Spring Starts to Spring in the Woods

The son in law arrived this morning bearing jump leads, so we debifrillated the car and I took it for a bit of a spin and some pre-budget petrol. This would have been a really good idea had the Chancellor not reduced petrol tax…
And so, it being a warm and sunny day (17.5 C according to the knipemobile’s warmth sensors), I decided it was time to try out the knee and I went for a walk.
Today’s trundle took me through various bits of woodland I had been through before, and other bits that I hadn’t. There is lots and lots of woodland in this neck of the ..er… no that doesn’t really work, does it…? Anyway, lots of trees, you get the picture, I’m sure….

It was nice to see coltsfoot in flower, the odd dandelion and a daisy (these are all technically speaking, daisies by the way) – and there was a lot more bird song than the last time I was out, and a few spring lambs enjoying the sunshine.
There were lots of other walkers, too – it being a Wednesday, of course (Wednesday is the day when people who don’t have jobs break up their week by going for a walk)

So, we trundled happily through the woods over the hill to Waterhouses and back over the hill to Crook.  The day was notable also for the number of frogs making un-frog-like sqeaking noises in various ponds and, apparently, playing some kind of piggy-back (froggy back) game….  Not sure what all that was about, really.

Some prune had dumped a load of rubbish – mainly women’s clothing and general garbage. I had a close lok at the clothes, but they were well unfashionable and too small anyway, so I left it. Disgraceful. Somebody went to a lot of effort to dump this stuff. Have they no pride? Have they no council bin collection?


I was hoping to see the Exmoor ponies at Button Bank, but they were hiding or something.
It was just seven miles, which may not be much, but its a start. The knee is only painful when I use it for bending. For walking, it seems to be fine…
Look at the map and see the contours!

Ushaw Moor Brush Bash Bashes Much Brush

I appreciate that those who read this blog after consuming more than  six units of alcohol may be having some difficulty pronouncing the title of this blog post.
Its Ok. Don’t worry. Have a drink.
Anyway, when I looked out of the periscope in the bathosphere twelve feet down under the goldfish at the knipetowers moat on Monday morning it was, as they say in Crook, “Hoyying it down” And it was windy too. So, instead of fabricating a tasty butty and driving off to Barningham, I fabricated a hot coffee and some toast and went back to the bunk. It was only much later, after a spot of power snoozing that I came to realise that the sun had come out.
I made up for this lassitude today, though, by joining in on a Durham County Council Brush Bashing Bash on the Deerness valley walk at Ushaw Moor.

The “before” picture

There was, in fact, a bijoux bunch of brush bashers bashing the bad brush in a bunch and, in about four hours, we cleared a couple of hundred yards of bramble, whin, hawthorn, alder, birch and empty Carslberg tins. And we had a nice fire and chats with the dozens of dog walkers and their dogs, horse riders and their horses, ramblers, walkers, shoppers, people with kids, and cyclists.

The “after” picture

Its a very busy footpath.
It looks very tidy now. A robin watched some of the proceedings.
Maybe walkies later….but this was fairly hard work, so the exercise quotient is looking healthier, even if I’m not (I have a bramble scratch on the end of my nose)

We had a nice fire too. Forgot to bring sausages.

Things discovered on a little local trundle

Bravely ignoring the enormous cloud of volcanic dust blotting out the warmth of the early summer sun, I sallied forth from Knipe Towers for a little afternoon perambulation.

And these are the things I discovered:

A nice handwritten notice on an unpublicised nature reserve on the hill between Crook and the Deerness valley.

I’m not sure if there’s anything special about the reserve. Its a wood and the only grazing appears to be the local deer, although there was evidence of other wildlife around. Its a nice, quiet, secluded spot, ideal for snoozing in to the background of willow warblers, chiff-chaffs and robins. (There seems to be a lot of robins about at the moment…)

One side of the reserve is a small stream which emanates from this culvert.

One day, I’ll crawl through here…. The culvert carries the stream under a large embankment on the Deerness Valley line. It must have been built around 1858.

After this there was a bit of a jungly thrash through some spiky gorse, brambles, raspberries and wild roses and then into lambing fields for this type of thing:

and this:

Ah, bless! – Cute and delicious at the same time. What could be better?

Home for a nice hot cup of tea and an afternoon nap. Its a hard life. I really don’t know how I cope.

6 miles and 800 feet by the way. It were cold. To be honest, I didn’t notice any volcanic dust, that were just to build up some tension.

Chance Meetings Up The Deerness

Time to let bygones be bygones and put all thoughts of timber extraction and disposal into the past as so much water under the bridge – and go for a walk.

Today’s trundle was pretty much decided by the fact that the knipemobile has no petrol in it and the pension isn’t paid into my account till Friday (Don;t worry, though, I’ll “borrow” a bit for tomorrow night’s quiz at the King’s which, if past performance is anything to go by will be substantially funded by our winnings)

Speaking of Winnings – It was, in fact, Esh Winning which was one of the objects of our desires today.

And so, in bright spring sunshine, I saddled up the dog and wandered off up the Deerness Valley line, taking pretty much the same route to Willington as I did on the previous walk I had to Bishop Auckland in the snow. In fact, it was exactly the same route.

The hills were green again, or, at least, brown, but in the distance, I could see snow on the Pennines and, in fact, I could make out a very white Killhope Law today – right over on the Cumbrian border.

In Willington, we turned our toes towards Durham and joined the Bishop-Brandon railway walk which starts just by the Co-op. fast progress ought to be had on this walk as its very easy underfoot and there’s not much in the way of hills. But, its very popular with dog walkers, plump girls trying to get fit discretely and cyclists, and Durham being Durham, a fair proportion of these are up for a brief chat. Even cyclists on occasion would dismount to expound on what nice weather it is and could they borrow the dog to pull the bike.

A collie pup submitted to Bruno and wriggled around in the self-effacing way that only collies do very well – and it’s owner apologised for the entanglement of leads – and we had a chat.

Another dog walker exclaimed that Bruno looked the spitting image of a dog called Candy wot lived in her village. And so, you can see, that progress wasn’t quite as quick as expected.

Luckily, as we drew closer to Durham city where there were lunchtime joggers, the passers-by grew relatively more surly and didn’t want to talk. But after lunch, when we turned our attentions in the direction of Esh Winning, we were back in chatland.

And then I saw a figure approaching – gesticulating in a kind of Papal kind of way. It was Alan – the chap I last walked with on our Licking of The Tongue – back in the dim past – an early blog entry for this blogger.

So we had a long chat. A very long chat. he was walking from Crook to Durham. We resolved to have another walk soon…

This is perhaps not so unlikely in County Durham, as it happens. There aren’t as many as six degrees of separation in Durham. Its more like two or three…

But anyway, after half an hour or so, we pressed on in our respective directions and , after a few more chats, I arrived at Waterhouses and began the long climb over the hill to Crook.

What I did find slightly odd was a pile of, apparently, recently washed clothes – shirts, jeans, a furry jacket – dumped in the forest above Waterhouses. I mean ter say – its an effort bringing a bag of clothes out into a fairly remote spot and chucking it into the woods. Why not just put them in the bin for the binmen to collect? Peculiar….

This walk is, perhaps, not the most interesting. The countryside is pretty enough, and in Deerness Valley, where it’s well wooded, it can be beautiful. The interest lies more in the people using the pathways. Otherwise, it can be a plod. When it gets to plod time, the best we can do is to let our thoughts wander. Bruno employed his brain cells in locating and carrying sticks – occasionally chewing one up before finding another.

I was trying to think of Beatles song titles in social networking new speak or new spell – but the only one I could come up with was “I should of known better”

So – A competition. Beatles song titles in internet newspeak.

Happiness is a warm gun (IMHO)

I’ll try to think of a prize…. a pet log, perhaps…

I ought to of done better, really.

Anyway, the walk was 18 miles and 1300 feet of uphill.

Walking to Bishop Auckland

Martin rang last night and complained that he was suffering from High latitudinal lassitude and what was more, the A66 was still closed. (We were supposed to be walking at newlands in the morning)

For myself, I detected the first signs of an onset of Sculthorpe’s Oscillation – a condition fatal to the execution of going for a walk who’s symptoms include indecision, dithering, pussyfooting, prevarication and an inability to find the correct map. It was something to do with the fact that all of the local trans-pennine routes were closed and that whilst I should at least go somewhere, an attempt to visit the Lake District would either be a very long detour or would involve close contact with a snowdrift.

We agreed to do the Littledale walk later....

So, instead, I decided to do a walk up Teesdale somewhere.

A flock of sheep.

This morning, the condition had worsened somewhat just after I noticed the verglass (black ice) all over the road and the wife’s car and the fact that white van delivery man’s hair was stood on end and also that he seemed to be whimpering something about the roads being “lethal”. there was some kind of procreationary adjective attached to his declaration somewhere, but this is a family blog notwithstanding the chocolate flapjack cakes, so I won’t repeat it.

I would walk to Durham and back up the Deerness valley. Bruno agreed and stood by the dog walking equipment drawer.

Shortly after embarking up the Deerness valley walk (yet again), I decided to walk to Bishop Auckland instead.

The Bishop-Brandon Walk

So we turned off through a flock of sheep and up the big hill wot overlooks Crook, through the golf course to Sunnybrow and along the Bishop-Brandon walk (another ex-railway line) to Bishop Auckland.

Bishop Auckland skyline

River Wear from the Newton Cap viaduct.

And we got the bus back.

Facts:

The New Monkey Inn at Hunwick is closed.(shame!)

The Tap and Spile in Bishop Auckland has an effete barman with strangely coloured hair and they can’t allow dogs in. How he gets away with that in a scruffy pub in man’s town such as Bishop Auckland is a miracle. (You have to say the word “man” in a “manly” tone by the way. Read that bit again. Do it properly this time.)

The Hut on Bishop Auckland Bus station is run by two hillwalkers, one of whom has just been to Everest basecamp and can’t resist putting milk in your coffee even when you want it black. Their stuff is incredibly good value for money, though. (Coffee was 75 pence). They also do your bacon butty a few minutes before you actually ask for it. Remarkable. They seem very busy. I’m not surprised.

Bruno doesn’t like double-decker buses at all. (he’ll get used to it when I get me bus pass)

It was 8 miles and just 400 feet of uphill

It was drizzly, misty, snowy, freezy stuff and the snow has a hard crust on it which is mainly much easier to walk on, although, occasionally, it lets you down. (I had a girlfriend like that once….)

I may walk tomorrow as well….

Playtime

So anyway, after removing the 8 inch layer of windslab from off the hedge (actually the wife did this by clatterring it with a snow shovel) and after chucking snowdrifts at the dog in the front garden, and after lunch and a snooze (its a hard life) – I decided to implement my plan to try to go to get some pictures of a snowy sunset over Crook.

Superdawg receives a direct hit.

The results were a bit disappointing. The sky was almost completely cloudless in the direction of the setting sun, but there were pink towers of dangerously fluffy stuff running along the coast.

Off -piste

But we enjoyed the walk up to the top of the hill and over to Deerness Valley. We followed the Deerness Valley walk as the daylight faded and was replaced by a kind of bluey pink night.

Pink coastal clouds

All around the surrounding hills were small sledging parties – kids having noisy fun on the big hills - – just the thing to keep the little buggers off the street corners.

Distant sledging party

And there was one solitary skier gearing up for the 2km, 150 metre descent into Hope Street. I bet that was fun.

Almost sunset

The walking was a bit easier today – provided you walk in the foot-wide trodden lane through the snowdrifts where it had been beaten down by many feet. Off-piste it was as soft as bu…. it was quite soft – a bit like walking in very cold sand dunes.

Sunset over Crook from the memorial seat at Stanley Crook

My beard froze. Bruno bounced around again. In fact he bounced for five miles. Its very beautiful just now, I have to say.

Crook Illuminations

Short doggy video below. No map today, couldn’t be arsed. We did five miles, though and 500 feet of uphill and we retraced our steps almost exactly.

Breaking the Duck on a Local Walk

Following yesterday’s floundering fiasco up the wrong end of Weardale, I was determined to break the 2010 duck, yet at the same time, stay out of any very deep snow.

A quick look at the OL wotsit map of Bishop Auckland and Crook, revealed a bit of woodland I’d never been in, and a suggestion that it would be a nice idea to have a look at Weird Darren’s Oakenshaw Nature Reserve, since I’d never been there either. A nice, logical circular route from Chez Pie revealed itself.

Pretty scene on the Deerness Valley Walk at Crook

It had snowed again overnight. This cheered up the dog no end.

After prevaricating a bit with cups of coffee and boiling an egg for the egg and tomato butty, we set off up the Deerness Valley Walk.

A bit further along the Deerness Valley walk

This was quite pretty and well populated with families and their dogs and people who were in the first throws of delivering their New Years Resolutions concerning doing more walking together and using those new walking poles.

A blizzard came and went.

We turned off the DV walk and wandered across some fields and into some woodland. The path, whilst served with “public footpath” signs and waymarks wasn’t really there. there was blundering to be done. We blundered. It got better, though, and we struggled through the deep soft snow up to Baal Hill where we joined the “road” ( inverted commas included for irony) The road was well under hard packed snow and wasn’t really useable without 4WD. Boots and paws slithered.

I may have to report this!

We followed the road and joined the Bishop-Brandon walk – Another railway walk – more families with their dogs and more resolutions in the first throws of deliverance.

Haliwerefolk countryside near Brancepeth

We had a quick visit to Oakenshaw NR – I searched for three-legged dog tracks, but failed. It seems, by the tracks, to be fairly popular. The local ducks were enthusiastic but remained unfed.

whitespider1066’s pond at Oakenshaw NR

I followed field paths and a Roman road to Willington with some difficulty. The snow was drifting and getting difficult again.

I abandoned my original planned route and followed the road back to Crook. Its not so bad, there’s an off-road path all the way.

Drifting at Willington

The population of Willington was it’s usual friendly self – five people said “hello” and “happy new year” and “all the best”…..

When I got home I was, to be frank, quite knackered. I resolved this with hot cocoa and cold beer and a snooze with the dog before tea.

12 miles and 1050 feet of up. A reasonable start to the year, and quite a pretty walk too….

Snowday - Its grim ooop North

This post is in the key of E with standard blues changes.

Well I woke up dis mornin

An ma woman dun left me.

Ashley, she's visitin her dad in Halifax

I was intending to have a walk somewhere hilly today, but I woke up dis mornin (see above) and there was piles of snow everywhere. The lads who live next door had failed to get to work due to the road being too slippery (it goes up a big hill, or "bank" as they call hills in Crook)

The A66 and A68 were closed and a lorry had blocked the A1. Not weather for driving anywhere, so me and superdawg, and his sidekick, Robin (aka Tammy) went for a walk up the Deerness Valley Walk.

The Deerness Valley walk starts (or finishes?) in Crook and goes over the hill to the..er... Deerness valley, which it follows to the outskirts of Durham. From there other walks go to Lanchester and to Bishop Auckland. The Lanchester walk links up with the Derwent Valley walk, which can be followed to Gateshead, or if you follow it the other way, it goes to Weardale.

These are all old railway lines. The Deerness valley route is heavily wooded due to being planted for pit props which were never used. Its all quite beautiful.

We just got to the top of the hill where it we met the hill fog and a snow plough. Very deep snow which was heavy, wet stuff and quite hard work.

Its an ill wind, though - as they say - the local schoolkids were rolling snowballs, sledging and chucking snow at each other instead of being at school. As this is the type of snowfall we used to have when I were a lad, and which we haven't had for a few years now, I consider this to be good education anyway. they'll now be able to say to their kids (when they get some kids) - "When I were a lad, it used to snow up ter t' rooftops...."

Its freezing now, so the snow conditions on the hills this weekend might be quite good......