Pennine Way Middleton to Forest in teesdale (and back)

Sunday’s walk up the Pennine Way from Middleton in Teesdale to Forest in Teesdale – and back again was the fourth out of five Durham County Council walks aimed at completing the bit of the Pennine Way that traverses County Durham.

  

I did the reccy on Friday. This is a figure eight route of just a bit over fifteen miles with the crossing point quite near to Bowlees.  Wanderers up Teesdale  might care to note that the cafe at Bowlees has re-opened after having been “done up” to a high standard. So – on the reccy, I allowed myself to be exploited to the tune of a cup of rosy lee and some chocolate cake – and on the Sunday, our small party of five (including Anne as steward once again) had a brief period of celebration in the sunshine with pots of tea, cakes, coffee, hot water, etc etc…

So, our small and select band – almost lost in the car park in the sea of Richmond and Barnard Castle Ramblers who were off on a jaunt in a different direction (There wuz fahsands of ‘em Sarge…)

The route is described by the map wot I put at the bottom of this post. Its not hard to follow and provides no difficulties for the alert navigator and his trusting followers. There are no dangers, apart from the occasional frisky cow and the huge drop off the path into the foaming and roaring Tees some sixty or seventy feet below at High Force and the organ donors motor bikers roaring up and down the B6277 on Sundays who may appear suddenly in the same manner as the Edinburgh train does at that railway crossing at Belford – only these are a bit quicker….

And – we found a source of sloes. I’m not going to reveal where these are, but there’s a significant supply – and, despite my moans about there being another shortage of sloes this year – I found yet more in Weardale whilst walking the dawg and our temporary foster-dog Freya just a couple of hours ago.

The autumn winds were blowing a bit on Sunday, so it’s a reminder that it’ll soon be sloe time, inevitably followed by sloe gin time. Yay!   Where’s me old Slade singles…?

I stuck a video in here as well – Bleabeck force in spate. Thanks to Graeme for some of the pics.