Comme une boite de grenouilles….

Just spent two afternoons doing a spot of rangering around Crook.

Tuesday was a reccy for an evening walk next Tuesday. Everything was OK, except, perhaps, a meeting with a paranoid farmer who said he recognised me as a trouble maker who’d organised an illegal land snatch ten years ago and he had a photo to prove it. His brother said he was off to Crook to buy some cheese. So, next Tuesday evening could be interesting. I guess we’ll try to pass quietly.

Gwylt fel bocs o frogaod…..

 

Wednesday was a reccy for a new walk for the DCC winter walks programme. This will be for Christmas and may involve non-Christmassy cakes and buns and coffee afterwards in St Caths centre for the warming up. Basically, its a circumnavigation of Crook, and its very nice cos I did it today.

At least, I did a circumnavigation, but a bit of the route doesn’t work properly, so I’ll change it a bit. Its eight and a half miles.

Ive got another six rangering type walks  of various kinds over the next ten days and you’ll be relieved to hear that I won’t be doing blog posts for each and every one – cos they’ll all be the same, innit and you’ll get bored and go and read Fatdog instead.

And there’s something special lined up for Sunday. Something very wet. And dark. No, I mean really really wet and very very dark. Oooer….

 

Blue Peter

Good news for the people of Salford that the Blue Peter programme is moving there. This will be great for the Coach and Horses - the nearest public house to the new studios.

Here's a little predictive clip.

Nice

King’s Walk Hudeshope Reccy

Another day, another reccy. This was for a proposed Durham County walk – probably in early November when the autumn leaves are very autumny. Like leaves.

This time, Bruno came too, and there was only one field of suckler cows – and they failed to notice us. So that was OK.

I put the knipemobile in somebody’s parking spot in Middleton in Teesdale and wandered up the Stanhope road, turning off into the Hudeshope woods. This little side valley has public footpaths, but it also has some very nice permissive paths – walks, really, provided by the Raby estate, which is the principal landowning estate in Teesdale on the North side of the river.

So, we followed the King’s Walk which does a loop through the woods and ends up at the end of the tarmac road close to some old limekilns.

My proposed route then continues through more woodland and pastures and reaches the main Hudeshope lead mining grounds. This is another one of those areas devastated by mining activity. I had intended for the walk to visit Coldberry mine, which has a restored mine shop (dormitory), offices and stables. But the place has been vandalised and the doors left open for the sheep to get in. This results in the raising of the floor level due to large deposits of sheep shit. There was an abandoned sleeping bag and a lot of litter and graffiti. Too depressing for a DCC walk, which are supposed to be fun  fun fun… Its not even any good as a shelter if its raining, so I’m not going there. Glad I did a reccy.

The return (downhill) route goes through two flowery meadows of the very special Northern meadows type. One of the key plants in these meadows is the Yellow Rattle. When the Yellow Rattle rattles, its time to make hay. Its not rattling yet, so if you want to see Northern hay meadows in full thrash, best go now.

The route returns to the Hudeshope woodlands – lots of orchids today - and follows the river, ending up, in a narrow  and unlikely passageway into Middleton. Bruno had a little paddle in the beck and destroyed some sticks. There are some quite deep pools in the beck – I shouldn’t wonder if there aren’t salmon running upstream at the right time. Today, there were lots of kids in helmets and yellow suits jumping down the waterfalls. What fun, wot?

I did 6.5 miles. The DCC walk will be just 6. Its a good walk and I’m happy with it, so I’ll submit it for the Winter walks programme.  Bruno liked it too, specially the paddling in the beck. 

Wolsingham Weardale Wekky..er..Reccy..dhuhh

At half ten in the morning on 1 July, I’m leading another Durham County Council guided walk and so, roughly a week before I went out today to see if the route was safe and that I could remember where it went.

Superdawg stayed home for a bit of howling because I predicted (successfully as it happens..) suckler cattle and some of those bullock animals that bounce around a lot. he wouldn’t have liked any of those. Note the sign – the farmer is showing signs of contact with the catering trade (note the aberrant apostrophe)

So, after following the Wolsingham wheelchair walk for a bit (for peeps in wheelchairs..) , I struggled manfully up the steep bank out of Wolsingham, ignoring the two herds of idiot cattle running about daft, through a crop of barley 9I think) and a meadow and on to the bridleway to the Efelant Trees. We all know about the elfelent trees by now coz they iz famiss.

And, after some messing on and some pratting about during which I had a long telephone conversation with John Jocys, I entered the superb and interesting little valley of Bollihope Burn with it’s lead mines and quarries and kilns and bridges and holes and chickens. yes, folks, chickens. I got followed for a substantial distance by a herd of hungry chickens. these ladies would not take no for an answer and insisted on investigating my socks to see if there was any grain in there. Or a worm, perhaps….  Eventually they came to the edge of chickenland and turned back. I probably won’t mention these in the Health and Safety assessment.

I also met the train from Stanhope (not many people on board) and a man with a red flag and a green flag operating the level crossing. I expect he was a communist mobile car mechanic or something.. and some brown pigs enjoying themselves free-range in a wood.

Then I met the sucklers who looked vaguely interested in me for a while but didn’t make much fuss. It would have been a different matter had superdawg been along.

I did eleven miles, which, not really coincidentally is the same distance as next week’s guided walk. There’s a few manky planks on a footbridge. Other than that, the walk is fine.

Bruno can come tomorrow. I’m doing another reccy at Middleton in Teesdale.

Black Mountains Bagging Walk

It started quite well on Abergavenny Bus station whilst studying the timetable for the bus to Crickhowell, which, incidentally and a bit worryingly, bore no relation to the information provided on the internet “plan a journey” by public transport site. Anyway, this chap gets off a bus, wanders over to me and gives me his day rover ticket which effectively pays for my journey to Crickhowell. (A bus turned up by the way)

At Crickhowell, I put the tent up and visit the Bridge End pub for an expensive but very nice steak and ale pie and some beer and return to the campsite where I’m invited to drink Guinness with a couple from Kent on a campervanning trip. So, it was a late night…

Wednesday is damp and drizzly but the local bakery does a cracking  Welsh full English and, replete, I set off up the Beacons Way to find the first drizzly mizzly hill of the day. The path climbs up through some very impressive oak woodlands which would pay a much longer visit than this fleeting glimpse from under a caggy hood.

I climb wetly up to the cairn on Pen Cerrig-calch and along the hillfog bound path to pen Allt-mawr and see nothing much. But the path is easy to follow and I think there’s a big drop down to the right… 

Then, as I descend a bit, the cloud suddenly lifts to reveal a green and lush Welsh border countryside below and a series of flat ridges going off into the distance. The little pen Twyn Glas is bagged and I meet what appears to be two gravestones..? – then Mynnydd Llysiau where I rest and completely redesign my route to take account of the duff forecast predicting gales and persistence in the precipitation precinct for Friday. I can finish all the hills by Thursday afternoon, in fact. And so, I walk past my planned camping spot at a sheepfold just below the ridge and plod on up to the top of Waun Fach, the highest part of the walk at about 810 metres.

A camping spot is found on some comfy bilberry on the edge overlooking a reservoir and I put up the akto and have a brew.

After a snooze, I walk off the 1500 metres South to bag Pen y Gadair Fawr and return to my obscure camping spot by retracing my track on the GPS (If the fog had returned, I could have had a problem finding the tent)

Overnight, it chucked it down and the breeze made the old akto fidget about like a toddler experiencing his first extended bout of bladder control. Luckily, no accidents of any dampish nature occurred and, after breakfast I found a path to the reservoir, crossed the dam and bagged Chwarel y Fan along a long and narrowish ridge in quite a strong gale. I make the pack wait at a cairn. It doesn’t seem too bothered.

Next, there’s a long and wide pony-populated ridge which goes for miles and miles up to the top of Rhos Dion, on the Northern edge of the Black Mountains and the walk from here to Hay Bluff over Lord Hereford’s Knob is a sheer delight. This would be a superb place for a fine set of wind turbines. Its such a shame to let all that windiness go to waste.

So, Twmpa (L. Hereford’s Eminence) came and went and, indeed, I would recommend wearing a Jwmpa on this breezy nobble- and so did Hay Bluff, which turns out not to be a top at all, but a bit of a lump attached to Black Mountain. A walk along the Offa’s dyke path/Wales/England border brings the top of Black Mountain (which is fairly green by the way) underfoot.

Job done – I just missed a couple of borderline Nuttals which, frankly weren’t worth the effort of the miles needed for the bagging. So i didn’t.

I followed Offa towards Hay on Wye and, after a fierce and wetting rain/hail shower lasting all of six minutes, I put up the akto in a discreet and sheltered spot in a litle gorsey gully underlooking* Hay Bluff.

Another breezy night.

And, in the morning, under the threatening clouds I wandered along Offa’s once again through meadows of orchids and  oak woods and cow pastures into Hay on Wye where another proper breakfast was had.

I camped on Radnor’s End campsite and ate and drank and shopped in Hay till the rain came at about 3:00 o’clock – very late. And with no note as to where it had been. I retired to the tent at about eight o’clock with a bottle of red, a tin of chicken curry and egg fried rice and a banana. What luxury, wot? Its nice being in a tent in the rain with a bottle of plonk and a loud MP3 player on shuffle. Simple pleasures….

Saturday was for the bus to Hereford and the long train trip home.

The walk was just 30 miles and 5500 feet of uphill contours. The walking, I must say, was joyfully easy going. A real blast, in fact. if it wasn’t so far away from home, I’d be doing a lot of walking around here. In fact, it occurs to me that a walk from Crickhowell, or, possibly Abergavenny, to Hay would be a cracking pre-TGO two or three day romp.

*I reserve the right to invent my own words by the way. I mean, you can overlook something when you’re looking down, so………

I'm Off to Wales

This is me going to Wales to see if I can traverse the Black Mountains. I have my tickets and I've been looking at bus stops on Google Streetview and all that kinda stuff  - I just need to shop for my in-tent entertainment (cheapo scotch)

In the meantime, this is a bit of rock and roll from J Lennon and Cheap Tricks.  Turn volume up to eleven.

Pinhaw and Black Lane Ends and a Teddy

Time for another Earby walk, according to the Bro, so we parked with a view of Ingleborough and threatening thundery-style clouds just below Pinhaw Beacon, which, despite the threat of adders, we bagged briskly.

Then we got lost a bit in the rain and ended up roughly on the wrong path to an interesting crossing of a mill dam wall at Lothersdale.

It rained.

We progressed along back paths through the old quarries and back lanes and more soggy paths to the warm and dry oasis that is Black lane Ends pub. A couple of pints of Copper Dragon put the world to rights and, we had a nice chat with Dan and Brenda and The Teddy from Teddy Tea Tours who were on a mission to investigate old Stoops (see http://teddytourteas.blogspot.com/2011/06/stoops-r-teddy.html for further and better particulars.

As we came out of the boozah, it started raining again, so we spent no time searching for the Dissenters Well mentioned in Dan’s blog, but hid behind a wall for lunch and then traipsed damply through the heather to the trig point on Kelbrook Moor. I’ve only been here once before – with my pal Neil way back in the mid 1960’s when I were but a sprog and we investigated the nearby group of contours which were much closer together than any other of the local contours. Just to see what it was like, really.  We then got scared by the ducks on the nearby pond – they all rushed towards us, quacking, and then, for some reason, we decided that the world had probably ended whilst we were away from home.

We ended up in the the little wood at what we knew as “Harden Nick” Its still there, and a fine piece of woodland it seems to be from a distance.

No reason for mentioning this, really….

Me and the bro continued over the moor on a thin path that eventually abandoned us to our fate in the deep heather and then along very pleasant paths with occasional showers and occasional cows to Stony Bank where I sampled the water from the little well by the cottages. This is a kind of ritual I had as a kid, every time I passed the place. Its good water. During a drought (?1958??) when water in the town was rationed, I collected a pop bottle full of water form this little well to give to my dad. I carried it carefully all the way down the hill and dropped it just next to the mill dam at Springfield Mill. It smashed all over the road. That kind of thing sticks….

We finished by a ramble to The Watts and up through Parkers farm back to Pinhaw. These place names don’t appear on OS maps, by the way.

We did 11 miles and 1600 feet of up.

Nice  surprise to meet Dan and Brenda and the Teddy.

PS – On my way to Earby, I came by Pateley Bridge and stopped at Dibbles Bridge, partly because something had been nagging me about the accident there in 1975. (I was a clerk in the local casualty department at the time, although I was up Scafell Pike at the time, I dealt with some of the aftermath.

I took a picture but I couldn’t really recognise the place from what I remembered from pictures of it at the time.

And this evening , I did an internet search and discovered that there’d been two coach crashes at Dibbles Bridge – the one in 1975 – and  another one on 10th June 1925. 10th June was today.  Bit spooky, that………

Another Guided Walk – Crook West

This time three people turned up, which is two better than the first evening walk. David Butler was the steward and Elaine (who’s the boss of the rights of way department) was the Assistant and we had a trainee steward called Freddie.

So we had a small bunch.

This was the walk I did a few days ago as a reccy and so, its becoming quite familiar.

The weather was a bit murky for a short while but the air was clear with views across to the North Yorkshire Moors and, eventually we had some nice, bright sunshine.

Elaine was very proud of all the new stiles and we had a good little trundle round the circuit.

Two of the three beef herds got a bit frisky and bounced around and followed us  energetically. David (who is an historian) held them back with a lecture on the failed battle tactics of the Scots army at the battle of Neville’s Cross. Apparently they weren’t ready for the traffic lights and the complicated nature of the road junction. Its just as well that they weren’t Galloways or Highland cattle or they might have got a bit shirty.

Whatever – the cattle became quiet. Another group ran away, started to run towards us but lost their nerve and ran away again.

We finished about a quarter of an hour early.

I’m not doing this walk again for a while!

Good fun, though.

Tent Review – Karrimor Ultralite

Millets sent me this tent to use and abuse and review.

I took it to the Highlands and pitched it at  520 metres at the junction of the Uisge Labhair and the Allt Glas Choire, between Loch Ossian and the Bealach Dubh. The idea was to bag the Munros to the North – Beinn Eibhinn, Aonach Beag, Geal-Charn and Carn Dearg, and anything else I could bag, and to provide light refreshments to any passing TGO Challenger who cared to call whilst I was in.

After a few days, I moved to Ben Alder Cottage and camped there for a night, and bagged Beinn Bheoil.

An eleven mile walk brought me back to Rannoch Station.

I also used the tent at Braemar, Montrose and at Tarfside, where I was gofering for the ladies running St Drostan’s hostel.

The tent is bright blue (not my personal preference, but at least you can find it in the dark) and is a tunnel design using two aluminium poles. The outer tent has a 3000 mm hydrostatic head and it uses 11 pegs under normal conditions. It weighs 1.8 kg, according to my kitchen scales.

First impressions are that its very roomy for one, and, a bit tight for two. The inner tent seems to be very saggy the elastic hangers seem a bit long.

The tent is easy and quick to pitch and the poles are colour coded, although, there being only two – one long and one short, its not rocket science working out which is which.

It’s pitched outer first and the inner is clipped in at ground level and hangs on runners from the roof of the outer. The material of the inner tent was faulty in two places and, had I bought the tent, I would have asked for it to be replaced.

Its possible to pack up the inner and outer together and to pitch them together, although the inner falls off it’s hangers, so this wasn’t very successful.

Pitching is pretty simple and only takes a few minutes. It was noticeable that once pegged out and adjusted, it didn’t need any further attention (unlike my akto which always needs tightening up after half an hour or so). The only adjustment I made was to re-orientate the guy ropes when the wind – which was pretty frisky most of the time- shifted around.

I found that the inner tent, being so loose, expanded when gear was added and the gap between the inner and the outer was so large that there was little danger of the two touching.

I could store my rucksack at the foot of the tent or in the porch. The porch had loads of room and it was possible to cook in it in bad weather with the outer door closed.

The outer door zip opens from the bottom only, so it wasn’t possible to ventilate this area properly, however. The outer door also has a heavy plastic window, which lets a bit of light in, but I would have preferred not to have this and have a two-way zip instead.

The inner door can be stored in a little pocket in the wall and has a small mesh section for ventilation. there’s a mesh ventilation section at the foot of the tent. This is very efficient, if a bit windy in the conditions. (you can’t win ‘em all)

The tent didn’t look very stable, but conditions were particularly foul for much of the time, and, at Tarfside, there was a full-on Atlantic storm with 70 mph winds which broke down large trees and power lines and was so fierce that the local martins and swifts were unable to fly and were seen to be sitting in the middle of the road.

The tent did not budge – although I did take the precaution of double-pegging every pegging point – you’d need 22 pegs to do this, which would add a fair aamount of weight. The pegs were big and beefy and effective. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, it chucked it down most of the time and I remained dry inside, as did all my stuff, including maps and books. This performance was remarkable, I thought, even if one passer-by joked that it was about to collapse. It was also noticeable that there was no condensation.

I carried the tent, and all my other backpacking stuff for about 30 miles altogether and I packed the wet outer separate from the inner with the poles slotted into outside pockets on my pack.

What I didn’t like:

The plastic window

Inner tent sagginess and poor material at a couple of points

The outer door zip.

Could do with an central guy over the front door.

I’m unsure how it would cope with snow – seems a long way between the back and the front!

May be a  bit tight for two. A short trip would be OK.

What I did like:

Seems to be bomb-proof when double pegged, although I don’t think I’d use it at high level.

Lack of condensation.

Big porch for gear and/or cooking

Loads of room for one.

Its only eighty quid, so its good value for money.

Its not the lightest, but its not specially heavy either.

It would be a good tent for anybody wanting to try out backpacking

What about the other tent? It was a Primavera 3 branded as Eurohike but made from exactly the same material and with the same design of vents as the Karrimor I broke it. Actually, the gale broke it as I was trying to put it up. This may not have been a fair test given the conditions. You’ll have to await developments. I’m seeing what I can do about the over-bent pole.

Shame, really, cos I quite liked it.