24 April: The Pennine Way

On this date in 1965 The Pennine Way was officially opened. The Pennine Way is a National Trail in England, with a small section in Scotland. The official Pennine Way opening ceremony took place at Malham in the Yorkshire Dales on 24th April 1965, and was attended by hundreds of walkers.

1. The Pennine Way is 267 miles (429 km) and runs from Edale, in the northern Derbyshire Peak District to Kirk Yetholm, just inside the Scottish border.
2. The idea for this national trail was first suggested by a keen walker named Tom Stephenson, who wrote an article for the Daily Herald in 1935, entitled ‘Wanted: A Long Green Trail’. He envisaged it as ‘a faint line on the Ordnance Maps, which the feet of grateful pilgrims would, with the passing years, engrave on the face of the land’. He'd been inspired by the Appalachian Way in the US, believing that we Brits needed something like that, too. He also wanted to open up the moorlands which had been closed to the public by landowners.
3. The trail is used by 15,000 long distance walkers and more than 250,000 day walkers every year.
4. This is good for the economies of the places along the route. 156 people's jobs were maintained by the £2 million that walkers spent in 1990.
5. There are 287 gates, 249 timber stiles, 183 stone stiles and 204 bridges along the route. The locationally challenged will be pleased to hear there are 458 signs marking the route, as well.
6. 198 miles (319 km) of the route is on public footpaths, 70 miles (112 km) on public bridleways and 20 miles (32 km) on other public highways.
7. You can't walk it in a day. Walkers wanting to complete the whole thing need to allow two to three weeks and tend to split it over several weekends or holidays. You couldn't even run it in a day. The fastest time for completing the Pennine Way was achieved by Mike Hartley in July 1989. It took him 2 days, 17 hours, 20 minutes and 15 seconds. He took the view that sleep is for wimps and only had two short rest stops, including an 18 minute time out for fish and chips in Alston. That said, the British Army, when asked to test the route before it opened, did manage it in a day, but they split it into 15-mile (25 km) sections, each of which was completed by a patrol of four or five men.
8. Alfred Wainwright offered to buy anyone who managed to complete the whole trail a half pint of Beer. By the time he died in 1991, the promise had cost him £15,000. He wasn't a fan of walking it himself. He wrote, “You won’t come across me anywhere along the P.W. I’ve had enough of it.” This may have been because whenever he tried, the weather was awful. Some parts of the Way receive up to 2.5 metres of rain per year.
9. The first Pennine Way guidebook was written by Tom Stephenson and published in 1969. 49 books have been written about the trail in all, including an official guide, which describes the route from south to north - hence most walkers complete the way in that direction. Some are serious guide books, others are more lighthearted, such as Barry Pilton's One Man and His Bog.
10. The full route passes through three national parks: the Peak District, the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland. Things to look out for on the way include High Force in County Durham, the largest waterfall in England; Cross Fell, the highest point on the walk at 893 metres; the Tan Hill Inn at Baldersdale, a pub that claims to be the highest in Britain and Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse said to have been the inspiration for the Earnshaw family house in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. You'll also pass a couple of film locations. The limestone pavement above Malham Cove appeared in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the Steve Coogan series The Trip. Part of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was filmed at Sycamore Gap on Hadrian's Wall.

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Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

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Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two