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?

Come In Path 49

I got an email from Elaine at the Rights of Way Dept at Durham County Council asking if I’d like to adopt Footpath 49 in the parish of Crook, seeing as it had just been improved and it would be a good idea to keep an eye on it.
She sent a map, and Footpath 49 looked so lonely and abandoned..and unadopted, that I had to say “yes”. I’ve been thinking of doing a bit more adopt-a-path stuff anyway, and this one is not that far from Pie Towers.
So, today, I went and had a look.

Its an interesting path and is well used – I met several dog walkers and their dogs today, and the surface shows a lot of evidence of use (its a bit muddy)
It starts (or ends, depending on which way you go) at the dizzy height of 200 and a bit metres and descends gently as a fenced path to a housing estate, where it becomes a “snicket” and has tarmac – and it ends in an industrial estate between two high and spiky fences. The total distance is around 1600 metres and the height difference between the top and the bottom is about 70 metres. And its a fairly pleasant little walk.

So, I’ll be doing this “officially” twice a year, probably in February and August each year.
Any bother and ..well…there’ll be bother. Bruno will be coming with me. He likes that sort of thing.

Adopt-a-path around Crook

I do this walk twice a year as part of my Rangering stuff wot I do for Durham County Council. The idea is to report any footpath problems to the Rights of Way team at County Hall and they prioritise them. Stuff gets done eventually. Some of the issues are fairly minor, though, if just a bit irritating. There’ll be a couple of those along shortly.

I took superdawg. I always take superdawg. The other dog wanted to come too, but its too far for her…..
So we surveyed bridleway 37 (somebody had shot up the waymarks), 38 (roadside sign pointing in the wrong direction, footpath 25 (wobbly stiles and illegally diverted about 20 years ago…), 18, a bit of barbed wire on the stiles, 20 (nervous sheep), bridleway 33 (fly-tipped gas bottle and asbestos roofing) and footpath 30 (I couldn’t find anything wrong with FP30)

I’ll make the reports on-line in the morning. In the meantime I have van appointment with a bottle of vino collapso.

The walk is five miles and has 650 feet of climbing and, really, its mainly quite pleasant. Nice views of the Pennines.
This is the same walk in January this year. Brrrrrr….  Soon be Christmas…..

A Little Light Lone Rangering

Every year, just before the TGO Challenge, in fact, I do a little walk starting at Blanchland and another starting at Edmundbyers, both on the same day. The purpose is to check the paths, waymarks stiles and signposts for any problems and report these to Durham County Council. I do the same walk in October and similar walks at Crook in January and July. I could do more, really.

But today was Blanchland’s turn. On the first walk – about five miles, I discovered nothing much amiss that I hadn’t already discovered last October. The paths are slowly getting better used. One stile was still pivoting and is hazardous, in my view , and another path, up a steep bank is slowly slipping away. I also found a loose wendy house, which I returned to a garden. I assume it was the correct garden.

The first half was sunshine, hail showers and a perishing wind coming from somewhere in the general direction of Norway. The second half was sunny, but even colder. I even had me warmest hat on.

One of the attractions of the first walk is the riot of colour provided by the bluebells. Unfortunately these always flower the week when the TGO Challenge starts, so I always miss it.

After lunch, I did the 9 mile circuit of the lead-mine trail which involves an outward bridleway over the moor and a return on a footpath through suckler cows and lambs. it is these suckler cows who once mugged me and are the main reason for Bruno’s absence on this walk.

There was nothing much amiss with the paths. I met half a dozen cyclists who were all friendly, a sullen farmer at Pedams Oak with his butties in a tupperware box (although his dog was very friendly) – and the black cattle.

Blanchland is named after the white monks who’s monastery was on this site before the Scots and Henry VII trashed the place (pre-menstrual or somethink…) and Pedam’s oak is the Oak in which one local thief, bandit and cattle riever called Pedam used to hide out. I believe they strung him up eventually.

There was also a sign on a farm gate which said that there wasn’t a right of way through the gate. Its true, there is no right of way through the gate. I guess that the waymarks are a bit obscure just there. there’s one on a telegraph pole, but there’s a choice of two lanes at that point. I expect that some people are choosing the wrong lane. I’ll make a suggestion to DCC.

And that was that.

14 miles and 1850 feet of uphill.

I’ll be back in October. The reports will be done on-line tomorrow evening.

Wot fun. Wot? Tonto?

Post Prandial Path Patrol or Playtime for Superdawg

After lunch (that was the prandial part, people…) it became time for me to do my bi-annual patrol of certain footpaths as part of my Voluntary Rangering, or Adopt-a-Path duty. Its not really a “duty” in the strictest sense, its really a walk where I get to go “tut tut, would you look at that “ and “tsk tsk, have you seen the state of that stile?”

The adopt-a-path patrol approaches The Farrers Arms

And so, me and superdawg set off once again into the snow, which was ever-so-slightly deeper than it was yesterday (about another 3 or 4 inches, I would guess)

Not that way…

We followed our well-established route from the Farrera Arms up to Roddymoor and then by various rights of way up to Billy Row church, then around the back of Stanley Crook and back down the hill to Crook.

I couldn’t find much to whinge about, really – just some waymarks missing. the wobbly stiles noted the last time I did this walk, back on the hottest day of the year (see intro pic of Bruno’s tongue) – had either been fixed or were frozen so solid as not to wobble.

Breaking a trail (in the wrong direction)

There was deep, undrifted snow in the fields, and some moderate drifts. Kids were sledging nearby. It was a beautiful sunny day. Bruno thought it was all quite fab.

Bridleway to Crook

It was also quite hard work. I really do need those snow shoes if its going to continue like this. This is getting to be like the winter was when I first arrived in Crook in 1985. The snowdrifts on the moors lasted into May.

Measures to reduce carbon emissions go too far this time

Brian rang last night and described the conditions at Nenthead where the snow is many times deeper than it is here, apparently. All of the trans-Pennine routes are closed, though, apart from the Aire and Tyne gaps – too far to go around to Nenthead. If I get the snowshoes, I might walk over from Weardale.

How did they know when they put the sign up?

I don’t suppose anybody’s seen hide or hair of any binmen at all?

5 miles and 650 feet of ascent today, though it felt like more. Much, much more.....

I’ll be back in July providing the snow has melted

Adopt-a-path walks in North Durham

Really attentive readers may recall that last May and last October, I did my bit for the footpaths and bridleways of the very very North of Durham – so far North, in fact, that the walk started in Blanchland, which is, of course, in Northumberland.
I’m a Voluntary Countryside Ranger for Durham County Council, y’see. I work alone. I’m the lone ranger. Today, to indicate my authority I wore a badge in my hat. It says Burnley FC and has a claret and blue shield.
And so, in the fair parish of Hunstanworth, I checked out the following footpaths and bridleways:

FP28
FP1
FP24
BW22
BW31
FP29
BW32

And in Edmundbyers:

BW5
BW9
FP8

The Edmundbyers paths are much longer than the Hunstanworth ones , of course.

And I found that on FP24 there are absolutely loads of blackberries and the locaal farmer has lost two rolls of hay over the wall, which he has partially demolished. Nowt to do with me.

On FP1, the path is collapsing a bit more than it was last May and I realosed that at the road start, you can’t tell which gate the path goes through, unless you know already.

On FP29, the stile takes you by surprise when one side shoots up in the air and this dumps you in the woodland on the other side.

BW32 doesn’t go anywhere that horses and bikes can go and the cows on PF8 have been replaced by little black ones that aren’t very aggressive. The gorse at the Edmundbyers end of FP8 will close the path soon (maybe next summer) unless it gets trimmed a bit.

And that BW5 aka the Lead Mine trail is a fab high-speed thrash of easy walking over purple moors. Cyclists seem to like it a lot.

And that was that. Autumn is upon us, the leaves are turning there was some odd bright skies and drizzle at the same time and an edge to the wind.

I’ll be putting in reports about the things that need reporting.

14 miles done in two circular walks – and nobody met.
And I can do this walk without a map now….

I’m off to Wales on Friday, so if anybody posts late comments, they probably won’t get authorised till I get back in a fortnight – unless there’s a library with interwebby stuff or something

Adopt-a-Path Stuff at Crook

As its now July, its time, once again to do my twice yearly wander around half-a-dozen footpaths and bridleways just to the North of Crook. I do this as a volunteer for Durham County Council and the purpose is to make a report to the Council about any path blockages or whatever so that these rights of way stay open for people to use and enjoy.
In the end, its quite a nice little trundle of just about five miles.
I didn’t find too much this time – just one decrepit stile (pictured) , and another that would be difficult to find if you didn’t know it was there due to deep grass and nettles. This happened to this footpath last year and, eventually, it got strimmed. If its just a minor bit of overgrowth, I clear it myself – but this was too much for that.
Bruno came along for the walk, although I’m not sure he was too happy with the heat.
Actually, once on top of our local hill, there was a nice breeze and at the furthest away part of the circle, there’s a beautiful meadow of poor grass but lots of flowers.
I met a few people – one rebuilding a wall at Billy Row Church, a couple of old chaps gossiping outside some cottages and a lady sitting in her garden enjoying the sun and the view (she’s got a view which goes as far as Teeside).
And there was lots of bird song today – including a chiff-chaff (could be a migrant as this one was actually going chaff-chiffs) – lots of skylarks, and a flock of about twenty homing pigeons with squeaky wings circling a cree above Stanley Crook
I’ll be back to this route just after Christmas.
One pic shows Bruno and his tongue. I had to pour a bottle of water down his throat just after this!