If you remember we left the canal yesterday at the entrance to a tunnel and we have now got to get to the other end. As the tunnel runs beneath the Pennines we have to climb over them and in doing so we will cross the border from Yorkshire to Lancashire. For NZ readers the Pennines are a mini version of the Southern Alps and modify the climate in a similar way with Yorkshire being dryer than Lancashire. This was why the cotton weaving factories set up in Lancashire and not Yorkshire. They need moister conditions.
The quickest route would have been straight up the A62 but today's walk is also a trip down memory lane for your blogger. In the 50's my parents used to bring all our family to Marsden to walk up the Wessenden valley. Initially we walked up to a large country house to have afternoon tea and then returned to Matsden. As my younger sister got older the walk was extended past the tea rooms and over the moor to Meltham.
So today we are setting out up the Wessenden Valley until just past the tea rooms when we will walk across the Wessenden Reservoir stop bank to pick up an alternative route to the Pennine Way and the A62. We will then follow the Oldham Way down to Diggle where the 2 Standedge tunnels, canal and rail emerge.
The photo below is a view back into Marsden, the day started with a steep climb.
The route soon levelled out and we got views over the valley to the A62
across a field with sheep.
There are 3 reservoirs in the valley, the first, the Butterly was very dry and nothing was going over the spillway.
There was more water in the Blakeley reservoir rurther along.
We next came to the turn off to the official route of the Pennine Way but went past it, and past the old house that used to be a cafe, to walk along the stop bank of the Wessenden reservoir.
There was no water coming over the spill over.
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