A nice round dozen of group members met at Ball Grove car park for the start of this 16 miles walk which took in short sections of the Pendle Way, the Pennine Way and the Bronte Way before descending to Wycoller Country Park. After the initial photo, and with the prospect of a fine day ahead, we followed Colne Water to Laneshaw Bridge where we continued along the Pendle Way through fields which in places were a bit heavy and, round some stiles, a bit muddy as well. The main road was crossed just outside Cowling where, not long afterwards, we picked up the Pennine Way stopping for our morning coffee by the waterfall at Lumb Head Beck.

 The route over Ickornshaw moor is dotted with wooden chalets all of which seem to be kept in good repair and nowadays are probably used as weekend boltholes. The first part of this section can be a bit wet underfoot but today it wasn’t too bad and we picked up the paved route after passing a shooting box. A further three miles on we had our lunch stop in a very sheltered and sunny spot on a bit of banking before crossing the Laneshaw Bridge to Haworth road. Passing Ponden reservoir we had a short climb uphill before turning right, this time on to the Brontë Way. This was a nice contrast to the open moorland as we followed the valley of the River Worth to Watersheddles reservoir  carrying on to arrive at Wycoller where we had a short afternoon stop. The ducks there thought they were in for a treat but went away a bit disappointed I think!

By now the temperature was starting to drop a bit although the sun was still out but was very low in the sky which made finding the route through the last few fields a bit of hard work. However, we managed although there was a lot more mud about than when we recc’ed the walk three weeks ago. Coming back, we passed through the hamlet of Winewall and a farm which had some very peculiar notices on blackboards outside. Whoever wrote them really should have used a spellchecker but they gave us a laugh anyway. We reached our cars at 4.15pm and couldn’t have had a better day for views or for weather.