Leg 10 - Cockersdale - Thornbury - 28th September

I don't know if it was the beautiful sunshine, the extremely pleasant company or the fact that we spent 90% of this walk in fields next to babbling brooks, but leg 10 was certainly one of my favourite walks so far. Our friend Rich (remember him from leg 2?) was back up in Leeds, so we arranged the walk to include a large picnic so that we could have some extra hanging out time. The weather played its part, and the whole afternoon was a glorious mix of food, countryside and banter.

We set off from the Valley Inn and immediately left the main road behind, heading into farmland and pastures. After a short while of walking through fields, the path starts to run alongside a local beck and after stopping for a photo shoot of the first meander (we're covering rivers at school), we followed the river as it snaked its way along the bottom of fields. A footbridge took us over the beck and through further woodland up to Tong Lane, one of the few times where this leg met metalled roads.

At this point, the LCW joins the West Leeds Country Park, a massive expanse of trails, woods and parkland that covers the swathe of undeveloped land between Pudsey and east Bradford. It's clearly marked and the paths are all kept relatively clear of debris. The route follows the beck for around a mile and a half and we spent all of our time admiring the sun dappled leaves as the river bent back and forth through woodland.

It was at this point that we realised just how much wildlife we had seen on the walk thus far. There had been a busy farm with chickens and ducks as we left the Valley Inn, horses romping around in the fields near the first set of woodland, cows off in the distance and finally a set of pigs snuffling in the river. Jake was enthralled by them and we chose a spot nearby to stop for a lengthy picnic. It felt strange to be sat within the Leeds metropolitan boundary but be surrounded by trees and hills and fields. We must have sat for an hour or so catching up and commenting on the beauty of the walk so far.

From there, the route continues to follow the river until a large bridlepath joins from the right at which point we came upon one of the few big climbs that we've covered on the Way so far. After walking for miles upon miles of walking on the flat, it felt like a lot of hard effort to slog uphill. Mercifully, it wasn't more than a few hundred yards to the top and it was followed by some steep downhill through a quiet and pretty residential area.

The route comes out by Buffy Lump Cottage (one of my favourite named places so far) and goes between high hedge rows and a disused sewage works out into further farmland on a large hill. It was here that we found the next "must have" house, a big square pile with a large garden and panoramic views over the countryside. Way out of our price range, but it's all part of the fun of the walk.

One railway crossing later, we finished with a gentle climb up Daleside Road and stumbled into the Farmer's pub on the Leeds ring road, just over 10 miles from our starting point in Golden Acre Park.

Total distance = 5.5 miles
Total time (not including picnic!) = 2.5 hours
Cumulative distance = 50.5 miles
Cumulative time = 25 hours