Tunstall Haute Route

OK, it’s a bit of a pretentious title for an eight mile walk on the edge of the Pennines. but it’s just a joke, see? And it’s a higher route than the other Tunstall walks wot I do for the council – hence the “haute” bit.. (Apols for being cheeky to the camera by the way, but this kind of behaviour is starting to be expected by some customers….)

Anyway, me and the Dawg reccied this walk the other day – the day, in fact, that it finally stopped raining after dumping all of six inches of the wet stuff on the North of England, causing all kinds of damp chaos including the closure of the A1(M) motorway  for several days and inundating York yet again, and washing away some of Wolsingham’s ducks. (They seem to have returned a couple of days later)

Dave and Anna stewarded the walk on Friday, and seventeen people turned up for a potentially sloppy round.

Bruno discovered that parts of the walk were found to be underwater on the reccy, so a few adjustments were made. It had dried out a bit by Friday, but the ground was still pretty much waterlogged and generally a bit sloppy in places.

And the path along the moor top, which is the main point of the walk in that it’s a high-level poddle with extensive views into the Tunstall dale below – has been trashed somewhat by those people in four wheel drive vehicles. But they like a quagmire. Its no fun without a quagmire. Durham County Council punters, on the other hand are not so keen on deep mud.

It’s a nice little walk, though, with nothing threatening, apart, perhaps than the occasional suckler herd; although me and the dawg weren’t bothered by the kie who just watched us pass by with just a hint of interest.

Me and the dawg lunched in the shelter of the walls of the disused Crook to Sunderland railway line, but with the guided walk, we sought instead the shelter of the picnic area near the head of Tunstall reservoir, there being a bit of a chilly autumn drift from completely the wrong direction for the comfortable scoffing of a beef and onion butty and some ginger cake.

The old railway line went over the hills from Crook to Tow Law and joined the Stanhope/Weardale line at Waskerley and it was  this junction in World War Two that was chosen for a large ammunition dump – the remains of which are still extant and used for storing old fire engines and buses and also for the exploits of the County Durham doggers – a cold and draughty spot for that sort of thing, I would have thought.

A brief shower produced a rainbow and the Biggest Stile In the World produced some mild excitement  before we followed the easy path beside the old park wall back to Wolsingham.

It’s eight and a bit miles. Here’s a map. Bring your own banana.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note that due to flooding the route alongside Tunstall reservoir was not followed. Instead, we went along the road on the West side of the pond.

There was also a minor diversion in Wolsingham due to a white van driver with a load of “stuff” who blocked a path. He was till talking to himself as we left him to it.

A Bit of Mallerstang Edge

I met the nephew at Thrang, just at the foot of Lady Anne’s Highway over the side of Mallerstang and he, me and the dawg wandered up the bridleway as far as Hell Gill, passing the sculpture placed in tribute to the sacrifices of many a brave lobster in the never-ending pursuit of the perfect thermadore. This sculpture is in the form of a huge lobster claw, rearing up out of the thin limestone soils representing hope, failure and rebirth by recreating in mock stone the many attempts at cooking the perfect lobster that ended up being buried in the back garden.

Hell Gill is an enormously deep and narrow limestone gorge, almost a roofless cave, in fact, which is spanned by a bridge and which begs for exploration from the bottom to the top. Or from the top to the bottom. I must do this some time, before I get to old and senile to ..er…. are you our Graham? I didn’t take a pic as I was still overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the lobster a mile or so back. These things are always an improvement on real nature dontcha think.

Incidentally, for those who considered that the cow in the picture in yesterday’s blogpost was beautiful, take a look at this sheep. Now worrabout that eh? Impressive, eh? Bit of a knowing wink, there….

Anyway – we progressed up an intermittent path alongside Hell Gill beck to the edge of Hangingstone Scar – noting several sheltered camping spots in the gill (note for all readers named “Dawn”). Hangingstone Scar is impressive and is the start of Mallerstang Edge. We left the Edge to bag the top at Archy Styrigg and followed the wide, grassy ridge easily to High Seat, lunching just out of the perishing draught in the hags at the head of Gale Sike.

Gale Sike gives an easy route back down through the crags – easier if you trend a bit to the North to avoid a steepening. More camping spots were noticed at the foot of the main slope – nice, flat places with a bit of shelter and a small stream of good, clear, water and, not to mention the cracking views West and North.

We did a sort of descending traverse from here back to the parking spot, which we managed to hit pretty accurately, mainly by aiming for a farm on the hillside opposite and not using any of your modern aids such as maps or compasses. I like to call this the “wet thumb” method. This is very accurate if it doesn’t get foggy or anything (!)

We put the world to rights and talked about music and stuff for eight miles and about 1700 feet of up. The dog didn’t really join in.

Longer walks along Mallerstang Edge are available, specially if you use the train to get from Kirkby Stephen to Garsdale where you can use the ridge to get back to the start. The walking is generally quite easy.

Across Crossthwaite – Teesdale Fellwalking

I’m getting a bit behind with the blog posts.

This one is about a Durham County Council, guided walk wot I did on Saturday (this being written on Monday lunchtime)

Those readers with photographic memories may recall that on the first reccy – back in the spring, I tried to video some Lapwings, but they were having none of it unless a proper contract was written up and that I signed over the TV rights.

I did the pre-walk reccy last week and 15 people turned up on Saturday, including the two stewards, neither of whom were called Dave and were, in fact, Ann and Neville, a pairing we’d had before.

So, there’s two sets of pics . Saturday was the warm day, but only when the sun shone. When a cloud came over, it was perishing – an indicator, no doubt, that it’s not very far to winter again.

The walk goes like this:

We start at Bowlees pickernick place near Newbiggin in Teesdale and we pass Low Force and wobble over Wynch Bridge (aka The Wobbly Bridge). On the guided walk, we cross, of course, one at a time as per the Elf and Safety Instructions and on the Reccy, if we are superdawg, we cross with legs slightly bent, nervously noticing the river far below through the gaps in the planks. It has to be said that Bruno is never keen on seeing a big drop below his paws.

But it’s OK. It’s perfectly safe, as are the suckler cows in the field leading to Holwick. They are busy snoozing on both walks and aren’t interested in us at all.

 

Next, comes Holwick Scar. We drop into a deep valley and then very steeply up onto the moor. There’s a very slight and easy scramble up the mainly grassy arete on the left. This has a bit of a drop on one side and is hardly Sharp Edge, but it’s the best little climb around, A few of our walkers take this option, and one has a slight collision with some dolerite following a slip or a trip, resulting in a couple of small holes in a forehead and a bump. I think this is the first time any blood has been spilled on a pieman guided walk although my own personal flesh has been punctured recently by barbed wire, collisions with huge lumps of millstone grit and a vicious attack by mentalist ants). Maybe we should have an annual award for the best accident…..  just something to think of, there…..

We march off over Crosthwaite Fell – a straightforward fellwalk which crosses a couple of streams and then goes steeply up to the foot of a green wold, which is uses to cross the moor. This bit has cracking views of Teesdale and parts of the North Yorks Moors.

Lunch is by the grouse-shooters’ luncheon hut, which appears to have vandalised, or at least, fouled by some nesting swallows or swifts. So, it’s not very nice inside at the moment.

We descend soggily to the Pennine Way at Wythes Hill and follow this back to Middleton in Teesdale, passing, yet again, some may say, Kirkcarrion and then by more PW back to Wynch Bridge where we can wobble once again.

Here’s a map. The walk is eleven miles.

See the blog tomorrow when we report on a walk along a bit of Mallerstang Edge. (We’re using the Royal “We” at the moment for some reason… aren’t we?  Yes we are.)

 

Edmundbyers Lead Mine Trail Guided Walk

A couple of days ago, I lead a nine-and-a-bit mile guided walk from Edmundbyers. And, it being a Wednesday, and a sunny one, there were forty of us, including me and the two stewards, Dave and Dave. (Due to government cuts, from now on, all guided walks stewards will be know as “Dave”. This, apparently, will save millions of pounds and Spennymoor baths won;t have to close after all – so they’ll have to build a supermarket somewhere else…)

Anyway, this fine turnout meant that we had to be more careful about where and how we parked – there having been representations from the Edmundbyers Watch Committee (they’re saving up for a watch for the vicar) – representations to the County Council that we didn’t park badly and block gateways and the space reserved for the hearse outside the church.

We set off in fine sunshine but with the usual Pennine nither seeping over the Atlantic from the general direction of Iceland.

Our pace was brisk. This was partly due to us trying to keep up with two punters who made a break for freedom and were way ahead. Its obvious that they were new to this guided walking lark, or they’d have been a bit more cautious about my strategy of dealing with runaways by either hiding behind trees, or in the heather, or by sudden and unplanned changes of direction.

We did manage a couple of small diversions – one of which was to visit the flue. (which reminds me, I have an appointment for a preventative jab for flu next month..) But I digress – this particular flue starts at the site of a lead smelting mill and ends, a mile and a half away on the fell at a chimney. This chimney has appeared on the pieblog before and some readers will recognise it. It’s where we hid from the cold breeze for our lunch.

On the return leg, we lost two walkers due to a domestic emergency, and visited Sandyford farm where details of an ‘Orrible Murder were relayed. There was common agreement that the housekeeper’s would-be suitor did it as he’d been stalking her recently.

It was a nice day.

Its a good walk and, well, we’ve been here before dozens of times on the pieblog. Its all very gentle and you can’t get lost.

Here’s a map.

 

A Bit of the Pennine Way with T-dude and Wibble

Apparently, a few years ago, Fight Club Hikers Titaniumdude and Wibble were prevented from completing a Pennine Way bid by a hurt leg.  But now these intrepid Mancs were back for another go.

I met them at Middleton in Teesdale.

Then I met them again at Alston. But this time I had boots and rucksack and that huuuge tent they gave me to review. The one where I broke the poles…

Anyway, we camped at Alston, forayed for a few bevvies and after a night of gentle snoring and the occasional toilet emergency, by crack of about half nine, we were marching off down the South Tyne Trail.

I should explain that the South Tyne Trail runs alongside both the South Tynedale Railway and the Pennine Way, the latter, roughly as far as Lambley viaduct. Due to the fact that on the previous two days, they’d covered 40 miles from Middleton to Dufton and then to Alston, a slightly easier and quicker route was felt to be justified – at least as far as the Kirkstyle Inn [koff..] from where the PW could easily be rejoined following a light lunch.

Unfortunately, the walking was so easy that we marched past the turnoff for Kirkstyle and so in temperant style we went as far as the Glendue Burn crossing and then rejoined the PW where it’s also coincides with the Maiden Way roman road. For a while it chucked it down big style but we blundered on till we passed the farm at Greenriggs, where T-dude was pleased to note a “dudeism” sticker on a car. T-dude is, of course, a registered dudeish minister and is licensed for weddings, funerals, baptisms and sacrifices in many US states.

Then things got worse.We lost the path on Hartleyburn Common but, by dead reckoning, a brief period of stellar observation and by holding up a wet finger, we deduced that a) we were off route a bit to the right and b) that if we headed North, we’d find the PW again and c) we were seriously sinking into a bog of high juncus and cold, red water (chalybeate!). The next ten minutes consisted of knee-deep plunges , teetering wobbles, blasphemy, the creation of a blame culture and having blisters treated with a cold iron sulphate bath.  Some people like this kind of thing.

There was even more of this later , roughly at the point where we found the muddy path of the PW. We sploshed North, crossing the A69 at a desperate rush and, by the deft use of the old A69, before they built the new one, we were soon within the warm embrace of the Greenhead Hotel, joined by Buzzingirly aka Gill and her faithful dog, Woodstock.

After another short period of celebration and a bit of bravado concerning bogs and blisters, Gill took me back to Alston to collect the knipemobile which was still there….

Thanks to Gill for the lift and Wibble and T-dude for the laughs.

We did fifteen and a half miles.

But will the Fight Club Hikers complete the Pennine Way this time?

Probably.