Day 9 - Middleton-in-Teesdale to Dufton

That was a long day - almost 21 miles and as usual the last 2 were the longest and hardest of the day.

We started off just after 7am tracking the beautiful River Tees up through Low Force and then High Force, before eventually getting to Cauldron Snout - pictures in that order.

Climbing up the side of Cauldron Snout was a little hairy with slippery rocks and a backpack that suddenly started shifting its weight all over the place.

Finally we got to High Cup Nick which is pretty spectacular and suddenly appears out of nowhere.

After about 18 miles the descent into Dufton began. I quite like the ascent, but of course with every ascent eventually comes a decent and this one was tough.

Despite the beautiful sights and scenery it was definitely one of those days where you just had to strap on the pack again and keep going, even when I would have really rather liked to lie back (on the slightly wet grass) and enjoy the view. But each step was a step closer to the destination, so I put one painful foot in front of the other and repeated 50 odd thousand times and eventually all those steps added up to one big day and another 21 miles on the journey.

We try to teach our young people the importance of taking steps, however small. It might be attending an appointment, applying for a job or college, writing their CV or learning how to cook a new recipe. But each step, however small matters, and just like in walking taking one step builds momentum that helps take the next and the next. Sometimes the hardest thing is to take the first step, but if we can encourage them to do that who knows where it might eventually take them.

I’ll be reminding myself of that tomorrow morning as we head north again (most of today was heading west) to Alston.