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.

Path 49 Revisited.

After lunch, seeing as the day was fine and warm with yer actual blue skies,  me and superdawg decided that since it was now February (pinch punch..), it was finally time to do our new adopt-a-path route.

And so, finding our warm gloves and lead, we headed off up the hill to find FP167 – a pleasant and well used path between two hedges.

We went on to FP49 (which is the one that started it all off in the first place) – FP51 (missing footpath sign.) Come to think of it, missing bus stop sign too. the timetable was there. But not the sign. A driver out before the gritter, most likely…

FP56 was next – an ancient path with a section of hollow way at the top. FP176, through the pastures and a muddy cropped field to Annapoorna.

FP108 another pasture and another mudfest – but this one has, in the past, been fertilised with night soil. Its full of ashes, pottery and bits of glass. Homelands Hospital , now closed, is nearby. Homelands was once the main hospital for Crook and Willington, pre-NHS days… I wonder if this is the source of the night soil?

Anyway – onwards to FP106, up to the golf course, and FP34 from the golf course, along the edge overlooking Crook where we were greeted by a gang of small ponies. FP106 and fP34 need some waymarking in the golf course grounds….

Then down the steep hill to join the Deerness valley Walk that takes us back to town.

I’ll do this again in July. Its a good walk – just under 7 miles and 650 feet of uphill.

I have to report all of this stuff to the County Council on line. Its a clunky system. I’ll do it later.

Can you spot the Ordnance Survey error on the map?

New Ice Age. Roddymoor Destroyed by Glacier

This is not strictly true, although it may be just a bit early.
Today’s walk has appeared in the Pie Blog on severalteen occasions previously. It is the January adopt-a-path walk checking out various paths and bridleways on the North side of Crook. This is the side with the hill – just about a thousand feet high, in fact. I’ll do the walk again in July.

We (me and superdawg) discovered two decrepit stiles and a missing “public footpath” sign, which has probably been borrowed by Pikeys for it’s aluminium. I will report on all this, including the paths which didn’t have any problems, in  a couple of days. There’s nobody in at County Hall anyway.

We also met “Bud” a nice little dog and his more scary friend “Fluffy”, a twelve stone crossbred rottweiler  who arrived at speed with raised hackles and a threatening growl and stuck his nose up Bruno’s bum. This is ill-advised for many reasons, I have to say.
We also discovered that after all the snow has melted, it leaves behind a lot of litter and dog poo.
There’s a lovely wind factory on the tops. One day , children, everywhere will look like this

We met some chickens, some sheep and a young lad walking his puppy. (This is not a euphamism by the way, he really was walking a puppy) and some horses and chickens.
We also discovered, in the graveyard at Billy Row, a small grave with fresh Christmas toys and flowers and so on. What was a bit surprising, and very touching, was that the occupant of the grave died in 1940. That’s seventy years.
How many of us will be remembered by a family for seventy years?

And that was it. 5 Miles and 650 feet. No pubs were open. And it was cold and grey.  Its a start, though, eh?

Blackie and The Naxie – Howden le Wear

And so, with a nagging dawg, we drag ourselves out from a Yuleish stupor of roast beef, red wine and various liquors and stumble off through the snow to Howden le Wear.

The purpose, apart from exercising superdawg’s latent powers of bouncing around in the snow, was to have a look at the prosaically-named Walk 1 in a small collection of leaflet walks produced by the Council. The remit is to have a look at the route descriptions and the paths.

This one is just two and a half miles long, has one bit of a pull up a hill, and a selection of refreshment stops – just the kind of walk you might want to do in an evening, in fact. If you’re not fully refreshed after doing this walk, then you’r enot trying very hard.

The walk description is quite good, and has lots of local information such as the  long-gone whereabouts of railway stations, coal mines, brick works and that kind of thing. The Naxie and Blackie are, in fact, the names of the local pastures. Hill 60, pictured here, is the spoil heap from a long-defunct coal adit, named Hill 60 by soldiers returning from The Great War for Civilisation (aka WW1)

There’s a lot packed into the walk, in fact, and its all the better for it.  I enjoyed it, and so did superdawg. there’s no problems with the paths – they’re all well used by locals by the evidence of lots of footprints in the snow.

The walk is two and a half miles – I did six, cos I walked there and back.
Two more Howden le Wear walks to do…

Crook Around The Compass – West

Well, this just about wraps it up for Crook around the compass. This walk was much like the others in the series – a very nice little trundle around snowy fields (I expect its not always this way) – but with a clumsy description. I got off route just the once and there was some minor trouble with some gorse, a missing footpath sign or two and a bit of route which could do with some of those little yellow waymarker signs you stick on fences…

But, as me and superdawg prepared for this walk (by having a late morning nap, followed by lunch and quite a lot of coffee) – we couldn’t help but notice, partly by the BBC News and partly by the view out of the window, that it was in fact, deep mid winter outside and a frosty wind was making moan. And we noticed, through our powers of observation, that the ground was as hard as iron and any water that was around was like a stone. This was lucky cos otherwise we’d have got really muddy on this walk.

We didn’t particularly notice and Cherubim or Seraphim by the way, but some very large East Coast snow shower clouds did build up towards sunset.

Anyway, its a good walk – ideal for a summer’s evening.

The walk is four miles, but I did five and Bruno did about thirty as he was bouncing around in the snow quite a bit.

I’ve suggested to the County that these four short walks around Crook could be put into the summer guided walks programme as evening walks for people who are just starting to go for walks….  this way, I get to lead walks at a nice Knipey, beta blocky sort of pace and we can celebrate afterwards in the Farrer’s Arms.

Howden le Wear walks are next for inspection.

Crook Around the Compass – South

And Lo! (Note the Christmas theme by the way) – Lo! The Angel of the North came down in a wakening light and saith “Go Forth and do Crook South and take thy dog cos he’s ripping yer socks up and needs a walk”. And so, it came to pass that I went forth and did Crook Around the Compass – South. Just “West” to do, then there’s three more at Howden le Wear.

This is a three and a half mile walk. I did four, because I walked to the start. 
Its a good walk, although I did get a bit lost at one point after following the footprints of local dog walkers instead of the right of way, but I soon relocated myself again.

At one point, a local farmer has built a fence across the path, but the local League Against Building Fences Across Our Dog Walks (Labfoudw), have wrecked the fence.  Direct action, that is…
Somebody I met recognised Bruno from the Pie Blog and we had a bit of a chat about the local paths.

The route is good but the description is a bit awkward in places and really needs the attention of somebody skilled in writing route descriptions. It would seem that most of the paths are very well used by locals. I’ve reported my findings to the County Council access and rights of way peeps.

Nice day for it, though…… Bruno enjoyed bouncing around.
More later…

Crook Around the Compass – East

“I’ve had all I can stands, I can’t stands na more.” Popeye.
So, today me and superdawg braved the blustering blizzards to go and have a look at the second of the Crook Around the Compass walks – this time it was East. This starts in the same place as “North” and suffers the initial indignity of having the route description and the map not matching at all.

But the rest of the walk, which is a complex route of many turns and various nooks, not to say, crannies, that the route description could best be described in exactly the same way as John Donohue, TGO vetter extraordinaire once described my attempts at Gaelic place names. Brave, but futile.

The route was made al the more interesting by the fierce and protracted blizzards of snow and hail which batterred me and superdawg for most of the morning. Then there was the matter of the outrageously deep snow. Most of the time this was merely knee deep, for those of us blessed with a fine pair of primate legs. Shorter, more canine legs left delicate bits of the anatomy deep under cold snow. Bruno didn’t seem to mind. I would have complained a bit more.

In fact, Bruno thought the whole adventure a bit of a jape and bounced around like a puppy. The idiot. 

The route itself is fairly complex (I may have mentioned this above) but is interesting and has a short but quite fine high-level traipse across pastures with an ariel view of Crook.
It also has, believe it or not, a bit of avalanche debris in an old quarry or delve. I expect this is temporary and fairly unusual.
For those concerned with such things, there is NO barbed wire (there is an electrified fence at one point) and , as the centre of Crook is visited, it does have a selection of pubs. More pubs than you can shake a pair of doggy antlers at, in fact.

Which brings me to Bruno’s Christmas outfit. Supplied by Rachel whilst I was out shopping for wor tea and trying to push a car out of a snowdrift.
Crook East is 3 miles and 500 feet of ascent. I did four miles, so, that’s one louder.
That deep snow doesn’t half get your calf muscles. The case for snow shoes strengthens.

Crook Around the Compass – North

The Durham County Council Rights of Way Supremo recently suggested that as I wander aimlessly as a cloud around Crook quite a lot, that I could also keep an eye on some paths/routes which were developed by the local Council (wear valley at the time), the local ramblers and the local Walking for Health peeps.

There are four walks around Crook – North, South, East and West – hence Crook around the compass and  three around the nearby village of Howden-le-Wear.

Today, me and Superdawg set off in incipient snowstorms to have a look at the North walk.

I must say, I didn’t think much of the route description, which has metal gates where there are no metal gates and tracks which are footpaths and so on. There are missing “bridleway” signs and waymarks and the two stiles on the route are defended by adjacent b*****d wire (censored for the sensitivities of Moffateers who had a traumatic experience with this stuff). But despite the driech weather and the new open cast coal mine next to one part of the walk, its basically a very nice walk. It has two pubs and an off-licence as well, so its ideal for a summer evening. And it’s dog friendly too.

I did come across two off-road motorcyclists , whom I deliberately got in the way of. Eventually, when I let the first one past, he saluted me in a rather strange sort of manner, and the second stopped to chat. I pointed out that they weren’t supposed to be riding motorbikes on the bridleway, at which point the lad demonstrated his flashing blue lights and explained that he was a policeman on a bit of a jolly patrol. Thats OK then.

Their number plates were illegally covered in mud by the way.

Anyway, the walk is three miles and about 300 feet of uphill, so its fairly easy. I did an extra mile. (eck!)

And it was snowing, though not sticking. Its a week earlier than similar weather last year, though, and we all know what happened last winter…

Wet Wandering in Weardale Without a Full Set of Gloves

At the last DVCRS** AGM, a couple of weeks ago, I volunteered to lead a few walks in the Durham County Council Guided walks programme for next summer.
Durham CC has a big programme of guided walks with at least two walks every week, and often many more than that. And they’re very popular.

So, I’ve planned out four walks altogether. The idea is that I’ll walk each of the routes over the next few dark and damp weeks and then present them to the volunteer co-ordinator with some dates and some background info, risk assessments and so on. I’ll need to walk the routes again just before they’re due to take  place, just to make sure that the Cross Fell Mer de Glace hasn’t covered them up with a fresh layer of glacial drift or anything like that.
Today was the turn of Walk #1, it being the first walk wot I did.

This took place in heavy rain and a bit of hill-clag. And I lost one of the seal skin gloves I bought in Alston the other week. Bugger. Anybody know a one –handed person who just needs a left handed glove? They can have it. Its a good glove.
Anyway – I started in Wolsingham, went up by the Elephant Trees, down to Bollihope and back along the riverside.

The Elephant Trees have appeared in this blog before – but for anybody unfamiliar with them, they’re a group of trees on the Weardale skyline which probably once looked a bit like a group of elephants. Weardalers are very fond of them. They contain lots of romantic graffiti.

And Bollihope has appeared on the blog, too. There’s a nice limestone quarry, with a pinnacle and some trial levels into the Slit Vein, a partially preserved lead mine complete with netty (toilet) and some extensive lime kilns and another quarry containing some Frosterly marble.
And then there’s the river, with kingfishers, herons and jumping salmon.


We both got wet and Bruno got to run around in the empty fields. And I lost me glove. Did I mention that?
Anyway, its a good walk that works quite well. 11 Miles and 1100 feet of upness with mainly very easy walking.
It’ll do.
I need a glove shop.
**DVCRS = Durham Voluntary Countryside Ranger Service