Wolsingham Weardale Walk – Elephant Trees No More

We had a fair day for the Weardale walk that appeared in a blog post a week or so ago. Along with the stewards – Doug, Dave and Richard, we had 16 walkers, half of whom, it would appear, are also DVCRS rangers on a jolly. (A picture of one of them, Neville, appears at the top of this post)

We had a good walk, it failed to rain and nobody died, although a grouse chick maybe came a bit close… In fact, people seemed to be in fairly high spirits most of the time, so I think they enjoyed it.

 

So we went up the heavingly steep hill to Chatterley Farm, along to the Efelent Trees, down to Fine Gill for lunch with the hungry midgies, further down to Bollihope for a nice ramble to Harehope Mine and a look at the orchids, cowboy pass,  chickens, mine shop, Frosterley Marble and Harehope Quarry, eventually, back to Wolsingham. 11 miles altogether.

It was fun. I’d do it again.

So that’s it for the Elephant Trees for a while. I’ve five more rangering reccy and adopt-a-path walks to do in the next few days, around Crook, Weardale and Baldersdale. And then there’s the wet thing, of course…….

No more Elephant Trees for a while, though – phew….

 

Comme une boite de grenouilles….

Just spent two afternoons doing a spot of rangering around Crook.

Tuesday was a reccy for an evening walk next Tuesday. Everything was OK, except, perhaps, a meeting with a paranoid farmer who said he recognised me as a trouble maker who’d organised an illegal land snatch ten years ago and he had a photo to prove it. His brother said he was off to Crook to buy some cheese. So, next Tuesday evening could be interesting. I guess we’ll try to pass quietly.

Gwylt fel bocs o frogaod…..

 

Wednesday was a reccy for a new walk for the DCC winter walks programme. This will be for Christmas and may involve non-Christmassy cakes and buns and coffee afterwards in St Caths centre for the warming up. Basically, its a circumnavigation of Crook, and its very nice cos I did it today.

At least, I did a circumnavigation, but a bit of the route doesn’t work properly, so I’ll change it a bit. Its eight and a half miles.

Ive got another six rangering type walks  of various kinds over the next ten days and you’ll be relieved to hear that I won’t be doing blog posts for each and every one – cos they’ll all be the same, innit and you’ll get bored and go and read Fatdog instead.

And there’s something special lined up for Sunday. Something very wet. And dark. No, I mean really really wet and very very dark. Oooer….

 

Blue Peter

Good news for the people of Salford that the Blue Peter programme is moving there. This will be great for the Coach and Horses - the nearest public house to the new studios.

Here's a little predictive clip.

Nice

King’s Walk Hudeshope Reccy

Another day, another reccy. This was for a proposed Durham County walk – probably in early November when the autumn leaves are very autumny. Like leaves.

This time, Bruno came too, and there was only one field of suckler cows – and they failed to notice us. So that was OK.

I put the knipemobile in somebody’s parking spot in Middleton in Teesdale and wandered up the Stanhope road, turning off into the Hudeshope woods. This little side valley has public footpaths, but it also has some very nice permissive paths – walks, really, provided by the Raby estate, which is the principal landowning estate in Teesdale on the North side of the river.

So, we followed the King’s Walk which does a loop through the woods and ends up at the end of the tarmac road close to some old limekilns.

My proposed route then continues through more woodland and pastures and reaches the main Hudeshope lead mining grounds. This is another one of those areas devastated by mining activity. I had intended for the walk to visit Coldberry mine, which has a restored mine shop (dormitory), offices and stables. But the place has been vandalised and the doors left open for the sheep to get in. This results in the raising of the floor level due to large deposits of sheep shit. There was an abandoned sleeping bag and a lot of litter and graffiti. Too depressing for a DCC walk, which are supposed to be fun  fun fun… Its not even any good as a shelter if its raining, so I’m not going there. Glad I did a reccy.

The return (downhill) route goes through two flowery meadows of the very special Northern meadows type. One of the key plants in these meadows is the Yellow Rattle. When the Yellow Rattle rattles, its time to make hay. Its not rattling yet, so if you want to see Northern hay meadows in full thrash, best go now.

The route returns to the Hudeshope woodlands – lots of orchids today - and follows the river, ending up, in a narrow  and unlikely passageway into Middleton. Bruno had a little paddle in the beck and destroyed some sticks. There are some quite deep pools in the beck – I shouldn’t wonder if there aren’t salmon running upstream at the right time. Today, there were lots of kids in helmets and yellow suits jumping down the waterfalls. What fun, wot?

I did 6.5 miles. The DCC walk will be just 6. Its a good walk and I’m happy with it, so I’ll submit it for the Winter walks programme.  Bruno liked it too, specially the paddling in the beck. 

Wolsingham Weardale Wekky..er..Reccy..dhuhh

At half ten in the morning on 1 July, I’m leading another Durham County Council guided walk and so, roughly a week before I went out today to see if the route was safe and that I could remember where it went.

Superdawg stayed home for a bit of howling because I predicted (successfully as it happens..) suckler cattle and some of those bullock animals that bounce around a lot. he wouldn’t have liked any of those. Note the sign – the farmer is showing signs of contact with the catering trade (note the aberrant apostrophe)

So, after following the Wolsingham wheelchair walk for a bit (for peeps in wheelchairs..) , I struggled manfully up the steep bank out of Wolsingham, ignoring the two herds of idiot cattle running about daft, through a crop of barley 9I think) and a meadow and on to the bridleway to the Efelant Trees. We all know about the elfelent trees by now coz they iz famiss.

And, after some messing on and some pratting about during which I had a long telephone conversation with John Jocys, I entered the superb and interesting little valley of Bollihope Burn with it’s lead mines and quarries and kilns and bridges and holes and chickens. yes, folks, chickens. I got followed for a substantial distance by a herd of hungry chickens. these ladies would not take no for an answer and insisted on investigating my socks to see if there was any grain in there. Or a worm, perhaps….  Eventually they came to the edge of chickenland and turned back. I probably won’t mention these in the Health and Safety assessment.

I also met the train from Stanhope (not many people on board) and a man with a red flag and a green flag operating the level crossing. I expect he was a communist mobile car mechanic or something.. and some brown pigs enjoying themselves free-range in a wood.

Then I met the sucklers who looked vaguely interested in me for a while but didn’t make much fuss. It would have been a different matter had superdawg been along.

I did eleven miles, which, not really coincidentally is the same distance as next week’s guided walk. There’s a few manky planks on a footbridge. Other than that, the walk is fine.

Bruno can come tomorrow. I’m doing another reccy at Middleton in Teesdale.