, it's a 270-mile walk up the middle of northern England from Edale in Derbyshire to Kirk Yetholm, just over the border in Scotland. I did it in 1998 with my friend David. It took us 16 days, plus one rest day.

Dave and I were extremely unlucky with the weather. Even though we went in the middle of summer, it turned out to be the third-wettest July of the 20th Century! Consequently, it rained every single day - often non-stop. We are now world-experts on mud.

David at the start - Edale. Note the look of optimism. A couple hours later, when we were blundering around in zero-visibility on the top of Kinder Scout, our optimism was taking a bit of a knock...

Dave managed to injure himself in new and improbable ways almost every day. Here he is bandaging himself up on the first evening. He finished the walk looking like The Mummy. The bandaging could take anything up to an hour a day. Notice the white leather at the top of my boots. This turned deep brown after crossing the summit of Black Hill (aka the Somme). I hear that Black Hill now has a pavement. I think doing the PW without wading through thigh-deep waterlogged peat isn't right somehow.

The sheep near Howarth were desparate to steal our fruit pastilles. I suppose all that grass gets a bit samey after a while...

The sparrows in Malham are so used to campers that they cheerfully came and ate from our tent. Note the slapdash application of seam sealant on the tent. Thank goodness I did it though, given all the rain. This tent had three poles, two of which snapped along the way. By the last couple of days our bodies seemed to be holding it up more than the poles. But having said that, I've never had a tent before or since that was so good at avoiding condensation.

One of the few periods of sun. We had a whole morning of nice weather on our rest day at Horton-in-Ribblesdale. After lunch it started to lash it down with rain again, forcing us to shelter in a nearby pub (what a shame).

Dave's feet after the first hundred miles. Not a pretty sight. Take note: make sure your walking boots fit perfectly

Swaledale. Heaven on earth.

A brief rest in a meadow. Sitting down in the afternoons was dangerous, though. Sometimes we just couldn't get up again.

The cave behind the Tan Hill Inn where we spent the night. We drank far too much that evening and the next day had to navigate across mist-shrouded moors on compass bearings, which was quite hard work with a stonking hangover.

Teesdale. The route follows the river Tees for quite a long way.

After a couple of days, hunger started to dominate our every waking moment. As soon as breakfast was gone, we'd be planning lunch. As soon as lunch was eaten we would start six hours of crazed fantasies about dinner ('And there'll be Cumberland sausages the size of sleeping bags, and a sticky toffee pudding with three litres of custard, oh! and the chips...!' etc.). Here's Dave desparately trying to get into a tin of corned beef before he collapsed with hunger.God's Bridge (which I think is in County Durham)

Mucking about on a bridge. It's like a cut-price Indiana Jones, isn't it?

High Cup Nick, Cumbria. Lovely. We were very lucky to see this at all. It had been a throughly miserable day, with driving rain and mist, and just as we arrived the clouds parted to give us this view. A real once-in-a-lifetime moment. Richard and Anne (see below), who were there a few minutes earlier, saw nothing. On this day we walked with a thoroughly nice man called Ian Blair, who had just retired and was walking the PW 20 years after doing it with a friend called David. Spooky!

Feeling pleased with ourselves on the top of Cross Fell, the highest point in the Pennines. Note the clothes, and remind yourself this was July.

Hadrian's Wall. The route follows this for about six miles. Along the way is the bit that appeared in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, although there it was pretending to be a part of Kent.

Here's the first lizard I've ever seen in Britain. And bizarrely, it's half-way down the throat of the first adder I've ever seen! The Cheviots

The Cheviot Hills. There's a whole lot of nothing up there. This was a rare break in the clouds. It started to rain again literally 30 seconds after I took this picture.

For the last leg of the walk we were replaced by stand-ins from the Turbanned Warrior Sect

THE END! Looking thinner and fitter than I ever have before or since outside the world's best B&B. The others are Anne and Richard, whom we met along the way. This town, Kirk Yetholm, is filled with hiking boots. People get to the end and throw them away shouting, "I'm never wearing these fucking things ever again!" The B&B owners planted flowers in them. You can just make out a pair on the doorstep.