Heights

It's been eighteen months since I made further progress with walking Bradford's Millennium Way.

I started the journey walking from Baildon to Cullingworth in February 2012 and then from Cullingworth to Haworth the following month. Since then I've stalled, but it's been nagging at me so today I finally managed a third leg, from Haworth over the Brontë moors to Laycock.

The trouble with walking this route during months with an r is that you can spend the day in gloom and although I did meet my shadow in two short spells during the day, such was my lot for this leg.

Climbing out of Haworth, I rejoined the Millennium Way route at Penistone Hill, before heading over Haworth Moor to Brontë Bridge, reputedly one of the favourite spots of the Brontës. Here I decided to take a detour further up the moor to Top Withens, long suggested as the inspiration for the location of the Earnshaw family house in Wuthering Heights.

Today's image is from the approach to Top Withens. The tree breaking the skyline in the far distance is next to the ruined farmhouse, which can just about be picked out when viewed large. Or here's an image from next to the ruin.

From there I headed up to trig point on Withins Height, although I missed the fact that the highest point in Bradford District lay only a few hundred metres to the south, on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border ridge.

Retracing my route back to Brontë Bridge I rejoined the Millennium Way, and briefly the Pennine Way, descending back into the valley bottom through Stanbury, and climbing through Oldfield to Oakworth Moor across to Keighley Moor Reservoir. From here it was a case of following the route of Dean Beck through pasture, woods and ravines and the mill village of Goose Eye before finishing at Laycock.

I'll be sorting through more images for the day, as I build a set for the Millennium Way as a whole, but for now here's a delightful Fly Agaric.

The next leg will see me heading from Laycock to Addingham. Hopefully it won't be eighteen months before I walk it.