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Wednesday 11 January 2017

New Guided Walks For The Summer

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This is the time of year when County Durham’s voluntary guided walks leaders put in their bids for walks in the Summer programme. I’ve been determined to come up with some new routes because, frankly, I’m a bit bored with trotting out all the old ones, even though this is a very very easy option. I’ve also been affected by an inability to think of anything new at all, even less to put things down on paper or look at maps of Co Durham without dozing off and/or investing my precious time in reducing the levels of my Christmas booze supplies.

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But now the booze is all gone (apart from the stuff to be drunk in extremis in April and May) and, having been visited by two contiguous doses of the dreaded lurgy, which involves lots of sneezing and even more coughing, and in the face of political machinations at County Hall, I’ve finally come up with just three new routes – or, at least, variations on old routes. Maps of each one appear below.

There’s two ten mile romps and one fourteen mile plod

countywalk1baldersdalecountywalk2blackhillcountywalk3nookton

Work is not yet complete – each one has to be reccied in the next few weeks and, possibly, redesigned a bit and the re-reccied – all subject to the weather and other matters which may require a further visit or two.

And each one needs a handout which needs to be written by me and sent off to County Hall for copying.

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And a reccy before the actual date of the walk (I’ve asked for one in April, one in June and one in July – on two Saturdays and a Wednesday).

And a volunteer will need to recruit voluntary stewards and publish a guide to the guided walks and so on and so on….

And the Wednesdayand Saturday Walkers Group will fill in the missing Wednesdays and Saturdays.

LTD can come on the reccies but not on the walk when I’m leading…

 

7 comments:

Dawn said...

Some interesting routes there Mike. It appears to demand a fair bit of brain and leg work in the planning.

Meanqueen said...

That's a lot of faffing, but I suppose it has to be done. They would be lost without you :o)

Mike Knipe said...

Tar Dawn - its not so bad, I get walkies...

And Llona - I appreciate the sentiment, but apart from my admittedly superb navigation skills [koff] - they don't seem all that bothered, really... and I don't really mind the faffing, although it's true, it IS faffing...

Anonymous said...

I've thought of a fun game you can play, Mike, to make the walk planning a little more interesting. See if you can plan a walk which draws out a rude picture on the map. That third map has the makings of something a little bit rude if you squint.

Mike Knipe said...

Hmm... clearly, I need to work on that one Judith. How far would a walk need to be for a medium-sized phallus, I wonder?

Unknown said...

Hi Mike
Hope you don't mind but we pinched your third route today. It was superb in bright sunshine and all the wet bits were nicely frozen. A couple of the stiles were a bit dodgy but I daresay you'll have seen worse.
Thanks for a cracking route.

Mike Knipe said...

Don't mind at all, John - in fact I was planning to reccy that route today, but the spirit was weak... I bet the worst stile is the one that leads on to the Ramshaw road - but of a hurdle with a scramble down onto the road...