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Thursday 3 November 2011

Teesdale Rangering

hudeshope burn

Two bits of rangering to report on.

First was the Saturday Afternoon Special at Barnard Castle. We had Cathy Angel and Walter Taylor as stewards and five walkers.

The weather was less than promising, but didn’t do much more than a very light drizzle, although it did go quite dark for a while. Nobody died and we didn’t get lost or chased by cattle.

wd range keep out

I seem to be attracted to taking pictures of signs lately – and found this example of a tin War Department sign announcing the existence of a firing range deep in Deepdale woods. The ash tree it was nailed to has folded the metal and grown around most of the sign. Its taken it about seventy years, I guess. If I come back in another seventy years, it’ll be a miracle. I suspect that the sign might not be here either, although it looks as though the tree has a chance to outlive both of us.

river tees autumn 2011 dog in hudeshope woods

And today, after shodding the knipemobile with two new Firestones, me and Bruno went off to reccy a seven mile walk along the King’s Walk and paths around Hudeshope. (pronounced Hudzup)  This is where I discovered that the walk is only six miles. Maybe nobody will notice.(pronounced shortfall)

beware hudeshope

The King’s Walk is a long-established permissive path courtesy of the Raby Estate and is very pleasant if a bit slartyclarty at the moment.

driech hudeshope

The woods would be quite impressive if the sun shines as they’re in autumn colours at last. As it happened, today was dark and Pennine and I finished the walk in the early stages of nightfall.

Some of us quite like dark and Pennine, though.

footpath sign with lichen

 

No real problems with the paths apart from their sloppy state, which will probably not change next week unless there’s a big frost or something. There’s a few beck crossings, one of which could be tricky if the beck floods, and there’s a bit of hillside in the process of collapsing which we’ll have to skirt around.

The guided walk through Hudeshope is next Saturday. If anybody asks, its seven miles, see?

 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the picture of the War Department sign, Mike. The parish council in my village had an old horse chestnut tree removed from the green a couple of years ago and inside the trunk was a 4”x4” square of concrete which nearly did for the chainsaw. There were all sorts of bizarre theories as to what it was and how it got there. When I suggested it was simply a corporation fence post that the tree had grown around, they looked at me as if I had been beamed down from another planet. Barking, I say.

Jules said...

Seven miles, eh?

With that kind of creative accountancy maybe you could get a job saving the Euro?

If you wanted.

AlanR said...

Shame about the weather. We have been bathed in glorious warm sunshine all weekend. Oh well the sun shines on the righteous so i’m told.