East to West Photos: Day 21

Sat 9 April (0800-1945) (Barnard Castle to Beyond Stanhope)
Distance: 22 miles (Tot: 372)
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine, bit hazy

On Day 21 I discovered that there’s a castle at Barnard Castle. Who knew?!

Back to the riverside we went, along a lovely path. Then we came across this boulder, which you may notice is a lot cleaner (specifically, lacking in moss) than the other boulders lying around. Having looked up at the rock face from which it had fallen, in the photo below Mick’s just investigating the witness holes where it bounced on the way down. By the fact that there were still live, green leaves, bent in half where the edge of the rock struck, in the bottom of the indentations we deduced that the rock had fallen in the last few hours. We were glad that we hadn’t passed this way a few hours earlier!

Soon we were heading up a staircase. It always seems strange to be walking up a proper staircase in locations such as this.

Having realised that we didn’t need to walk two sides of a triangle, via Middleton-in-Teesdale, we cut off a corner by heading north from Egglestone. Over lunch we pondered whether to go the slightly longer route to the west of White Hill or the shorter road route to the east. The final decision was to take the direct route over the top. It was a bit of a heathery yomp, and we both had to stop to empty half a kilo of heather out of our shoes as we rejoined the path the other side, but it was good fun. Incidentally, the ridiculous flaredness of the thighs of my trousers is because I had the leg vents fully open. It was a hot day!

Given that it was such a hot day we couldn’t believe our luck when we came across an ice-cream van.

It was a busy little area, with children playing in the river and parents lounging on the banks, all taking advantage of the fantastic weather. Hard to believe that it was only early April.

Having killed some time in a pub in Stanhope (where I was woefully underdressed amongst the girls out for a Saturday night on the town) so as not to be too early in finding an unlawful pitch, we then found that we couldn’t pitch where I’d hoped we could. It turned out that a building which, from the map, I had hoped would be a barn (there not being a track going to it, it seemed like a reasonable hope) was a farmhouse with a view over quite a wide area. By 7.30 (with hunger truly gnawing away), we were out of sight of the farm, but all of the flat land was too lumpy.  Happily we didn’t have to compromise – a good and flat pitch was found after a bit of scouting around.

The original post for the day can be found here.

East to West Photos: Day 20

Fri 9 April (0655-1605) (Ellerton-on-Swale to Barnard Castle)
Distance: 22 miles (Tot: 350)
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine and jolly warm when out of the brisk breeze

I can’t remember why I was out of the tent early enough to see the sunrise on Day 20, but I was and I even took a photo of it:

Right at the other end of the day (after a detour via the A66 when a failure to navigate landed us at Scotch Corner, and after a few episodes of trespass), we found ourselves at the River Tees – my favourite English river:

It brought me to my knees, apparently:

Another ruined Abbey (Egglestone) was just the other side of the river from us:

And everything looked quite lovely under the blue skies:

The sky was about perfect as we arrived in Barnard Castle, where the Butter Market is a focal point as you approach the high street (pity about the cars; I did take another photo, without cars, the following morning, but this one wins for the perfection of the sky). Mick’s Mum comes from Barnard Castle and tells us that the butter market was all a bustle on a Wednesday in the 1930s.

The original blog post for the day can be found here.

East to West Photos: Day 19

Thurs 7 April (0735-1530)
Distance: 18 miles (Tot: 328)
Weather: vaguely drizzly start then fluffy clouds clearing to wall-to-wall sunshine
Number of tree creepers seen creeping up a tree: 1
Day 19 saw us take to Wainwrights Coast-to-Coast route for much of the day and after an initially grey start we were soon back to glorious blue skies. The blueness made the flat farmland (wholly inoffense, in my opinion, but also pretty unremarkable), which made up most of this day, more attractive than it would otherwise have been.
Anyone whose walked Wainwright’s Coast-to-Coast will have noticed this tower at Ingleby Cross. I’m sure that earlier in the year I knew what it was, but its purpose seems to have escape me as I type this:

The farmland may have been shown to its best advantage by virtue of the weather, but the vermin was in evidence:

Did I mention that there was plenty of flat farmland? A bit like being at home really, except that the rights of way weren’t at all overgrown or obstructed:

At the end of the day we stayed at a campsite at Ellerton-on-Swale. We had learnt the night before that this site didn’t take tents, but a phone call had netted us a pitch. When we got there we were told to go behind the toilets and to pitch in a field with two horses, rather than going on the campsite itself. No matter what the owner said about the horses being harmless, neither of us was happy with the thought of our tent (and us) being trampled in the night, but having already paid up we dutifully went and inspected the field. Fortunately, it was far too rutted for us to camp and after a bit of pleading we were allowed to pitch on the lakeside. It turned out to be a pretty good pitch:



The original blog post for the day can be found here.

East to West Photos: Day 18

(Back from our holidays, it’s time to return to the East to West Photos series)

Wed 6 April (0740-1520)
Distance: 17.2 miles (Tot: 313.6)
Weather: blue sky all around but a big cloud overhead

It wasn’t the brightest start to a day, but it was warm enough and dry as we set out to wander off our map, having noticed the night before that the Cleveland Way looked a better way to get to Osmotherley than the route I’d plotted. Thanks went to Al for giving us brief but comprehensive directions that kept us on course!

Not far into the day Mick obliged by performing a ridiculous pose on some generously-sized stepping stones.

In Al’s directions, one of the landmarks he mentioned was ‘a horsey place’. We were relieved when we saw it, as (unusually for a National Trail) way marks had been scarce in the bit leading up to it. As we headed out the other side of the horsey place fourteen horses (which looked more like race horses than old nags, not that I’m any sort of an equestrian expert) passed us.

Al had also mentioned, in his directions, a ‘great view’ and sure enough as we approached Sutton Bank there were ‘ooohs’ uttered. It’s a fantastic escarpment, but once again you’ll have to believe me on that score (or draw on your own memory if you’ve been there) as the combined lack of quality photographic equipment, dull day and poor operator skills meant that we didn’t capture it very well. Here’s evidence that I tried:

Looking in the other direction from the same spot:

This dry-stone wall proved not to be an overly effective wind-break at lunch-time, as the wind whistled through, but I was pleased that this grouse was kind enough to pose so nicely for me.

It must have been my day for timing shots nicely, as here’s a fly-fisherman’s line in mid fling (I’m sure there must be a more technical name for that act of casting!):

The original blog post can be found here. In that post I’d put the mileage as 15 miles and said that it felt longer, but was erring on the side of it feeling longer simply because we’d faffed so much throughout the day. As it turned out when I got home and measured it, the day was over 2 miles longer than we expected. It was only when I looked at the route on a map afterwards that I recalled that the reason that I hadn’t plotted the Cleveland Way route was because the Way throws in a big southerly swing early in the day. Even so, I’m glad that we did go that way – it was an excellent walk.

 

Holiday Snaps: Our Week In Cornwall

Friday: Last time I walked across this viaduct it was about 5.30am, on an equally fine morning, in July 2008:

Dartmoor was looking particularly lush and inviting just off to our left.

Later in the day, in Launceston I spotted a top contender for ‘sign of the week’:

Saturday: On the north side of Bodmin Moor, Mick was impressed with the size of the horns on these coos (I suppose I should have done a bit of cropping and zooming to give a better view)

Meanwhile, elsewhere, on the other side of Bodmin Moor, I was quite impressed with these samples:

Sunday: Jade was back on the walk, and after a gentle couple of  miles we came across some challenging stiles; particularly challenging when you can’t easily lift your one leg.

The overgrown brambles (not in evidence so much in the photos, but I assure you that they were there) added to the challenges.

Then, when the stiles got easier, there were the added obstacles of slurry-filled water obstacles combined with brambles and nettles.

Monday: Winner of the ‘sign of the week’ award:

Tuesday: Becks holding an ‘ickle mouse. Or  maybe it’s a leaf. Easy mistake to make. This campsite was also the venue of the ‘biggest spider ever’ incident:

Thursday: They were no doubt cursing my route choice as we negotiated this muddy little lane:

A little while later we found that a different mud-fest had been surfaced. Never seen ‘ashtray shells’ used for this purpose before:

As we had entered this field, we scratched our heads for a while as to the whereabouts of the exit. Not being able to spot it, we just followed a bearing and sure enough, when we were about 3 feet away, it became clear. It looks far more obvious in a photo with Jade demonstrating the location of the wall-stile steps. (The other side of this stile was the location of the unfortunate incident involving the handle of my walking pole and a cowpat.)

In a week that was mainly road-walking, the first four miles of this morning really crammed in ‘interesting features’. Here’s another mud-fest of a track which was just before the killer dog and killer horse incidents.

A good way to end a day: Becks delivers two scones to our tent, complete with clotted cream (food of the devil!) for Mick:

Friday: Demonstrating the best way to carry your lunch (in antenna style), as they set off on another murky morning.

Meanwhile, Mick and I went to explore how little we could see off The Lizard. Very little was the answer:

At the end of the day the girls were happy indeed to see their first road side with a mention of Land’s End.

Saturday: I didn’t do a full blog post about the last day (of which I walked all but the last mile with Jade & Becks), so I didn’t have to mention to the world-at-large how I led the girls astray as I took them trespassing across farmland, nor how we had to negotiate a barbed wire fence and impenetrable gorse and prickles. They arrived at Land’s End looking like they’d had an adventure, what with the bloody, scratched legs!

Although many prickles were encountered (not to mention a few back-tracks; I can’t believe they remained so good humoured when I led them astray so close to the finish!), some of the moorland was absolutely stunning in its purples and yellows:

The plus side of the faffing around with finding a way to trespass our way to the coast was that, by the time we were backtracking once again to find our way off Carn Brea in the right direction (at which point we were on Access Land, but with the impediment of dense gorse preventing a direct route in the direction we wanted), the murk finally melted away. By the time Mick had joined us just outside of Sennen Cove the sky was turning blue (you can just see the last of the murk disappearing off in the top right of this photo).

By the time we got to Sennen Cove it was looking absolutely stunning:

Having quickly nipped around to Land’s End in the car, we were there to see Jade and Becks achieve what they’d set out to achieve:

After the End-to-Enders book had been signed, Jade & Becks went off to join Becks’s family for a  picnic and we decided it was time to wend our way home.

It may have been a bit of a spur of the moment holiday, and the weather was undeniably disappointing, but a top time was had. Such a good time, that it’s strange to think that we had only met Jade and Becks for the first time three weeks earlier!

Land's End

A big well done to both Jade and Becks.

A good walk, done well.

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Godolphin to Penzance

What a miserable day again! Our hopes that the fog would have gone by morning were in vain. It was another damp day with limited visibility and frequent drizzle.

Given the conditions we left the girls to it and decided to go and do the touristy thing by visiting The Lizard. Last time we were there was on our big walk in 2008, on a day when the weather was far from friendly.

On reflection, a foggy day isn't the best time to choose to go down to the Lizard. We could smell the sea, but couldn't see it; we could hear the lighthouse, but couldn't see it. On the plus-side, we did remember the location of 'Ann's Famous Pasties' and so popped by to buy some.

Having done a quick calculation as to where Jade and Becks would have got to, we managed to intecepted them, almost exactly half way through their day. Even though they'd only just had their lunch, they didn't object to jumping into the car for a hot-pasty-break. Abandonning them to disappear back into the mist, off we went to find our campsite for the night.

Our day wasn't entirely lazy. We did walk out a mile to meet them as they walked the final bit into and through Penzance, where they were particularly happy to see their first road sign pointing to Land's End.

And so tomorrow is the day. Just ten and a half miles to go. I really do hope that this fog has lifted by then. After all the effort they've put in, it would be such a shame to walk in and not even be able to see to where they've walked!


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Ponsanooth to Godolphin Cross

At a quarter to eleven last night there were screams and squeals emanating from the tent next door. We decided that there were two possible explanations: 1) the girls were being attacked by a mad axe murderer; or 2) Jade had found a spider in the tent. Arguably in neglect of our duties, we didn't leap out of our sleeping bags to investigate but happily found both girls to be free of protruding axes this morning and thus the story of 'the biggest spider ever!' came out.

As for today, well what a miserable day! Mick's description of Cornwall's "40mph fog" may have been a bit of an overstatement for today's conditions, but there was certainly quite a degree of foginess and, with it, wind-blown mizzle.

Too wet to go without a jacket, but too warm to be comfortable in a jacket on the uphills, it wasn't the best of conditions.

With the first four miles of the day being across fields - a pleasant break from the little lanes - I opted to walk with the girls until Carnkie. Well, what an adventure we had. Deep mud was prevalent, together with obscenely tall (and often camouflaged) Cornish wall stiles, then, for added interest, there was a killer dog incident closely followed by a killer horse incident. And there was the incident involving the handle of my pole and a cow-pat, but that was purely carelessness on my part.

I left them in Carnkie, where we found Mick at the roadside, waiting exactly where he was supposed to be.

Having pitched the tents at our night-stop and had a cup of tea, our intention was to walk back to meet Jade and Becks. They must have been putting on quite a pace as we hadn't been going for much more than five minutes when we saw them coming towards us. And so, before we knew it, we were back in the tent, drinking more tea.
Only 23 miles to go...

(Sorry, not even the dodgiest of dodgy photos today. It really wasn't the weather for it.)
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St Allen to Ponsanooth

Jade has come to the conclusion over the last few days that 12 miles is about as much as her poorly leg can take at the moment. Fortunately, in order to time their arrival into Land's End for Saturday, there's not a day this week that needs to be longer than 12.5 miles. So, today was another 12 miler.

Blue skies greeted us first thing this morning, and even though they didn't hang around for long, it wasn't a bad day. It was warm enough that I didn't reach for my waterproofs even when a couple of showers passed.

The day was once again mainly on lanes, with just one off-road interlude through Idles woods. We weren't there at that point; we were in Tesco in Truro enjoying third breakfast!

Having met up with the girls in Carnon Downs (at the end of a hill that seemed like it was never going to end; we're certainly into the lumpiness of Cornwall now), back towards Ponsanooth we wandered.

The wandering lasted until we imparted the news that the pub in Perranwell Station closes at 2pm. Jade was having major fantasies about a cup of tea and we all trailed in her wake up the next hill as she set a blazing pace. It was only when she paused at the sight of a lorry approaching that we caught up and heard her mutter "Got to make it in time for a cup of tea!" as she strode away again.

She was disappointed to find that the pub was further on than she thought, but we still got there in good time and even though the barman was taken back to be asked for 4 cups of tea he managed to oblige.

A sensible pace was then maintained for the final couple of miles to Ponsanooth.

As has become the routine, as soon as we were in the car, Jade and Becks were checking their progress on the road atlas. Excitingly, about 10 minutes into tomorrow they will make it onto page 2 of the map. That's the same page as Land's End. The end is within sight.

(Louise: I agree - barring any unfortunate slips, trips or falls I have no doubt that they will make it.)
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