Another Birkett Bagged – Capple Howe

Three years and a month ago, I went through the 40mph area at Brough at 52 mph. This resulted in a trip to Penrith on a speed awareness course.

Yesterday, by mistake, I went through the 40mph area at Ings at about 55 mph and the speed camera flashed at me.

Doh!

Apart from that, me and the bro did an eight-ish mile walk up the Dubbs Road, through the Troutbeck quarries (previously explored in 1964 during a brief camping trip to Troutbeck in which yours truly, abandoned by relieved parents and not really understanding the need for daily food,  almost starved to death) – and up lots of contours to the top of Sour Howes and then, briefly to Capple Howe and, after a suitable celebration involving smoked Lammermuir cheese butties and chocolate cake, along the ridge to Sallows and back to the start along an old quarry road  and over Mickle Moss and so on and so forth.

It was grey and windy and cold.

This was my 512th Birkett out of 541. I am unlikely to finish Birketts, though due to one of them being steep and scary and called “Pillar Rock”. But you never know, innit?

Bruno came too. he was specially manic for some reason, possibly connected to his recent holiday at Ireshopeburn which seems to have unsettled his usually fairly laid-back approach to everything except food and getting his lead on for a walk. And sticks. And pussy cats. And snow.  Actually, now I think about it, he’s not really laid back at all…

And despite the rather unfortunate incident with the speed camera (I’m waiting for a letter) – the walk did produce another gruntle-connected word. Misgruntled – Being happy without a reasonable excuse – reasonableness that which is judged to be reasonable by the man on the Number 42 bus. 

Anyway, as a post-script, and to prove that in every dark cloud there’s an angel with a torch, I am very very gruntled to say a big thanks to Ian Paul who koffed up some spondoolies into the Virgin Money-giving account whilst I was away in Dunbar. Thanks Ian.  Cheered me up, so it did….

Money for Mind – How is it going?

I’m just off up the Borders for a couple of days for a family booze-up  small but bijoux celebration and, in view of a projected lack of pieblogposting over the next couple of days,  I thought I’d take this opportunity to give a little bit of feedback on how things are going so far with the money-raising project for Mind.

I couldn’t help noticing that Gayle has a certain affection for the Excel spreadsheet and so, I thought I’d have a go at one of these too. You may consider the chart below as useful as a waterproof teabag, but readers, I’ve struggled with this for hours and hours. In fact, I didn’t have a beard when I started and look at me now.

While I’m away, I may well get to bag the odd Marilyn and, maybe, a Hump or a Tump or even a very steep but reasonably friendly Law.

Anyway, here’s the chart:

 

I think this is quite good so far and I’d like to thank everybody who has koffed up some spondoolies in some way or other – in fact , the spondooly koffing sources are approximately as follows:

Donation for Digital Denbighshire £ 50. 00

Personal donations including gift aid £40.00

Gear auctions/sales as donations £136.25

This is pretty much on target so far. So, I’m chuffed and gruntled and even a bit consolate.

In the meantime, a sojourn by the briny just a bit South of the Forth is at the seafront of my mind.

Link to virgin money giving site is here    just in case anybody has the urge to top up the total or, maybe, round it up a bit!

 

 

 

Over the Tops to Rookhope and a Message for Alfie

Me and the Dawg did the reccy for this DCC guided walk the other day and found some footpath issues detailed in the previous blog post. The County Council Rights of Way peeps replied to my email saying that they’re monitoring the path and that they’re planning some works. This is good.

The reccy was done in windy sunshine which was quite nice if you got behind a wall out of the wind to eat the Lancashire cheese and pickled red cabbage butty wot I had to eat in a suntrap out of the wind at the top of Scarsike Head.

On the day (yesterday), there were fourteen of us including me and the two stewards Janet and Steven – no compulsory Dave today, but instead, we had a small collie pup who liked sticks and trying to bite puddles.

We started from Westgate in fast improving weather and soon had blue skies and shelter from the howling gale inside Slit Wood. The collapsing footpath posed no problems and it wasn’t till we started climbing over the moor that the wind made itself felt – luckily, it was more or less behind us and so, a wind-assisted, slightly staggery ascent was made.

And then it started raining a bit. By the time we’d squeezed as many people as possible into the bus shelter in Rookhope for lunch, the conditions were getting quite lively. And these got livelier as we passed High Bishop Seat and battered on towards Westgate. The driving rain turned to driving sleet and, basically, we got  very wet and quite muddy. The dog seemed to enjoy it, though.

And so, a slightly ruffled and soggy fourteen-and-a-dog staggered back into Westgate.
Its not a bad walk – the pub at Rookhope seems to be closed – hopefully on a temporary basis. It’s nine miles and here’s a map for anybody who fancies it for a stroll.

I’ll be giving this one a bit of a rest as far as Durham County guided walks is concerned – I’ve done it three or four times now – which means six or eight times with reccies – and that’s enough of that for a while.
Message for ?”Alfie” – We found your boots where you’d reversed your car over them. They should be at Northumbria House by now. If not – send me an email and I’ll investigate their whereabouts. They are safe, though! And if it’s any comfort, you’re not the only one to accidentally abandon kit on that same day. Prolly just a phase of the moon… I do this sort of thing all the time, in fact.

Footpath No.10 Westgate (Slit Wood)

Yesterday, me and superpooch walked the route of next Saturday’s Durham County Council guided walk which is a 9 mile route from Westgate – over the tops and to Rookhope and back along the Weardale Way. And part of this route goes through the very lovely and quite interesting Slit Wood.
Now Slit Wood has the remains of at least two lead mines – one of which has had a bunch of money spent on restoration and preservation quite recently and so, footpath 10 is quite important for this alone, apart from the fact that it’s very popular for Weardalers and their children and doggies and it’s quite well know further afield.

And I found that some footpath 10 is either falling into the beck or is being covered by a landslip.
So I took these pictures of some of the industrial archaeology in the wood and some of the difficulties that the path is now experiencing.
I told the rights of way peeps at County Hall, obviously and they’ve replied saying that they’re monitoring the path and are planning some works. Which is good.
Hopefully, key bits of FP10 will still be there on Saturday.

A lump of FP10 about to dive into Middlehope Burn

Evidence of the testing of rock drills in the smithy doorway at Slit Mine

Remains of the smithy

This culvert defies gravity. The dog defies all attempts to get him to walk to heel

Maybe something to do with the hydraulic engine?

Footings for Armstrong hydraulic engine

Wheel pit and dog uninterested in wheel pits

Main shaft – capped with concrete. Shaft has shuttered in at 95 feet depth. Don’t jump up and down here…

Slit Vein Hush

Stile incorporates tramway rails

Gloopy landslip

Wet level Middlehope mine

Dam and tramways Middlehope Mine

Plants in the stream emanating from the Middlehope mine level

More about this route after Saturday’s walk! (Starts at 10:00 at the layby with the phone box on the A689 Crook to Alston road at Westgate – bring butties and a camera)

Whinlatter Birkett Baggings

Bruno recently pointed out that I had somehow missed a couple of Birketts in the Whinlatter area – one Graystones – the Birkett top, not the Wainwright top (there’s a difference) and Seat How. I think I remember trying to find Seat How once and failing in deep, deep heather, midgies, blackfly, horseflies, bog and trees…..

So, it was with a determined and jutting chin, that we turned up at Spout Force car park with lots of pretty light s flashing on the knipemobile (due for a service – the one about the brake linings was a bit worrying, what with the speeds on the A66 an all that…). I liked the one which says “Service!” .It  was probably a catering van in a previous life, I expect.

Anyway, the route up to Graystones (Birkett not Wainwright top) is a huge heave from the beck . It took me ages. Bruno was first to the summit cairn… Thigh muscles ached and burned at the same time…

And then we had a nice, if sloppy in parts, wander over Broom Fell and to the top of Lord’s Seat. Everything going well so far, and the ragged undersides of today’s clouds made everything look a bit bigger than it actually is. But nice – everything was nice -note clever use of a dash there – I’m just trying out dashes on recommendation – see the comments on the previous blog post – the one about raising spondoolies by blagging extra stuff from gear companies – but I digress – as I say [I’m getting a bit fed up of dashes, now by the way] – as I say, everything was good till this point.

I seem to remember, one sultry August day some years ago, trying to find Seat How from here. I seem to remember a debacle of insect bites, dripping skin and sweaty pants and failure to identify anything that looked vaguely like it might be Seat How. This time there was a new path heading in roughly the right direction. Bruno was confident. We embarked.

After a while, it seemed that the path had abandoned it’s quest to lead us to Seat How and was now heading in the approximate direction of Glasgow. We abandoned the path for a more basic, muddier one, heading in the rough direction of Penrith – a more Seat-Howish direction, in point of fact.

Suddenly, it started going downhill quite steeply. This was wrong. We contoured on a made path and found a line of muddy footprints heading back uphill. Baggers prints. All a we needed was some bagger spoor as evidence that we were on to something. We reached a kind of top hidden behind a tree. There was a small cairn. The excitement was almost detectable.  This was Seat How. No, really, it was. Honest. I’m having the bloody tick anyway.

We made our way towards the Whinlatter Visitor Centre, only going wrong twice and, ultimately, attracted by the sound of kids playing, dogs barking and traffic…  er……? trafficking (?)
Anyway, we got there eventually and followed National Cycle Route 71 and the main road back to the start.
It was about 9 miles, depending on exactly where we went, which is a bit vague at the moment…