shewhomust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shewhomust) wrote2010-11-18 10:11 pm
shewhomust) wrote2010-11-18 10:11 pm
Parts of it were excellent.
Sundays walk had best be described as "promising; needs work". I should, for a start, have known better than to let ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler persuade me that I could handle a nine-mile walk, of which we had to complete six miles before we reached the farm shop where we planned to lunch. We could perhaps reduce that a little by taking the road rather than looping through the fields (but it is a very busy road), but if I still felt that was too long, we'd have to think of somewhere else to walk altogether...
The plan was simple: cross the river on the footbridge out of Wolsingham, follow the Weardale Way up into the forest, then cut back down to cross the river, lunch at Bradley Burn Farm Shop and then pick up the Weardale Way again along the river and back into Wolsingham.
It's a pleasant walk along the river - a bit wet right now, but at first it looked as if this side stream was the biggest obstacle we were going to meet (yes, that's the footbridge under the waterfall - but the footing was good, and it wasn't a problem). The climb through the forest was frustrating, as forest walking often is, because for much of the time all we could see was trees. There's nothing wrong with trees, especially in late autumn, when the last lacy tatters of gold and russet leaves flutter from the tracery of bare twigs. But every now and then a view of the valley would open up before us, and whenever it did, the path would turn its back and plunge back into the woods (and always uphill; I wished we'd thought to bring some water).
We made good time on the uplands, despite all the climbing, but somehow lost it all as we returned to the valley. Farmland is always trickier walking than it should be, and what with mud and cattle and a locked gate and some unclear waymarking around Bradley Hall - which is a moated medieval manor house I had never noticed before and was by now too tired and hungry to nose around as I might otherwise have liked to - it was two o' clock when we reached the farm shop.
Lunch was good. There must have been something wrong with the laws of nature, because I had the all-day breakfast, anddurham_rambler didn't, but we were both much restored by it. But we now had three miles back into Wolsingham and not much more than an hour of daylight, and although I could have tackled the distance, I was reluctant to do it against the clock. So I stayed where I was, and waited for durham_rambler to return to collect me. This was pathetic, but left to himself he walks faster than I do, and when he told me that even so he'd felt pressured to take it faster than he was comfortable with, I felt I'd made the right call.
durham_rambler persuade me that I could handle a nine-mile walk, of which we had to complete six miles before we reached the farm shop where we planned to lunch. We could perhaps reduce that a little by taking the road rather than looping through the fields (but it is a very busy road), but if I still felt that was too long, we'd have to think of somewhere else to walk altogether...The plan was simple: cross the river on the footbridge out of Wolsingham, follow the Weardale Way up into the forest, then cut back down to cross the river, lunch at Bradley Burn Farm Shop and then pick up the Weardale Way again along the river and back into Wolsingham.It's a pleasant walk along the river - a bit wet right now, but at first it looked as if this side stream was the biggest obstacle we were going to meet (yes, that's the footbridge under the waterfall - but the footing was good, and it wasn't a problem). The climb through the forest was frustrating, as forest walking often is, because for much of the time all we could see was trees. There's nothing wrong with trees, especially in late autumn, when the last lacy tatters of gold and russet leaves flutter from the tracery of bare twigs. But every now and then a view of the valley would open up before us, and whenever it did, the path would turn its back and plunge back into the woods (and always uphill; I wished we'd thought to bring some water).
We made good time on the uplands, despite all the climbing, but somehow lost it all as we returned to the valley. Farmland is always trickier walking than it should be, and what with mud and cattle and a locked gate and some unclear waymarking around Bradley Hall - which is a moated medieval manor house I had never noticed before and was by now too tired and hungry to nose around as I might otherwise have liked to - it was two o' clock when we reached the farm shop.
Lunch was good. There must have been something wrong with the laws of nature, because I had the all-day breakfast, and
durham_rambler didn't, but we were both much restored by it. But we now had three miles back into Wolsingham and not much more than an hour of daylight, and although I could have tackled the distance, I was reluctant to do it against the clock. So I stayed where I was, and waited for durham_rambler to return to collect me. This was pathetic, but left to himself he walks faster than I do, and when he told me that even so he'd felt pressured to take it faster than he was comfortable with, I felt I'd made the right call.