Wandering in Weardale and a Little Bollihope Gem

This was yet another Durham County Council guided walk lead by me. (Otherwise, I wouldn’t write about it, see…?)

Me and superdawg did Part 1 of the reccy on the 12th of June and I finished off the reccy, dogless on the 15th. The reason for all of this messin’ on, as we say in Crook, was a herd of cattle with calves sitting around a key field gate having a bit of a sunbathe. I judged that it would not be safe to take Bruno through this lot, and a diversionary footpath helpfully lead to exactly the same place from somewhere else. So I went a different way.

There was a positive outcome, however, in that the Part 2 reccy revealed quite a nice, short Weardale walk suitable for a short winter day, a post pub-lunch plod or a summer evening stroll and I will reveal that four and a half mile route at the end of this blog post by way of a map. (Clever, eh?)

On the day, 23 walkers turned up at Demesne Mill car park and pickernick place in Wolsingham and the stewards were Ray, Compulsory Dave (who may prefer to be addressed as David, and Eric, who likes to bring up the rear. This is useful, ‘cos if you look back and see Eric, that’s the back of the walk, and if he’s not there, it isn’t, so you have to wait a bit.

On all three walks, the weather was warm and sunny, just like summer, in fact. (The forst reccy started out a bit misty at first…) Its highly unusual for me to have three warm walks in a row, so I’ve noted this incident down.

The walk went Ok, I think. Everybody who set off turned up at the end. No ambulances, helicopters, armed police or veterinarians were required to be called and there were no incidents of misbehaviour in public office nor  any challenges to the planning regulations, although some group members were a little upset by the lack of ice-cream based retail opportunities at the Kingfisher caravan park.

This walk has appeared before on this blog. It goes to those Ephelant Trees. You know where I mean. I’m not going to describe it again. There’s a map on here somewhere.

Some of today’s pics were donated by Graeme Ferguson. Ta, Graeme.

Its eleven miles.

The short walk starts at Bollihope and has some cracking views of Bollihope Burn.  You could have a paddle half way round as well. You could even divert to the Black Bull at Frosterley for a pinta and this would add about a mile on. It’d be an easy mile. Prolly worth it.  I’d do it anyway.