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

Elephant Trees Again

It was last December when I did this walk before. I make no apologies for posting about it again, cos its a favourite trip. Its easy walking, not far from home and , basically, I don;t have to make much of an effort. And the views are quite nice too.

Bridleway to the Elephant Trees

The last time I did it was in me new Christmas undies, and, I have to say, that I had the same long johns on today and, yes, they have been washed.

The route goes up the Hamsterley road out of Wolsingham, along a bridleway which runs close to the scarp edge, down in to White Kirkley and along the riverside back to Wolsingham. Simple, really and , its possible to add or subtract little bits for interest or in the case of boredom or if you can’t remember turning off your headlights this morning.

Munch Bunch by the Intake Wall

The Elephant Trees themselves haven’t changed since the last time I was here – but then they haven’t really changed much since I first saw them in 1986. They’ve probably lost a few branches I suppose.

Elephant Trees carvings

The only different thing was the new bunkhouse which has opened just above Wolsingham at Carrs farm. If anybody wants a bunkhouse whilst bagging North Pennines or something then the website is www.carrsfarm.co.uk I had a look, it looks OK to me, if a bit near our house….

I allowed superdawg to witness the demolition of a cheese and tomato sandwich in the shelter of the intake wall on the other side from the Trees. I’m not sure he was impressed. . I did let him hoover up the crumbs from my blueberry muffin before we pressed on, down to Frosterley and along the riverside.

It was noticeably colder today. It felt more like winter, and it was a dark sort of morning but it got sunnier and a bit colder later. There’s snow in the air (according to the MET anyway…..)

Just a note for anybody who’s never seen a kingfisher by the way – the place to go is the Kingfisher caravan site, just East of Frosterley. Funny coincidence that, eh? The name of the caravan and..er.. the .… bird thing. I didn’t see one today.

I watched the salmon jumping at the bridge to the site. There were some really big fish in there, most of whom tried several times to get up a small cascade, but the river is running very fast and they were washed downstream again and again. One very skinny-looking fish wriggled upstream. I wonder if a kingfisher could manage one of these beasts…

For the extra thrill, run with your eyes closed

We collected wood, mainly ash, to light the fire. Bruno helped by running about with various sticks then destroying them. He had a nice charge around in the townfields which always seem to be empty of stock at this time of year.

This is a very easy ten mile trundle, which takes about four hours if you ramble and three if you don’t stop.

Weardale TGO Challenge training again

Meanwhile, back at the TGO Challenge training plan (I expect you’re getting bored by TGO stuff by now…. ) – It seems that in March, I should orta do a longer walk than whatever was the longest walk I managed in February.
And so, I consulted my diary of walks and found that last march I walked from Wolsingham to Hamsterley Forest via Doctor’s gate and then up Sharnberry Gill nad back over the moors by Five Pikes and the Elephant Trees.
I consulted the dawg and it was agreed that as neither of us could think of a better one at such short notice – this is what we would do.
So we did.
It’s a steep start, up the road towards Hamsterley and then turning off on a even minorrer road passing St Johns Hall to Doctors gate.
The Daffies were flowering at St Johns Hall. This may, at first glance, seem a trivial point but no ! I said No!
Y’see your St Johns Hall once belonmged to the Backhouse family. These peeps were rich magnates. This means that bits of metal adhered to them. The bits of metal in question in this case being money. They had lots of it and they founded banks with it and lent money to other Victorians to build things with – like railways and bridges and mines and factories. One William Backhouse spent some time at St Johns Hall breeding daffodils. Hence the daffies were out at St Johns Hall. I don’t think these were special ones, though. Somebody would have pinched special ones.
There was also a very pretty patch of what appears to be Lungwort – according to my Wild Flower key which cost me twenty quid, so it must be right. I only mention these things because it’s obviously spring.
Incidentally, speaking of banks, I’ve just realised that HBOS went nips up almost immediately after I’d finished paying my mortgage. Food for thought, there. I’m sure you will agree.
Anyway, we plodded on over (or is it through?) Doctor’s gate – so called because that’s the way the doctor came (I think) – and over the flat moor and down into Hamsterley Forest. This forest is remarkably similar to Fetterresso Forest which is why its good for training. Similar in the way its full of trees.
I lunched briefly whilst Bruno destroyed some sticks (lots of sticks in H. Forest) – and then up onto the moors via Sharnberry Gill. Sharnberry is a very young feature, geologically – being only 12 to 13000 years old. Which is young. It is, in fact, the overflow from a very deep and large lake caused by the bunging up of Teesdale with an enormous wall of ice. Thus it was global warming that caused enormous torrents of water to gouge out this gully over the watershed. Victorian leadminers did a bit more damage. Global cooling over the last 7000 years has caused it to fill in a bit with sphagnum and peat and other sloppy things.
I always get the next bit of moor between the road and an estate track near Pawlaw Pike wrong. I just can’t find the path. Its easier if you go the other way. The sign says dogs are banned from this bit of open access. This doesn’t apply on public footpaths, which is what we’re trying to follow. But if they want me and superdawg to follow the path accurately, they should put some waymarker poles in. Otherwise we just trespass. Take me to court, I don’t care.
After this, its downhill for lots and lots of miles on good paths, tracks and roads. Its a romp. We pass the elephant trees. (see a previous posting) and a chap mending the stone wall.
We finish. We go home. We (That is I) drink tea. We fall asleep.
We have walked 18 and a bit miles and climbed 2300 feet.
It wasn’t really very difficult
We are on track

A visit to the Elephant Trees in new undies

Santy brought me socks and undies for Christmas – the undies in question being iceberg (or something….) merino wool trollies and long johns, and the sox being sealskins. So, along with the bottles of nice scotch and a sort of bobbly digital camera tripod thingy, I’m well chuffed with this year’s haul.

On the way back from the weeding, spoken of in the previous posting, we seem to have become diverted into Aldi’s car park in Halifax – and I came out with yet more merino wool stuff –in this case, a top at a stupidly low price and some snow goggles in case it ever snows again and then sunshines, and a mid-layer top.

So, me and superdawg decided it would be a bit of a jape to try out some of the kit and we had this little walk to a small but significant patch of trees overlooking Weardale. Its quite handy for Knipe Towers as its only six miles from here to Wolsingham and it is one of my favourite little trundles for the winter time – or, very specially for a warm summers evening with some twilight and a big moon at the end.

The Elephant Trees are a famous Weardale landmark, or should that be a treemark? Anyway, you won’t find the name on an OS map, cos it’s a local name. You can see this little patch of trees on the Weardale skyline for absolutely bloody miles and, so it is said, they once looked a bit like a small herd of elephants, specially after spending a long liquid lunchtime in the Black Bull.

Weardalers are very fond of the Elephant trees and, as they’re getting quite old and just a bit senile, some replacements have been planted in their little walled enclosure. But it’s a windy spot. They’ll need to be tough trees. Some of the old codger Elephant Trees bear witness in the carved hearts, dates and initials on their wizened bark. Anybody who fells these trees will need to watch their backs for a long long time.

It’s an easy walk, though – up a hill, along the moor, down the hill to Frosterley and back along the riverside and through the townfields of Wolsingham. There are usually snowdrifts when I do this – but not today, just a little bit of ice. 10 Miles and about 1000 feet of upness.

And the undies? They’re fab, as it happens. The temperature was around freezing but with a very light wind. I was also wearing some Ronhills, the mid-layer top plus softshell windproof smock. And a smug, warm look.