Dunnerdale - Plough Fell and Other Stuff

Having shivered the night away whilst swearing at the same time, the omens weren’t specially brilliant for a light trundle around some bijoux fells in South Lakeland.

And by the time I’d navigated the knipemobile across the A66, down the M6 and up the Kendal bypass, I had a sore throat and was suffering from some kind of as yet, undefined lassitude. Nevertheless , I collected the Bro and Lucky had a couple of sweet biccies before we set off.

But it was to be a short walk and we parked at the top of the Corney Fell road (cos there’s nowhere else to park) and wandered off over Stoneside Hill, through a herd of suspiciously laid-back cud-chewing/snoozing Galloways and up to the vague top of Swinside – a top which appears in no lists of tops at all and which I’d included in my list of Hills To Be Included In The Walk for no apparent reason except that it lead to Raven Crag, also inhabited by Galloways, this time of the Belted Galloway variety but nursing some ginger-coloured calves which obviously weren’t Galloways.

We descended steeply to Swinside farm and passed an ancient stone circle , through yet more disinterested Galloways to the foot of Knott Hill, a lovely green lump with fab views all around. It was here that I ignored my lunch in favour of lots of coffee and water and a bit of chocolate. Legs had been heavy so far, although my temperature seemed to be heading back towards “normal” Blergghh, as we say in Crook.

We returned to Swinside via a brief trespass and headed off up a bridleway across a moor to the road and then across more interminable but relatively easy plodding to Plough Fell – my Birkett target of the day. Plough Fell is a dull and featureless grassy mound stuck on the side of the more rocky and interesting Kinmount Buckbarrow. But it does have a cairn on it’s edge which as a viewpoint for Dunnerdale and higher Cumbrian Peaks over there -----> is quite fabulous. It wouldn’t be a bad spot to spend a day for anyone with nothing better to do, although the plodding required to get there is numbingly dull.

I was offered the opportunity to include the Buckbarrows in the walk, and, normally this would have been an easy and desirable thing to do. But readers, I just couldn’t be arsed. It had been a struggle so far and more struggling was low on my list of priorities. On the other hand, I was starting to feel hungry, so , it seems that a recovery was beginning.

It was 8 miles and 1650 feet of uphill, much of it a bit of a trial. But I’m feeling better now. Whatever bug it was has been defeated,in short order it seems  by the Pieman’s immune system, plus some statins and  a bit of South African Pinotage

Incidentally, for real excitement, join the mad (and I do mean mad) dash from the West Coast over the Corney Fell road at five o’clock.  Convoys of cars moving at stupidly high speed over the rough pot-holed, bendy and narrow road with the sole intention, it would seem, of having some sort of accident, except that it wouldn’t really be an accident. Rush hour in Newcastle city centre is much more civilised and laid-back. These people are red-misted eejits rushing home for a cup of tea and the latest episode of Jeremy Kyle. A good way to get a new car out of it, though (supposing you were driving a really old Audi A4, for instance)  would be to drive West. Somebody is bound to trash your car coming the other way…

 

High Cup Nick Guided Walk

This is perhaps not the absolute best route to High Cup Nick, but County Durham guided walks guidance for guided walks leaders leading guided walks is that a guided walk should start at a car park in County Durham, which this one does, although most of this guided walk is in Cumbria.

High Cup Nick is, of course, one of the England’s most impressive sights – a huge scree-filled valley enclosed by steep dolerite crags. As if you didn’t know.

Me and Lucky The Dog (LTD) did the reccy for this walk on 30 May in perishingly cold but sunny conditions.

The reccy went swimmingly well and we met hardly anybody and on the day (last Wednesday as it happens) 13 walkers including me, Neville the Steward assisted by Barbara and Sheila turned up at Cow Green in similarly chilly but grey weather. Lucky is not allowed to accompany a walk leader, so he stayed home. Where it was warm.

I’ll just let the pics do most of the talking here. For those interested in such things – the route follows the Nature trail/road to Cow Green dam from Cow Green car park, visits Cauldron Snout and then follows the Pennine Way to High Cup Nick, returning the same way except for a bit of a loop around the old foul weather/flood route via the Maize Beck limestone gorge.

It’s 14 miles or so of fairly easy walking.

Some would claim that they final mile or so from the Dam back to the cars is a bit of a trial.

The best bit is the dreary approach to the Nick which is revealed quite suddenly and impressively. It’s the contrast, see?

And then there’s the flowers by the nature trail.

And Cauldron Snout.

I also found two small groups of remembrance poppy crosses – one group of two and one of five, both quite close to the Pennine Way footbridge. There are records of five air military air accidents in the immediate locality and these include 5 fatalities in a Hudson aircraft in September 1942 and 2 more in a Meteor in 1954. I am assuming that the crosses have a link to these incidents, although I have no direct proof at the moment.

Note that walkers without a dog visiting when Dufton Fell is not closed at the land manager’s discretion and who have lots of energy could return to Cow Green Dam via the summit of Meldon Hill

Gwan! Clickit!!

It’s a butterfly!

Just look at this little beautiful little bugger, spotted on a reccy walk around the Simonside Hills near Rothbury in Northumberland. I’ve no idea what it is, other than it’s a butterfly…  I just thought I’d share it before I do the propah blog posts.

In the meantime, it seems that Lucky has discovered that he can hear mice and voles in the grass and can leap on them and kill them. I must get him an MP3 player….

Bimbling Breezily Around The Breamish

It is with some trepidation that I start typing this blogpost since the recent wobbles between Livewriter and Google which started just as I wrote a huuuuge blogpost about the Coast to Coast walk and had to redo the whole thing again because Google said it didn’t recognise my password. If I have to do this again, I might just have to take refuge in our local Clinic For the Emotionally Distresses, cleverly, in my view, disguised under the name of The King’s Head.
Here goes anyway…

I collected Dawn from her seaside hideaway and we progressed to the car park just to the left of Ingram in the rather lovely Breamish valley on the edge of the Cheviot Hills. The day was sunny and bright and stupidly windy. I should have had a Plan B , really, but I didn’t.
However, we bashed off up the road to bag our first bag of the day – Hartside Hill – a 90 metre climb up a lovely, green hill with an ancient settlement on the top. Hartside Hill is a 285 metre Tump and today was tops for Tumps.
We headed off into the headwind to find a calm spot for lunch. Not too taxing so far.

According to the map, there’s a permissive path going alongside the river to a crossing quite near to Alnhammoor farm. Due to a hole in my map where the bridge should be, there was no bridge. (There was one a bit further on, though) (dhuhh) – and the line of the path was hard to decipher – so some scrambling was done and, indeed, some paddling. Some deep and very cold paddling. This didn’t seem to bother Lucky too much despite his apparent hate of getting his little paws wet. On the upside – it was good practise for river crossings and was also extremely refreshing for sweaty toes – in a refreshingly painful kind of way. Dawn did say that she thought there should be a bridge a bit further on. And she was right. She’s often right about stuff like this.


But never mind – a nice, green bridleway pressed on through a wood and up and over a hill and further past a little glen and on up to a hillfort where a brief diversion brought us to Cochrane Pike and back down again juyst for the tick. There’s a “hillfort trail” hereabouts which looks attractive and would bag some of the same hills but, according to the local signs, has a ban on dogs. In fact Lucky pointed out one or two of the signs indicating such a ban as we passed them. (whoops…. sorry..)
Cochrane Pike is a 335 metre Tump.


Next up was Ewe Hill – easily bagged from the fort and just 313 metres high, followed by a tramp (have you ever been followed by a tramp, by the way?) over a nice, green moor to Brough Law which isn’t a Tump but has a large and fairly well-preserved hillfort on the top with rings of drystone walls and a dominating position over the Breamish.
A short but steep descent brought us back to the knipemobile which was still where we left it.

About 9 miles and 1500 feet of friendly contours.  But the thing is, that the countryside around here is specially green and beautiful at the moment and the hills are small and friendly, particularly when, on such a windy day as this, the higher Cheviot tops would be a trial. In fact, they’re a good Plan B when Plan A looks uncomfortable.
Finally, a BIG knipetowers TA! goes to Jakki who, between this post and the previous one, bunged some hard-earned spondoolies into the virgin money-giving account. Thanks Jakki.

Click the logo!!!  Gwan!!

A Test to Confirm a Rumour

I’ve walked from Cow Green to High Cup NIck twice in the last few days – once as a reccy, in the company of Lucky The Dog, and once with a dozen or so walkers on a Durham County Council guided walk. This involved passing this very lovely Bird’s Eye Primrose four times. And I thought Birds Eye did fish fingers.

This is a test to see if Windows Livewriter and Blogger really have sorted out their differences.

Incidentally, and more importantly, thanks go to Oldmortality for the donation to Mind. We (and I really mean me, here) are grateful.