Pennine Way - April/May 2014

Earlier this year we finally got round to doing the Pennine Way. The Pennine way was England's first long distance path to be classed as a national trail and runs for approximately 256 miles along the backbone of northern england from Edale in the peak district up to Kirk Yetholm on the scottish borders.  We'd never been particularly keen to do this one, imagining it as a long slog across bleak moorland for the most part and put off by the amount of annual leave we'd have to take from work.  Well guess what?...although there certainly were parts of the walk that were bleak,boggy and back breaking they were thankfully few and far between….interspersed with some of the loveliest and most awe inspiring scenery this country has to offer! We ended up having the most amazing time and enjoying it so much more than we ever expected! Taking advantage of the late easter bank holidays/may day we managed to plan in a 17 day walk, only taking 9 days holiday from work!
We also decided to carry all our own gear this time but to stay in B&B's rather than camping, it worked pretty well for us and we just used the sherpa van on a couple of the longer days to give ourselves a bit of a break, it was supposed to be a holiday after all! 
We used the trailblazer guide again and also the 2 A-Z strip maps that cover the Pennine Way which in the most part worked ok apart from getting very lost coming out of Hebden bridge….but more of that later!
I booked all the accommodation well in advance so we pretty much had our pick of places to stay, here's our itinery with accommodation providers which hopefully might be useful for anyone else planning a similar trip.