A Derwent Walk

[shewhomust]

Today's walk was a variant on an old friend: park by the Derwentcote Steel Furnace, walk down to the Derwent at Blackhall Mill, lunch at the Derwent Walk above Ebchester and back along the railway walk. It's an easy walk (if you don't count the long climb up to the pub), with a convenient lunch stop, and much of the way is through woodland, which is pleasant in autumn. Not that our autumn colours match the flaming orange and scarlet of fall in the US. Green fades to yellow and papery brown; the brightest of what we saw today was along the road as we drove out, gold and occasionally a soft flushed orange, like really good apricots (presumably these were trees planted for their attractive foliage).

Derwentcote used to be closed in the winter, but now you can walk round the exterior at any time, so we did - eighteenth century industry is so much prettier than the contemporary variety! After this the path follows the river, gradually descending to meet it at Blackhall Mill. There were excitements, of course: the point where the path has fallen into the river (and you have to step over the wire mesh into the farm garden to get past), the mounds of mushrooms like orange brains breaking out of the ground, the Apple Day event at the community centre in Blackhall Mill (there was a constant flow of people turning up with bags of apples to go through the juicer).

durham_rambler confused me by taking a slightly different route along the next stretch. At first this was only a field away from the familiar route, following the river instead of the edge of the woods (we saw a dipper!). Instead of following the valley bottom and climbing up the road to the Derwent Walk, we took the steps up to Ebchester village, tried to identify the traces of the Roman fort in the churchyard (there's quite a pronounced ridge, which could be the wall of the fort, but I'm never certain: one bump in the ground looks much like another), and then up through houses and still further up - by the time we reached the pub, we were well ready for a drink.

And that was the hard part over. The pub wasn't as busy as usual (though there was a group of witches, six or eight women and girls in all their black finery and pointed hats), and we were soon back on our way, along the railway walk, fine open views at first and then coming into woodland. There's a long stretch where the track is bordered by silver birches, tall slender white columns on either side meeting overhead in an arch of golden leaves, very pretty. I was quite tired, but still surprised how soon it was time to turn down through the forest along the muddy path to the car park.

Pretty much as soon as we were on the road it began to rain; and we agreed that this proved we'd walked far enough.