Another day another climb and today the first of the day started at Hebden Bridge and headed out on to Wadsworth Moor. This time quite long but not too steep and for the first time there were four of us. We had to skirt Keighly and be careful not to get on any of the busiest road but were pretty successful. Up till now our pace had stuck at around 10mph and we were all quite happy with that. But today we were picking up speed. Calum wondered if we were showing off in front of Alan, perhaps we were trying to break Alan's spirit on his first day. I hadn't noticed the change of pace, all I knew was that we were heading for Skipton and I wanted to get there before the pies were sold out.
Calum being a vegetarian couldn't understand our rapture at tasting the freshest, juiciest, most porky of all pork pies. Once again we were not let down. Of course we stayed too long, ate too many pies and then had to tear ourselves away to head up the road towards Linton. We were really keen to stay there, once again this was a hostel under threat but it was not open that night.
We pressed on to Kettlewell, another fine hostel and on the way Alan broke a spoke. Now I did mention that this was his first day didn't I. A broken spoke already! Well incredible as it may seem we arrived at the hostel slightly before it opened so Alan was able to cope with the broken spoke situation before the doors even opened.
This hostel has been 'improved'. What this appears to mean is that the excellent member's kitchen has been demolished and replaced by a tiny, inadequate cooking area with a small number of tiny pans. This must be 'improved' taken from the special YHA dictionary. We were now in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, Calum was overwhelmed by the scenery and this also meant we were in 'Black Sheep' territory. We wasted no time in making our way to a pub and Bert (rather unwisely I thought) has three and a half pints of Riggwelter, that's the extra strong ale from the Black Sheep brewery.