Shameless Plug

And now for a shameless plug - Over on http://www.doodlecat.com/howgills/index.html/ Phil and Tina have published the first three months of my Howgills diary - full of route ideas and good advice about how to manage your interpersonal relationships, nutrition, dog training, history, archeology and flower arranging and even how to stop smoking.

Its twelve months in the Howgills containing (eventually), thirteen walks and it took me two years to do due to various bits of unpleasantness involving ECG machines and nurses with needles and razors and stuff....

They do a cracking job on Doodlecat making this stuff readable and looking presentable by the way. I can;t bellieve some of those pictures are mine....

Anyway, whatever you do, don;t use it as a guide to the Howgills...

have a look.

justabitofun, justabitofun....

North Pennines - Deadstones

Tuesday Morning, me bruvver turned up and me and him (him and I?) went off for a walk whilst Mike plumped for the fleshpots of Alston via the Pennine Way.

In nice, almost warm sunshine, we went back to Ash Gill – at least I went back there as John hadn’t been there before…. Er… anyway. It was roughly the same as it had been on Monday – maybe just a bit more water. But, in leaving the place this time, we took a little side path that I happened to know about and this lead us up to an overhanging crag – apparently impossible to climb without pitons and a friendly helicopter. Or a friend with a very long ladder. R Kidd expressed the view that he wouldn’t be able to climb it.
But there’s a little slot in the crag, gained by a short but slippery rock step and this slot leads fairly steeply but nevertherless quite easily up through the crag in a sort of underground fashion and pops out in a surprising sort of way at the top. Just a bit bizarre, but interesting nevertheless.
After this adventure, we walked up a bit of tarmac, noting the red squirrels trotting along the wall tops – and up onto the moorland of the Weardale ridge, topping out at the summit of Dead Stones, at about 700 and a bit metres. Dead stones has a shelter or bothy on the top. You wouldn’t want to spend a night in there, though – inside there’s just a slimy bench and a tiny fireplace and no door.
We followed the ridge Northwards for a while and chatted to various grouse beaters waiting to start their drive on the way. We were advised two or threee times which side of the hill to walk on, but, generally, the encounter was friendly.
As it started getting a bit late, we shortened the walk at this point and headed down towards the col between nenthead and garrigill and then, by field paths in gathering gloom, back to the South Tyne and Garrigill.

As we came close to Garrigill there was a rabbit tottering around blindly and, as it sensed out approach it desperately tried to find a hole in the wall. In the end it just cowered behind a patch of rushes. It couldnt see a thing. Myxamatosis (I'm not sure of the spelling)

We tutted but carried on but as we crossed the next stile, a chap in camo gear carrying a rifle appeared. We told him about the rabbit and he went off to introduce it to it's maker. A single shot a short while later probably indicated the poor thing's final end. I hope so, anyway.

We finished the walk witha short conversation with an old bloke sporting a pool cue. Apparently there's a full-sized table somewhere in Garrigill.

Brian, my pal from Nenthead provided welcome hot coffee on my way home.

Cracking few days.

Incidentally, I used the new headlight whilst camping and to find Brian's kettle as he had all the lights off

North Pennines Bagathon

After the Mickle Fell stravaig, we diverted our attentions to Garrigill, principally for the bagging of Round Hill – Mike’s final English Hewitt. And so, in temperatures just marginally above freezing and in nithering rain, we mooched off up (or is it down…?) the South Tyne Trail towards France.

A mile or so up/down the path from Garrigill is the little gorge of Ash Gill, at the top of which there is the main road from Alston to Teesdale. Emanating, or , rather, gushing from underneath this bridge is an impressive waterfall, behind which you can venture for a look at a waterfall from behind. This is an ideal spot for hiding from injuns as they gallop by. When the beck is in spate it is a truly awesome experience, with the water thundering past at arms stretch.

And so, after being slightly awed (as the beck wasn’t quite in spate), we continued up/down South Tynedale, ultimately to it’s source where there is a vaguely erotic statue with a hole in it through which to view the very spring out if which springs the reason for the most famous of Lindisfarne’s hit records. It was quite foggy up there on Monday as well.

Then, after much huffing and puffing from me, we finally mounted the soggy and only slightly tilted slopes of Round Hill with it’s little cairn. A few celebratory pictures were taken and then we evacuated the place for warmer places such as Garrigill. It went dark again.

I put my tent up behind the village hall (not a bad spot as it happens…) and after a brief but nutritious scoff, we repaired to the pub for a sweet sherry and a water biscuit and to listen to the landlord’s vynil collection. Quite an enjoyable night, all in all.

Tuesday follows (but then you know that, innit?)

Mickle Fell

I met Mike from go4awalk again – this time at a little village called Hilton, just next to the impact area of the Warcop Army training range. This place is used for training the troops to fire various types of things that go bang, and its only possible to do the walk we did when things aren’t, in fact, going “bang”. Or even “crump”.
It was a cracking day for it, cold and sunny with views from Teeside to Ingleborough – which is a long way. We started off on a bridleway, passing a notice full of dire warnings, and up a little valley and over some moorland to the derelict trig-in-a-shelter on the other top of Little Fell. The main top is a little way over to the North and is marked by a puny cairn of carboniferous limestone.
The views towards Mickle fell from the edge of this hill are notable – very wild, peat-hagged and, well, er..wild…
We got to grips with the final slopes of Mickle fell by using a handy ATV track that went in the right direction. Mickle Fell summit is marked by a large and venerable cairn – suitable for it’s position as the highest point in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and, of course, Yorkshire itself, and also the highest point in the current County Durham – almost recently renamed Durham County, or Durham and Darlington County, or possible something else….
We followed small streams and green strips through the rough ground down to maize Beck, which we handrailed to the bridleway back to Scorsdale. Scorsdale is a fab, wild and rocky slit in the scarp and it was a bit unfortunate that it went dark as we descended – but lucky that we’d just hit a good track just as the light was switched off. I used a little wind up torch that I got from a local pound shop (guess how much it cost) It has 2 leds and is very bright and I didn’t need to wind it up. I’ll use adminfairy’s headlight next time, honest. I expect it would have been better than the pound shop thingy….
I think we did about 14 miles.
More walkies tomorrow, unless it really, really rains…

TGO Planning #3 and nothing about stoves

Just had a session with TGO first-timers Doug and Michael Moffat , talking about stuff for the TGO challenge, and doing some serious damage to the whisky stocks at the Black Horse at Waterhouses. We may be doing at least one little, shortish backpacking trip in the next few weeks for training purposes, but we'll see. But as my 2009 challenge will be solo, my own personal training trips will be solo as well. Plans for this are slowly germinating. In the meantime, it looks like Doug and Mike have a route and a clear idea as to the number of teabags and socks required for a successful crossing. Doug is actually quite experienced at walking about in the wilder bits of Scotland, and he's also acting secretary of the Pennine Way Association, so I don't know why he feels he needs any advice...

Later.... today....Had a Topsy and Tim busy day including erecting a garden bench, fitting a number sign to my mum's house wall, welcoming and supervising a carpet fitter measurer man, visiting the Council offices to get some rubbish shifted, herding a goat and getting my exhausty pipe fixed...

Yes, that was herding a goat. I noticed a large brown animal disappearing behind the old folks flats...and then this enormous goat-in-a-panic came rushing by followed by a bloke who had been loitering behind there a bit suspiciously in my opinion. He asked me if it would bite him and I said I didnt think so. He made off, suspiciously.... So, a bit worried that it (goat) might wander onto the main road and eat a car or something, I captured the timid but slightly scary animal using guile and ancient half-remembered hunting instincts such as creeping up behind it and getting hold of it's "lead" It had very big horns and a strange way of looking at me - a bit like staring Old Nick himself in the eye. (Old Nick lives in the OAP's flats by the way and drives one of those electric cart things very fast whilst encouraging people to "Get out of the f****ng way")His vehicle has a high-vis jacket on the back and a union flag on a long ariel.... but I digress, or ingest or whatever it is.....

So I bring the goat back to show to the wife and tie him to the ash tree in our front garden, whereupon he scoffs my fuschia, next door's privet, an apple (donated as a diversion) a selection of leaves from a flowering blackcurrant, a sort of spiky little bush thingy and a dwarf conifer. - Oh, and a melange of potentilla fruticosa lightly drizzled with sooty dew.. The wife wants me to visit the pet shop for a bag of hay.

I set off to find an owner whilst the wife cheers up the police call centre in Durham (who advise that they'll issue an email to all the County Durham border crossings and airports in case some Northumbrian bedouins try to escape without one of their goats.) Failing that, its our problem. If it had been a nanny goat they would have sent round a WPC, apparently.

Turns out it belongs to a bloke who goes by the name of "Sooty" and lives with a horse in a field next to the old folks flats and has been busy, according to neighbours, eating the birch tree in the field and various organic items from their gardens.. It appears that it may well have consumed bits of the fence for its lunch.

I return it to it's horsey pal who is clearly quite pleased to see him. They nuzzle each other. Its time for me to rattle and roar up to Tow Law for me new exhausty pipe. (£147 by the way...) I wander around Hedleyhope Fell nature reserve for an hour whilst waiting for delivery of the new parts... Fab place by the way, just fab.

In the meantime, BT have responded to our complaints that the broadband falls over whenever its a bit windy or wet by erecting two new telegraph poles up the street and rewiring the whole shebang. What they made of a goat tethered in one of the front gardens is anybody's guess.

Bruno is quite pleased about the new telegraph poles....