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March winds
Mar. 23rd, 2009 07:13 pmWe had a lunch date today in Teesdale, so we spent the weekend at our desk, and went walking today, leaving the car in Romaldkirk and walking through to Cotherstone along the railway path - an easy walk, once we had found it. The railway wasn't hard to spot:
but twice we took what we thought was the footpath towards it, and twice we were turned back by large signs saying "Private". Once we found it - on our third circuit of the village - it was a pleasant springtime walk, with the first primroses appearing on the banks, the first lambs in the fields and a gusty wind (from which the track was partly sheltered) chasing clouds across the sky, going from bright sun to cold showers and back again in moments.
A path brought us down from the railway, through a field full of sheep and in at the back door of the Fox and Hounds, where our friends were waiting for us. Always satisfying, a walk that is so completely circular that it leads you in through the back door of the pub and out through the front - but that came later. First there was lunch and good talk and feeling very relaxed and at home - the hours flew by.
We walked back along the Tees. This was harder work, and not just because the path did a lot of climbing up away from the river, over the shoulder of the hill and down again. The tricky bit was a stretch along the river, a narrow path climbing up the riverbank then plunging down again, washed into mud by crossing rivulets and squeezing between boulders - I know that for climbers it isn't really climbing unless you need a rope, but as far as I'm concerned, if I'm on all fours it isn't walking either. I could have done without that bit, but much of the upland walking was beautiful, long slanting sunlight draping shadows across the contours of the hills and picking out a solitary tree to highlight, bleaching the old stone farms so that they melted into the landscape.
But would you want to stay in the Wackford Squeers Holiday Cottage?
but twice we took what we thought was the footpath towards it, and twice we were turned back by large signs saying "Private". Once we found it - on our third circuit of the village - it was a pleasant springtime walk, with the first primroses appearing on the banks, the first lambs in the fields and a gusty wind (from which the track was partly sheltered) chasing clouds across the sky, going from bright sun to cold showers and back again in moments.
A path brought us down from the railway, through a field full of sheep and in at the back door of the Fox and Hounds, where our friends were waiting for us. Always satisfying, a walk that is so completely circular that it leads you in through the back door of the pub and out through the front - but that came later. First there was lunch and good talk and feeling very relaxed and at home - the hours flew by.
We walked back along the Tees. This was harder work, and not just because the path did a lot of climbing up away from the river, over the shoulder of the hill and down again. The tricky bit was a stretch along the river, a narrow path climbing up the riverbank then plunging down again, washed into mud by crossing rivulets and squeezing between boulders - I know that for climbers it isn't really climbing unless you need a rope, but as far as I'm concerned, if I'm on all fours it isn't walking either. I could have done without that bit, but much of the upland walking was beautiful, long slanting sunlight draping shadows across the contours of the hills and picking out a solitary tree to highlight, bleaching the old stone farms so that they melted into the landscape.
But would you want to stay in the Wackford Squeers Holiday Cottage?
