Pennine Way day 5 (tue 22nd april) - Cowling to Malham (16 miles)

After a great night's sleep we head down to the dining room for scrambled eggs and cereal to set us up for the day ahead and head off about half 9. It's a miserable day today and the first time it's rained so far on our walk but we get on the waterproofs and head out of Cowling and spend most of the morning traversing field after field which is ok to begin with but gets a bit boring after a while especially in the pouring rain. We have a quick stop off in Thornton-in-Craven for a pasty and some more ibuprofen and we're relieved when we finally get to the Leeds-Liverpool canal towpath where we come off at East Marton and head for the pub to dry off and have a drink. There's a lovely roaring fire and it would be all too easy to sit here all afternoon so we try not to linger and head back out into the rain.

Then it's more fields where we briefly get a bit lost before retracing our steps and getting back on track and eventually arrive in Gargrave pretty exhausted at this point but feeling like we're making progress and not too far from the end! We stock up on a few bits at the co-op and then set off towards Malham.
In other circumstances the walk between Gargrave and Malham would be absolutely beautiful following the river through the valley but we are both absolutely done in, the last few days have really caught up on us and it is all i can do to practically drag myself there…i could've actually cried when i saw the steep road through Hanlith, but there was nothing else for it but to keep going…we must've looked pretty dreadful when we finally arrived at the Lister arms at 6pm, the young polish girl running the bar looked at us as if we were mental when we told her what we were doing, especially when she tried to lift chris' rucksack to help us up to our room! 

Chris got a pint and took it down to the stream to soak his feet and once we were showered and changed we had the lovely surprise of some of our friends coming to meet us for tea in the bar, it was really great to see them and lifted our spirits after what had been a really hard day. 
We had a fab time and drank a bit more than we should have but it was lovely to have some company and we were so grateful they'd made the trip over.  We saw the couple we'd met a few times doing the pennine way and they'd stayed near Ponden reservoir the night before which would've made for a really long days walking…don't think i could've walked another step today!