shewhomust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust) wrote2005-08-08 09:34 pm
shewhomust) wrote2005-08-08 09:34 pm
Rookhope Circular
Today we did a version of a walk that used to be a favourite of ours, but which we haven't done in a long time: from Stanhope along the river to Eastgate, then up the Rookhope Burn to Rookhope, and on up the incline, along the disused railway and back down into Stanhope.
The walk along the river illustrates my difficulty with the conventional standards for grading walks: it's pretty level, so it gets classified as "easy". But there's a stretch where the path is pinched between the disused railway and the river, and you are walking under trees with a fallen dry stone wall hidden in undergrowth beneath your feet: look down and you will probably walk into a branch, look up and you will stumble - and from time to time a patch of wild raspberries will tempt you to look sideways! It isn't arduous walking, but it's pretty tricky...
We turned right by the replica of the Roman altar in Eastgate, up the side of the burn, and came eventually to Rookhope, well ready for lunch and refreshment. One reason for choosing this walk was that we'd seen signs out for the Rookhope Inn, and were very glad to discover that it had indeed reopened, under the management of a local charity. So we ate our sandwiches at the picnic table outside, with a glass of Jennings Cragrat, and then set off up the incline: 200 metres climb in a mile, which is the sort of ascent which causes walks to be classified as "moderate" if not worse: it takes effort, but isn't difficult, just a steady climb. And there's every excuse to stop at the top and breathe in the view, or poke about the ruins of the winding engine that once hauled the trucks full of lead up the slope.
Next comes the long curve of the railway, with glimpses of Tynedale falling away on the left, and the bowl of Weardale on the right, its slopes dark with heather on the brink of full bloom. When we left the track and walked through the heather, individual plants were coming into purple flower, but from a distance the overall effect was dark - with here and there a patch that seemed to be brightening as I watched.
The full circuit via the Weatherhill winding engine and down the incline back to Stanhope would have been 13 miles. This is further than we have been walking of late (the other reason, with the closure of the Rookhope Inn, why we haven't done this circuit recently) and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler, ever sollicitous of my well-being, lured me onto a short-cut which took us through a herd of very skittish cows and across a side-stream before vanishing into a bog.
The other outstanding feature of today's walk was the huge number of rabbits we saw: not only in the evening, but throughout the day. As the shadows lengthened, though, we hit rabbit rush hour, with a good dozen rushing across the path, all in the same direction, from right to left, down from the meadow into the forest. Later, in another field, they were even more numerous, and again, despite a certain amount of running to and fro, the overall direction was downhill, towards the wooded riverbanks.
The walk along the river illustrates my difficulty with the conventional standards for grading walks: it's pretty level, so it gets classified as "easy". But there's a stretch where the path is pinched between the disused railway and the river, and you are walking under trees with a fallen dry stone wall hidden in undergrowth beneath your feet: look down and you will probably walk into a branch, look up and you will stumble - and from time to time a patch of wild raspberries will tempt you to look sideways! It isn't arduous walking, but it's pretty tricky...
We turned right by the replica of the Roman altar in Eastgate, up the side of the burn, and came eventually to Rookhope, well ready for lunch and refreshment. One reason for choosing this walk was that we'd seen signs out for the Rookhope Inn, and were very glad to discover that it had indeed reopened, under the management of a local charity. So we ate our sandwiches at the picnic table outside, with a glass of Jennings Cragrat, and then set off up the incline: 200 metres climb in a mile, which is the sort of ascent which causes walks to be classified as "moderate" if not worse: it takes effort, but isn't difficult, just a steady climb. And there's every excuse to stop at the top and breathe in the view, or poke about the ruins of the winding engine that once hauled the trucks full of lead up the slope.
Next comes the long curve of the railway, with glimpses of Tynedale falling away on the left, and the bowl of Weardale on the right, its slopes dark with heather on the brink of full bloom. When we left the track and walked through the heather, individual plants were coming into purple flower, but from a distance the overall effect was dark - with here and there a patch that seemed to be brightening as I watched.
The full circuit via the Weatherhill winding engine and down the incline back to Stanhope would have been 13 miles. This is further than we have been walking of late (the other reason, with the closure of the Rookhope Inn, why we haven't done this circuit recently) and
durham_rambler, ever sollicitous of my well-being, lured me onto a short-cut which took us through a herd of very skittish cows and across a side-stream before vanishing into a bog. The other outstanding feature of today's walk was the huge number of rabbits we saw: not only in the evening, but throughout the day. As the shadows lengthened, though, we hit rabbit rush hour, with a good dozen rushing across the path, all in the same direction, from right to left, down from the meadow into the forest. Later, in another field, they were even more numerous, and again, despite a certain amount of running to and fro, the overall direction was downhill, towards the wooded riverbanks.