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.

A walk past the Cow’s Tail

I noticed this walk advertised on the Durham County Council website. The attractions were that it started at Stanley Crook – just a mile and a couple of hops from Chez Knipe, so I could walk to it, and it was 12 miles long, which is what you want at this stage of TGO-ness and it was lead by Bill Gallon , and I always find Bill’s walks interesting and, well, quite fun.

So I walked up to the start which was a small car park on the Deerness Valley line – much too small for the number of cars that turned up, in fact.

It was nice to meet some old acquaintances amongst the walkers, and, not least amongst the three stewards, Doug, Neville and Clare and so it was in high dudgeon that we set off Northwards along the Deerness valley walk in warm spring sunshine and not a flake of volcanic debris in sight.

I won’t bother you with the fine details of the walk but will just recount what a nice day it was and how it was that nobody got killed or lost or anything and that we visited some bits of woodland, some old railway lines,some new nature reserves, some very old coke ovens (remains of…), more lambing fields and woods and vast areas of the over-smoothed local countryside.

I should explain that the countryside around Crook has been substantially dug up, turned over and replaced with something else in the search for Black Diamonds which lie just under the surface and go down a couple of hundred feet in a series of well-known and named seams. Drift mines and shafts were replaced by open castings, hundreds of feet deep and occupied by what appeared to be Tonka toys.

Everything was coal. They filled in the holes and planted strips of trees, and now,we’re left with smooth green undulating hills – not unpleasant in themselves, but not the rough moorland that it once was. Its easy walking country. There is space and big views and deep woods and bits of industrial archeology based on coal, coke and iron.

And the spring is just springing with just the startings of patches of new flowers and the greening of the fields.

We had a cracking walk. The company was good. (There were 27 of us in total) The weather was perfect and I only had to walk a bit extra – so I did just over 15 miles and 1600 feet of climbing.

But what of the Cow’s Tail? Its a pub. Actually, its an ex-pub. It was The Dun Cow aka The Cow’s Tail aka “Dode’s”. It was very small. The publican, at one time , was the oldest landlord in Britain and if you stood too long at the bar, your legs got burned from the coal fire. I used to visit on my bike. Its downhill all the way to Knipe Towers from there.

Bill Gallon is Chairman of the Pennine Way Association and had an excellent website of North-East walks at http://www.billswalks.co.uk/ Have a look – its fab – specially if you live in NE England.

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….

Challenge Planning, whisky and chicken curry

I got invited over to Doug's in the Deerness Valley for a looking at maps of Scotland whilst drinking whisky session. So I walked over from Crook and we had a couple of house drawing lines on maps and he let me into one of his Christmas whisky bottle. Doug says he doesnt drink whisky, but he gave a bottle of red plonk a bit of a hammering.

After tea (chicken curry), I walked back again in the dark.

Becky's (adminfairy) pressy - the little Petzl is still going very strongly despite numerous after-dark walk finishes and a few hours in some leadmines.

The walk is along the ex-Crook - Durham railway line and is pretty easy as far as navigation is concerned. Its a sort of point-and-fire job, really. It does go quite steeply over the hill, on top of which there used to be an enormous hole for the digging of coal, which is just under the surface around here. Its all been filled in and planted with trees now, and is really very pleasing to walk on.

Todays walk was just 8 miles.

My next TGO Planning jobs, which I must get on with is to find out about accomodation in Glenelg (I don;t think there's a hotel there) - and do my "food plan". This is basically an analysis of the TGO walk with a plan as to how much scoff I'll need to carry from the start, whether or not I might post myself some extra supplies, and where I'll need to buy something - and how much. Its not rocket science, but if I get it wrong, it can be a right bugger. I usually carry just that little bit too much.

I've also just designed myself a little four day trundle starting at Sanquhar and bagging a couple of Marilyns and some HuMPs (correct capitalisation here!) - for the purposes of TGO Challenge training and doing some camping. I will visit the pub in Wanlockhead for a scoff, but all overnights will be wild camps. I picked Sanquhar because its got a train station. I'm quietly buzzing to get on with this one. Roll on April.

In the meantime, I'll spend some of today doing food plans