A little Sunday rambling

After a bit of a lazy morning involving more than one breakfast and multiple slugs of hot caffeine, I eventually saddled up superdawg and loaded up the knipemobile for the short hop to Wolsingham.

I’d worked out the route over the third, or possibly fourth coffee and it were quite grand.

The sun was shining and the little lambs were gambolling in the fields (I think they were playing blackjack…)

The winter-worn footpaths took me up alongside Waskerley beck ( a good place to watch salmon jumping in November by the way) – and around Tunstall reservoir which was full of geese and fly fishermen fly fishing. We lunched in the warm sun.

The little nature reserve at the head of the reservoir was heaving with basking frogs and a few jumping fish. I’d remembered that this particular area was also well populated by adders – which would be out sunbathing today on the edges of the plantations and in the heather. I resolved to watch out for the sake of the dog. He’s always a bit too nosy when it comes to snakes. I didn’t see any today, though, but I’ve seen loads of them around here previously.

After this we walked up the hill onto the moor which contains one of County Durham’s more notorious and draughty dogging spots. But we didn’t get that far. I noticed a cow. then I noticed a cow with a calf. Suckler cows are really bad news when you’ve got a dog. Even superdawg is nervous. One of the cows spotted us and walked off in the opposite direction, followed closely by it’s offspring. We diverted.

From a higher position I could see that the herd was a large one and occupied two fields. We could have been in bother with that lot.

But we weren’t. So we followed a pleasant green track over the moor with good views of Weardale, visiting the summit at all of 353 metres and then back into Wolsingham.

A short and easy little plod of just 7 miles and 850 feet of ascent. A sort of pot-boiler, I suppose. The snow on the hills is almost all gone – just a few strips of white in the higher wrinkles. Today was heather burning on the moors. It looked as if there’d been air attacks. Its an April thing.

More walkies in a day or so….