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March in Weardale
Mar. 18th, 2008 07:53 pmIt isn't spring yet up the dale; there are lambs in the fields below Stanhope (some of them wearing striking orange waistcoats), but none higher up, and snowdrops, a little past their best, are still the commonest flower.
We followed the Rookhope Burn up from Eastgate to Rookhope, then followed it down again on the other side. The stream tumbles and rushes over rocks and weirs, and you try to admire it without falling in as you negociate the tricky patches of the path; then you hit a stretch where the path is broad and even, and you can look up from your feet to see that the river, too, is running quietly docile alongside as if butter wouldn't melt in its mouth. The banks are spiked with wild-garlic leaves and dog's mercury, and I saw one primrose in flower, looking very pale and huddled up, as if it regretted its rashness. A bird flew down along the river, small, black, flash of white bib, and was gone - but I think it was a dipper.
We climbed up a side valley, and up and up. I looked back to take this photograph, and a moment later a deer ran down the side stream towards me and up the other side. Then on and up, out of the valley and into curlew country, over the ridge and down into Rookhope by the Weardale Way (which is not, at this point, the scenic route), for lunch at the Rookhope Inn.
The outward route was the less familiar part of the walk; but returning to Eastgate along the path which we normally walk in the opposite direction (as part of a quite different walk) gave it a freshness, an unfamiliarity. I'm still not sure whether we walked part of the way on a different path, nearer to the river, or whether it was just the change of perspective - and perhaps the change of season, too, the views opened up between the leafless trees - that made it seem so. The path picked its way between the burn and the ruined remains of the lead mining that was once the main industry of the dale, fallen stones and fallen trees alike slathered with thick cushions of moss, and then climbed to the more familiar slopes - with a fine open view of Weardale and the ridge where the chimney of the cement works no longer stands - and down past the farm with all the chickens, back to Eastgate.
We followed the Rookhope Burn up from Eastgate to Rookhope, then followed it down again on the other side. The stream tumbles and rushes over rocks and weirs, and you try to admire it without falling in as you negociate the tricky patches of the path; then you hit a stretch where the path is broad and even, and you can look up from your feet to see that the river, too, is running quietly docile alongside as if butter wouldn't melt in its mouth. The banks are spiked with wild-garlic leaves and dog's mercury, and I saw one primrose in flower, looking very pale and huddled up, as if it regretted its rashness. A bird flew down along the river, small, black, flash of white bib, and was gone - but I think it was a dipper.We climbed up a side valley, and up and up. I looked back to take this photograph, and a moment later a deer ran down the side stream towards me and up the other side. Then on and up, out of the valley and into curlew country, over the ridge and down into Rookhope by the Weardale Way (which is not, at this point, the scenic route), for lunch at the Rookhope Inn.
The outward route was the less familiar part of the walk; but returning to Eastgate along the path which we normally walk in the opposite direction (as part of a quite different walk) gave it a freshness, an unfamiliarity. I'm still not sure whether we walked part of the way on a different path, nearer to the river, or whether it was just the change of perspective - and perhaps the change of season, too, the views opened up between the leafless trees - that made it seem so. The path picked its way between the burn and the ruined remains of the lead mining that was once the main industry of the dale, fallen stones and fallen trees alike slathered with thick cushions of moss, and then climbed to the more familiar slopes - with a fine open view of Weardale and the ridge where the chimney of the cement works no longer stands - and down past the farm with all the chickens, back to Eastgate.
