Introductory Thoughts 2011

Catching a train shouldn’t be a personal revelation, but that was how it seemed in February 2011. The good peoples of Northern Rail and WY Metro combined to provide cheap rail tickets in the winter months on the Settle & Carlisle line and that looked like a good way to use a day of holiday in my week off post-Superbowl. I went only to take the ride to Carlisle and back, but riding up Ribblesdale and taking pics made me realise that there is a lot of glorious landscape within a couple of hours of home and I had failed to give it proper consideration for the better part of nine years. I was no longer confined by my lack of personal transportation or funds, and I was free to do whatever I wished with my time, if I so wished. Of course, no walking was forthcoming, this journey led to the discovery that Carlisle is on of the under-rated towns of England, with far more history than you might expect, and that it has my favourite second-hand bookshop too, namely The Bookcase (yes, better than Barter Books of Alnwick!).


Spring Bank holiday demanded a trip away, as far from home as Ilkley, it turned out, but that was a good base for some exercise. Firstly for solo escapade or two up onto Rombald’s Moor, for the first time in 8 years, finding the ascent by White Wells to Ilkley Crags is a particularly sharp 150 metres, and discovering that the summit cap has a splendid isolation to it, miles of peat hags in all directions and with only the odd trig post and boundary stone to break it up. There’s also the antiquities, of course, with the Twelve Apostles as main feature, and cup & ring marked rocks in all sorts of places. My trip to Swastika Stone, was somewhat spoiled by my photographing the concrete replica, and not the original, because I am an idiot.

Rombalds Moor

Also having parents along for the jolly means borrowing them for a visit to the Gritstone surreality that is Brimham rocks, the sort of place that can still inspire awe in the outright weirdness of nature. Parents also prove handy for a point-to-point walk, so they can drive me up to Malham Tarn and I can start to demonstrate some grip of distance and time, as I request 2 hours to do the 4 miles down to Malham village. This turns out to be one of my favourite walks anywhere, as under a steely sky, Malham Tarn shines like a gorgeous silvery pool, and beyond Tarn foot you find the bizarre sight of Water Sinks , as the river disappears into the ground of Limestone Country. I knew that the dry valley was beyond there, but I was completely unprepared for the scale of it, and for just how steep the descent was in the upper sections. I was glad to have off-colour weather, because I know how hot Limestone country can get and I was suddenly retrospectively glad that we didn’t make a bid of the Tarn back on that hot day in 2004. Finally on that stretch is Malham Cove, of course, one of the best sights in the county, and honestly if you visit this corner of the country and don’t love it, I feel there’s something wrong with you. I got down my 4 mile in 2 hours and felt like I’d earned my pint and sandwich in The Buck.

Malham Dry Valley

When plans came together for our summer jollies in July, and to celebrate my Dad’s 70^th Birthday, I picked out the upper Eden Valley as destination, inspired by my February excursion, and I sought guide books and maps for what I planned as the start of my serious walking escapades. Of course, seven of us away means there will be need to keep the girls entertained, so cue trips to Carlisle Castle and the leisure centre. Also our residence was just that bit too far to make strikes for the Northern or Far Eastern Fells of Lakeland, and my Sis gave me the stern lecture that attempting Cross Fell from Garrigill to Dufton was an unforgiving 17 miles and not within my range yet. So plans were scaled back somewhat, plus changeable weather and a forgotten waterproof, and only two short stretches came to pass. First was a yomp up onto Castle Carrock Fell, on the edge of Geltsdale, the kind of place with not a lot of obvious tracks and way too much heather and gorse and for too many bitey insects. Still, the views were spectacular over the lush Eden Valley, and the bleak grandeur of the North Pennines, England’s forgotten wilderness, and a place no inexperienced walker should ever consider engaging.

Castle Carrock Fell

Second was a more significant stretch, as after spending a morning visiting Lanercost and Birdoswald, I felt that a section of the Hadrian’s Wall path had to be attempted whilst we were in the vicinity. So I get parents to drop me off at Walltown Quarry and request 2 hours to do the 3½ miles to Cawfields. This section, is one of the most dramatic sections of the wall, starting on the western edge of the Whin Sill and feeling pleasingly remote with Black Fell to the north and the South Tyne Valley to the South. Additionally, there is a good amount of visible wall (original and reconstructed) and Turret 44b is the most photographable of locations, and then there’s Aesica Roman Fort, entertainingly located in a farmyard and looking mostly unexcavated, there for you to enjoy with the local farm wildlife. Again, I prove good to my timing and if my parents had had a flask of tea and a chocolate bar for me, I’d have happily walked the next section to Steel Rigg, but we were running short of daytime, and I had a date with a hot tub! But another plan came together for further walking, as yet unrealised, of course.

Turret 44b

There would be another London trip in September, but that trip was for two Proms dates at the Royal Albert Hall, and all my walking was either shuffling around the V&A, the Science Museum and the NPG, or between the many booksellers on the Charing Cross road. The end of summer did provide one last piece of evidence that I was ready to start walking seriously and it emerged in just the oddest way. Having been out all night in Leeds to celebrate a colleague’s birthday, and enjoying the benefits of very late (or early) licensing hours, I hit a desire to head home, whilst very drunk, at 5.30am. Too early to wait for a bus, and I head off looking for a taxi, believing there’s a rank by the YP offices, but when I discover there isn’t, by booze-addled brain guesses that walking home to Morley is easily do-able. It’s 5 mile home, and nearly all uphill, but off I set along Geldard Road and beyond into the fields knowing that there are two ways across the M621 and the farm tracks should lead me in the right direction. The early-morning dog-walkers were right to give me odd looks, but I navigated home in 1¾ hours, drunk, without water or a map. Surely I had reserves of stamina that could be tapped for future serious walking, and if not, I still had a tale to amuse whoever might be listening.

So looking forward to 2012 and the new resolve I had to walk, I started putting walking gear on my Christmas list, it would have to be a better option than DVD boxes, and with sweat repellent vests and waterproof cover-alls bought for me I was ready to look an activity filled future!