Derwentcote and Derwent Walk

Sunday's walk was almost identical to this walk from October 2010: walk down past the Derwentcote Steel Furnace and consider the information that this quiet valley was once the centre of the British steel industry (in the early eighteenth century) to the river, then follow the river as far as Ebchester, where we scramble up the muddy valley side to the village and up and up to the railway walk, by which time we are ready for lunch at the Derwent Walk Inn - after which it's a gentle walk along the railway back down to our starting point.

Except that it's never quite the same walk twice. Last time we came this way there was autumn sunshine making the most of the turning foliage; yesterday was mild and dim, and the only flowers I saw were snowdrops, sometimes in great drifts, lovely but monochrome. The very muddy stretch to the first stream had been banked up, but the stile at the far end of it had gone (looked as if the whole fence had come down, and the farmer had replaced the fence but not bothered with the stile); further on, the stretch which had been tricky high above the river was now a good clear path - just as well, since where we had previously stepped over the wire into the garden to avoid falling, a solid fence now protected a large new shed. There are new houses on the skyline above the river at Blackhall Mill (durham_rambler points out that you can't expect County Durham's planning department to take into account their effect on the view, since it's the view from Gateshead).

If this were a painting instead of a photograph, there would be lapwings tumbling in that blank white sky; as it is, I could hear them but not see them. It is such perfect lapwing country, it made me think of ursulav's account of going out in search of a rarity with a serious birder friend, the rarity in question being the northern lapwing. Context is all. I was much more excited to see a dipper, just as we had last time we came this way.

Then the long - long - haul up, the arrival at the pub, lunch and the return along the railway, with its wide views across the valley, where the most difficult bit is dodging the groups of cyclists (and they weren't numerous to be a real problem).

This was all too easy. At the last minute durham_rambler played his joker, and instead of taking the signposted footpath back to the car park, opted for the next turning, signposted as access land, and persevered when the path immediately dissolvede into a tangle of ruts, mud and fallen trees. I should know better than to follow him into these labyrinths - once you lose your path in a forest, you never find it again. Any gap between two trees looks as if it might be a path, a clear track on the ground is probably a water course and a gap between two masses of trees is a firebreak. In this particular piece of woodland there were also low brambles to act as tripwires. Eventually durham_rambler left me communing with a tree, and went off to thrash about and find a path without me complaining in his wake - and eventually he did find, not a path but a way through to the road. and so brought us back to the car. It was a very fine tree, though.